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Looking
I made a small realization earlier this week: I don’t actually look at what I’m doing. For the longest time I have been struggling, trying to figure out why I can’t seem to get on track with productivity and maintaining focus. Part of the trouble has been determining priorities and adjusting to faculty expectations. But the other part has been strictly intrinsic motivation and personal habits. In this second part, I have read seemingly all the literature and posts on identifying habits, creating structures, managing calendars and email. Despite this, I have not had a consistent track record of being able to maintain focus. I identified mindfulness as a means…
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It’s not as simple as “Stop Whining”
I think I have gotten away from writing lately because all I seem to be doing is either whining, or listing out my day. Even as I write this, I feel the urge to start the litany. To list all the injustices in the system I am working in and the volume of what needs to get done. Instead I’m tring to force my thought processes into a new direction and see if I can examine the source of this behavior. With some introspection behind it (no real epiphany though), I can sum these processes up with “garbage in, garbage out.” My of the whining comes from listening to coworkers…
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Health initiative
Last weekend I finally made it into the dietician, a task three months delayed for administrative reasons. The session was surprisingly predictable: she had my lab report, we discussed my typical diet/activity, I had a list of questions. The upshot of the visit was that my intake is too high in fat and carbs, my calorie load is too high. We discussed the changes I needed to make and the first steps I was going to have to do. We addressed my complete unwillingness to count calories, because I’ve tried and it doesn’t work and I quit. We discussed my need to have continual support for a while. There wasn’t…
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Big Magic
I received Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic when it came out last Tuesday. I had read it through by Thursday. The book was an easy read, similar in style to Eat, Pray, Love in that is was constructed by a series of connected essays. Content wise, there was much in there that I had heard in other forms, bits from her TED talks (thankfully that was not all the material she used), chunks of her personal experience, and comcepts covered by Julia Cameron. However, this is wholly in her own voice and comes together as a cohesive work that lends new insight to the creative life. I found it compelling in a way…
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Beautiful words
I have a secret wish to write beautiful words. I felt it rise up in my consciousness on my walk with the puppy last night. The walk was an impusive flight to get out of the house and capture the early fall before it becomes late fall, and then winter. The day gave way to night in the graceful way it does every day. I typically don’t notice. Yesterday, I heard the cricket chirp and the traffic people faded away. The dark deepened and left me with no distractions to focus on. I could smell dinner from the condos we passed. And I wished I could capture all that I…
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Unproductivity
Another day gone, and another day that I judge myself to be unproductive. I own up to the idea that the issue that I am having is psychological. So many aspects of my life feel out of control. I am entering into year two and instead of having a better idea of what to do, I have a worse idea. I suffer from the problem of having so many ideas that it becomes hard to say no. I also have the problem of execution. I find myself getting lost in low payout tasks or being distracted by email. There is a larger question of why do I feel this way.…
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Gentleness
One of the things that I have gained by reading a book on creativity is the idea of being gentle. Yesterday I wrote of the larger picture of creativity. Inevitably, there comes a period where creativity is absent. I like that she puts these periods as droughts rather than blocks. She goes on to explain that crativity exists in cycles and with gentle action, the cycle will progress and work can begin again. I had a hard time identifying with this at first because I don’t consider myself a working artist. Even as a hobbist, another label I don’t quite attach to, I am not producing art and I have…
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Health and wellness
I turned forty one a few weeks ago. I marked the occasion by going to a conference in Milwaukee and pretty much telling no one it was my birthday. I celebrated with family, of course, but that was it. Today I was discussing work and life with a colleague. I had been complaining that my headache made me completely unproductive today and I was frustrated about it. The past few weeks, and if I’m honest –few months, have been a challenge. I have had severe headaches and my right shoulder has become chronically sore. I’m not used to chronic anything. I get sick (if I do) and then get well.…