I can't find my notebook. As of late I use it for more executive functioning: planning the day, to-do lists and such. The work log proves to be enough emotional release so I'm completely indifferent if the notebook is lost. I just lost an organizational tool that was already 70% used.
But lacking my organizational tool, I thought I ought to do this through the work log, so that I use it to organize myself through the day.
One technique that I use is [course prompt] writing your day as a prediction of the future, and then verifying its validity. Let us do just that. Begin with a to-do list of all the things you want to accomplish in the day:
- Hand-off painting
- Work on the course
- Menu for Christmas dinner
- Grocery shopping at the market
- Drop-off at the post office
- Workout at the gym
- Drop off laundry
- Garden chores
- Document posada paraphernalia
- Answer emails
Some of these are fixed in time, for example: my mom painted a canvas for a client, the client will pick up the painting at my house at 9am. So that sets a fixed point in the schedule. I'd also like to settle on the menu for Christmas dinner before going to the market. We need to identify the dependencies and become a bit more specific...
- Hand-off painting (9am, fixed in time)
- Work on the course (answer René, assignment flow)
- Menu for Christmas dinner
- Pick up food from neighbor (in the morning)
- Grocery shopping at the market (depends on menu)
- Drop-off at the post office (prepare envelope)
- Workout at the gym (prepare backpack)
- Drop off laundry (pack clothes)
- Garden chores (plant aloe vera in the backyard, water)
- Document posada paraphernalia
- Answer emails
After this I have enough information to build a narration of the day. As a spiritual exercise, I write it as if it were the present moment, but it may be more straightforward for the reader to do it in a different way.
I remain typing this narration until 8am, when I go feed the chickens and then gather the amazon box so I can return the package. I grab a sheet of paper from the block to create an envelope for the letter. I put the letter in my backpack, and then pack up for a day outside (gym, library, lunch with cousins).
I go to the backyard and grab the shovel to fill up the holes the kids made at the posada. I choose a spot to plant the aloe vera. I water it. Then I water the avocado trees.
I put the dirty laundry in a bag and place it next to my bike, so I don't forget.
Mom's clients arrive. I hand them the painting. I then walk to my neighbors house to receive the food she wanted to give me last night, but I was already in bed. I come back home and have the food for breakfast.
I bike to the mall, dropping off the laundry along the way. Hit the gym, see what time is yoga in the afternoon and think about the Christmas menu. Or should I do it right now? Later, I am running out of time. I leave the gym and sit on the tables that are in the courtyard for a work session on the course.
I create the best flow possible (given our constraints) for completing an assignment and I sent it to René. I close my laptop and head to CityMarket, where I buy the things that I can't buy at the market, and the lunch I will eat when I go with my cousins. I leave CityMarket and head to my cousins, I have lunch with them and I ask them the best place to send my shipment. Then I go to post office and ship the things.
I then bike to the library for a second work session. Work on the article that details this very activity of writing your day in advance as an assignment. Yes, quite appropriate.
I bike back home, have dinner, answer my emails, document the posada paraphernalia, and go to bed.
It is time to allow the future to unfold. I shall report on the actual events.
The day went more or less as planned until noon. My father contacted me via whatsapp and proposed a business (which is uncharacteristic of him). I first balked because it has nothing to do with my passions but as I looked closer I saw it is actually a very low risk, low overhead business opportunity. We agreed on lunch to discuss business.
I went to the gym and I noticed my body terribly stiff and lethargic. I usually go directly to the workout, but this time I stretched and my body completely gave in to the experience. Bending my waist and holding my back straight, I reached for the floor and really used my abs to reach further down, as they taught me in yoga class. I felt the distance shorten and then tried holding the tension and the relaxation simultaneously, and the sensation was pleasurable.
I usually register my progress in the traditional format: weight x reps, and I try to outdo myself on each visit to the gym. This usually holds true for two months, then the body sort of plateaus and your workout requires a little shake up. For me, it is time.
So I decided not to focus on reps or weight but upon sensation. How can one apply some principles of yoga to weight lifting? Yoga is full of useful prompts: imagine the crown of your head wants to reach the ceiling or your arm and your leg form a strait line that wants to reach out on both sides to infinity. The gym has none of that. As long as the bar gently touches the chest and your elbows lock on the uplift, you gotta a valid bench press rep. If you shake, arch your back, tilt the bar, it's just bad form. The rep is valid, isn't it?
We are chasing numbers. If in my last session I lifted 125 pounds today I will lift 130. This works for a while, but then disappoints. It expresses the principle of the Tao perfectly: the day you hit a good record you are ecstatic, but the next day you will have to beat that record and you will dread it. The day that you go soft sets up the stage for a breakthrough, followed by a day of exhaustion. Up and down goes the mountain ride.
"Remain indifferent to victory or defeat" would dictate someone like Marcus Aurelius. What people don't consider is that they often gain by losing and lose by gaining, don't they? I did not complete all my assignments for the day. Yet, this is what the day brought. I had set out to hunt bison but I come back with rabbit and a poem for dinner.
After the gym I saw that I didn't have enough time for my first work session, but I wanted to have lunch with my cousins, so I head to their place. My cousin asked me for help setting up an Amazon Seller account. Two hours went by (the sign-up is ridiculously long) and I thought I better come home to work instead of the library.
However, when I got home, I was just looking forward to write the day and call it done. I really wanted to put some time towards the assignment flow but doing it now would be badly invested. I have become a morning person.
Good night.
Hmmmmm... this is quite a time investment. I'm sure the same can be accomplished in less time. Tomorrow I shall try a variation on the same theme.