Thursday, June 18, 2009

Thinking About Rituals

Namely as explained in this post, how ritual helps your brain cope throughout the day and changing tasks. This shouldn't have to be lectured at me--after all that is why Ritual exists within Wicca. I suck at applying knowledge to daily life.

Undoubtably, one of the reasons I'm at such loose ends at the end of the day is because I haven't been following my GTD and making my weekly lists. But another strong possibility is the lack of ritual before bedtime. What I do now: eat supper while watching Bones on TNT (David Boreanaz in daylight *sigh*), spend an hour or two saying "ACK, I've got so much to do!" and finally go to bed. Not a productive use of time established? Good, moving on.

This isn't about filling every second of every day, but rather stopping myself from having that "ACK!" reaction. Deadlines don't care how drained you feel. And most days of the week, I'm not drained--just lost. So I decided to spend this week being mindful of what goes on in the time frame.

June 16: I decided to mindfully get some work done that I can't do on the paying job computer: building some website graphics. Sit down at the computer with the task firmly in mind. The issue was losing my temper over the computer taking fifteen minutes getting the program up for me to do anything1 I put myself on the timer so I'll remember to get up in move.

Question one: how much of my avoidance dance is not wanting to work and how much is it not wanting to get pissed off at my computer?

Once the computer got over being a sluggard, I got a few graphics done before bedtime. What I noticed besides the meltdown at the beginning: distracted by the TV. I reached the point where I was only working during commercials. Now my TV and computer are in two different rooms, so being distracted physically removes me from the office.

Question two: how necessary is it for me to turn the TV off?

June 17: I got three hours of Bones today, and I still think I missed an episode. (Double checked--I actually didn't, because they didn't give a whole episode to Booth's fake funeral.) When it got to episodes I have seen, I spent more time in the office. And one would think the time for the graphics program to go bugging would be after I had left it running all night and all day, but nope I never had any issues and finished all the website graphics I need at this point.

Since part of the issue is getting pissed at the computer, I think I'm best off turning on whatever the program I need while I'm concentrating on supper and Bones. That way I don't have to sit there and watch it be a sluggard and fume that my precious time and energy is slipping away.

And if the deadline is looming and/or I need to focus, I'm better off saving those projects for the morning or turning off the TV. Right now, the website revamp work I'm doing doesn't take that level of concentration so I don't feel bad for jumping up and watching what unexplained images Ghost Hunters International came up with.

I still have to see how tonight and tomorrow night goes. Now, I have some lunch and maybe go foraging for more food. Needed a bigger salad.

Read Free!
The BookWorm

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Things often seem obvious after the fact, but sometimes we need to be shown the window to see clearly :)

Hope the new regime works out!

KLCtheBookWorm said...

Yeah, but it's the story of my life. For once I'd like to come up with the answer and put it into practice without being hit in the head first. Would make the stuff in the noggin more useful than just winning Jeopardy. :p

Yesterday was an odd day out. I got paid so I had to go grocery shopping. That wiped me out from doing anything else.