Today I had organized for getting things done that I don't like to do - things like ...well...my taxes and organizing paper stuff and getting all the piles of books out of the living room and downstairs into the over stuffed shelves. I've started all of these things today - I've dusted and I do have all the books sitting on our ginormous dining room table. I've even taken some down but then I found a dvd that I didn't recognize (no words on it - no container) so I popped it in and it was the video prepared for my Aunt Alice's wake so I listened to it and kept my eye on the pictures of her whizzing by - a life so fast yet so long! And then I found the copy of Norbert Nipkin and sat down and read it. While I was there I noticed that where Ron patched up the ceiling there is a thin layer of dust that didn't get got. So I came up to get another pile of books and the duster but I wanted to write my blog and also check to see if my tax enforcer was coming out (taxes on line - connection problem). I pay him to make me do my taxes. Never mind - it works. Taking a page from Elizabeth Spann Craig and see how this monkey mind thing applies to my writing. I think I am slightly ADD so must have a lot going on in order to focus. My writing gains from that because my experience is fairly vast. It suffers because I keep needing to drag my attention back to focus on what I'm doing now. Probably that is why I like things like NaNoWriMo - my monkey mind is busy trying to do what it said it would while my writing mind is able to concentrate on the job at hand.
How does focus work for the rest of you creative types - writers, knitters, parents and lovers?
The photo today is of the legs of a young woman (13) sister to a new baby that we were welcoming into the world of women the other day.
9 comments:
I thought I already posted this but must have been diverted and clicked the wrong button and deleted it...where was I, yes, focus. I have 4 people, including myself, in my family who were born in the year of the monkey. I think in finding that dvd the message being sent was that life is too short to do things we don't enjoy unless we really really have to be grown up and get on with some essentials. When that happens I line up a great treat (crisp new book enticingly placed next to ready to roll coffee pot) and then set the timer for 15 minutes. Focus on grizzly task until the pinger goes then have a 15 minute break. Repeat steps 1 - 3 until task is accomplished. Positive reinforcement has been shown to work on most mammals.
I was pretty well exhausted just reading the list of things you either did, or were preparing to do. I can procrastinate. Oh, yeah, if I can do it today, I can for sure do a better job tomorrow, and…well…you see how that chain can propagate. The only excuse I can think of for this is actually no excuse…lazy. BUT, there is redemption. I do always manage to get the required tasks done before their due dates. No small accomplishment.
Best Regards, Galen
Imagineering Fiction Blog
Oh Jan, I've found a kindred spirit. My husband get SO frustrated because I get my 'to do' list out and start on one, then have to go to another room, then blast it if there isn't another, so I start that, then the computer is sitting there so temptingly so I sit for a half hour and do (blog, type, network--I love ALL of it more than chores), then I start on one of the things I hadn't started, one of my children needs something so I do that...
he insists if I ever did a thing start to end, it would be done in no time, but I am simply not capable... I DO fit the writing in, largely because it is my REWARD for making it to the end of my day every day... the other stuff? List just keeps getting longer... (for the record, I'm a horse)
I was staring at the photo, (which is quite compelling I might add), and wondering just what the heck I was looking at. Glad you filled me in, I love it!
I have a goal today, three loads of laundry and three hours of writing. Besides that, the rest is a crap shoot. Just bang, bang, bang. Icing on the cake. ;-]
Kerry - of course you did! I'm not a monkey though - I'm a full-metal bunny. I don't know if they are any better at focussing what with having sex on their mind all the time! I meant monkey mind in the way us Buddhists mean it - which is an untamed mind.
Galen - procrastinate - you??? I don't believe it. I did get pretty near to everything. I don't believe in lazy - I have a lot of teeenagers in my therapy practice and I tell them they aren't lazy when they don't do something - they are either thinking they 'should' do it but don't want to or they're scared to do it for some reason. I know that is true for me. Us rebels need always to do things in our own time because WE want to!
Tartlet! of course we are kindred spirits! I fit the writing in too and if the list just keeps getting longer than why even attempt it. I think I'll just read for a minute or two! I use the carrot and the stick for my getting ahead too.
Whatever you got Kerry is going around - I posted and instead Elizabeth showed up. Mercury must be retrograde. Not that I mind Elizabeth showing up - au contraire. In fact I wish that you, Galen, the Tartlett, and Elizabeth would show up and we could have tea and talk about procrastinating or lack of focus. I said many interesting things about it all but it whizzed into the void. At the same time, my sweet patootie came in with a rejection from a publisher. Dang! And I just told Galen how much sange froid I had about the whole thing. I think it was Galen - I know it was today. It is Wednesday isn't it? So I got hoisted on my big fat petard. So now I've got to get two more packages together, after I go through them with a fine tooth combed because there were a few problems according to the publisher. I feel fine - I'm that much closer to the one who wants me. It's just like dating. No...don't go there. I hated dating! I just want to get married right away - no dating.
This is my third attempt and believe me when I tell you people that the last two were brilliant. Let me synthesize it down. Thanks for coming - I wish you were all REALLY here because I just got a rejection slip from a publisher and I feel boo hoo! And I think I wrote a comment on Galen's blog TODAY about how that doesn't bother me! Oh no, it's no big deal - that much closer to the one that wants me, I said. Phooey! Now I have to send two more packages out. I'd rather make a big fat chocolate cake and eat it but I won't. Oh no, I've got discipline. I'll get right to it. After I cry a bit. And I got two flu shots on Monday and my arms still hurt. Pity fest happening right here, right now. If I'm using too many commas, it's because, I apparently, didn't use, enough in the chapters, I sent, out. Cranky! Of course, I don't, think, this, has, a chance in hell, of being, posted - so - there!
*snickersnort* Am loving being called Tartlet... And I'm all over that tea! Sounds like great company!
Hope the arms feel better soon! I hate shots... I can donate blood with that monster needle, but you start shooting things into me and I become a big baby...,
FOCUS you say?
............I say Hocus Pokus! LOL
Hummm...lists of lists and getting waylayed ?
in the process of trying to find the List I made this morning to compare it to the list I made yesterday!!! Oh the grief!
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