One thing I’ve been doing since I took the 7 Habits class is, after thekids have gone to bed and I have fed the cats and generally cleaned upthe house is that I take my day planner, sit down on the couch, and, inaddition to planning the next day (or week), I write down whatever ison my mind. It might be little observations. It might be a “shittyfirst draft” of something I need to write up. Call it a brain flush,but I just want to get the thoughts down in case they are useful later.
Once a month, it’s a good idea to go through the notes from the previous month and see what ideas bear revisiting.
“The happiest part of my week is going out with my son to teeball.” Not necessarily because it’s time with my son, but I have so much fun with all of the kids out there.
“I like noodling with music. Few people. if any, know about that.”My wife told me a while ago that she couldn’t figure out how I was ableto walk up to a piano and “work out” the notes to a song. That got methinking back into my past. I did take piano lessons when I was abouteight, and so I have some rudimentary skills in playing the piano. Ican remember always having a fondness for the piano, even if I neverfollowed through with the lessons. I got to explore my musical ideaswith Garage Band recently, which I found quite interesting. I used itas the basis for one of the podcasts I submitted to T.W.A.T. recently.
“I want a MacBook for my birthday.” I don’t think this needs any explanation. 🙂
“I want to improve my marriage.” I know I’ve had this thought before.
“IfI knew I couldn’t fail, what would I do? 1. Get down to 195 pounds. 2.Getting paid to blog for my employer. 3. Make an insanely great podcast. All of these are going to require planning.
“My body wants more sleep.”Lately, I haven’t been staying up as long as usual, choosing to go tobed at an earlier hour. This evening, I am at my more usual 2am or so.:)
“I’ve been spending less time online.” I’ve actually been enjoying notsitting on the computer, which is what I do during that “planning” timeand why I am keeping a paper day planner instead of using Outlook, et.al.
“Im finding the space between stimulus and response.” At least more often, though I know I have a ways to go in this area.
“I need a quick meditation technique.”When I was doing some research on the net about meditation, I ranacross a technique that would require only a couple of minutes ofmeditation, but it would give your mind a quick refresh. I need to findthat again any try it.
“Compass, not clock.” The direction you are going is generally more important than how long it takes you to get there.
“Leo Laporte said on a podcast recently that you should do what you love and the rest will take care of itself.” How true.
Thatcovers about 10 days worth–I didn’t actually start doing the braindumps until a couple of weeks after I started with the day planner.We’ll see what I come up with next month.
Leave a Reply