Finding Rhythm

I guess I will have to leave the house at 5:45am to go to work. This level of traffic is ridiculous at 6:30am. I made it to work on time, but no extra. Mass transit, the area needs mass transit, say it with me. *Sigh

My grandmother has been moved out of ICU and into a private hospital room. The list of what is wrong with her: congested heart failure, renal failure (ongoing she’s been on dialysis for nine years), MRSA also known as Methicillin-resistant Straphyloccus aureus, bacterial infection from the toxic build up and possible a bacterial infection attacking the valves of her heart (I don’t know if these are the same as MRSA or a different bacteria), fluid and blood leaking into her lungs (the fluid gets removed temporarily by dialysis but not the blood platelets), no short term or long term memory but good with the now, pneumonia in one lung, chronic low blood pressure, half-paralyzed from a stroke fourteen years ago, and diabetes. She’s seventy-four-years-old. My father’s parents are in their eighties with short lists of health issues but more mental issues. Not hard to see why get healthy and stay healthy is so high on my list, is it?

The new evening routine last night made this morning a breeze. Now I can only hope to make it a habit. And when the title of this blog post finally occurred to me, I was struck by how appropriate and odd it is at the same time. I have no rhythm, perhaps said in PC vernacular as “rhythmically challenged” or “suffering from rhythm deficit.” The only time I can clap in tune with a song and not go horribly astray is to have someone leading the clapping where I can watch. And we are not going to discuss my dancing other than to say I don’t do much. I can’t even use a treadmill without holding on for fear of skinned knees and bruises.

But I spent all day Sunday preparing to reestablish a routine, a rhythm to my life. Because no matter how much I may bitch and moan about the routine, my life is better on it than trying to OD on caffeine and chocolate to calm the stress. I had a week, that’s enough. Time to pay attention to what’s best for me. And ironically enough for the rhythmically challenged gal, that means giving my life a rhythm to follow. Get up, exercise, write, go to paying job, go home, everything else, go to bed. Okay, extremely simplified and ignoring the fact that you do have to change things up or stagnate, but it’s a real need regardless.

Sunday was spent preparing for the new rhythm to start Monday morning using brainstorms I had with Zen to Done on Zen Habits (and I will be buying the ebook, maybe for a birthday treat). I exercised, handled twelve week business, emptied my inboxes (email is still elusive), and rearranged my desk space a little. So far the only complaint is from mustard. His ledge in front of the monitor got smaller and he almost fell off last night. Again, I can only hope I can make a habit of not piling the space with stuff.

It sounds like I’m trying to pick up a bunch of new habits at once. Exercise and writing are down. This past week messed them up, but I missed doing them. The new habit is to plan my days to actually accomplish more goals and process my inbox everyday so no more pile-ups. The pile-up was what took most of the day Sunday, that and trying to connect all my emails to Outlook (too tedious to talk about, honestly). I have my project lists and next-actions from GTD, but I still try to do it all at once. Zen to Done gives you the routine to pick what is most important to finish today.

Like today, I picked thirty minutes writing, chapter to read for homework, and walking at the gym. Those I have to do. Anything else is lagniappe. The joy of the system is not losing next actions but making you plan your day around them. There will be days that the best laid plans are sent through a nuclear holocaust, I know this. But I really do much better on a routine, so this is what I’m sticky with for thirty days to make a habit.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

There is a new renaissance festival in Louisiana! Check out the Acadiana Medieval Faire at: http://www.acadianafaire.org/