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The battle over bedtime, continued (or: Imperfect progress is still progress)
Posted: Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:39:58 +0000
How’s the Early Bedtime Project going? Spotty. But positive even so. The inconsistency is not a surprise—I acknowledged that late-night work sessions are a longstanding habit, maybe even part of my identity. As expected (I even built it into the plan), I reverted to working into the night under deadline pressure. Now that I’m not under deadline, I’m finding it really hard to return to the plan. I still think it’s possible.
Even though I’m not going to bed so early these days, a few things are different, in a good way.
• I have gone to bed early a few times in the past few weeks, and slept nicely.
• I haven’t beaten myself up for working late when I needed to.
• I think of myself as someone who will resume going to bed earlier. Maybe my identity is shifting a little.
Some other things I’ve noticed:
• Although shutting the computer off by 9:00 doesn’t guarantee I’ll meet the early bedtime goal, not shutting the computer off by 9:00 does guarantee that I won’t fall asleep until much later than I want to. To put it more simply, it’s really, really, important to turn the computer off early! Even if I don’t feel finished that day!
• And I have to be careful about TV. Okay to watch some, earlyish. Watching a lot, late-ish, gets me worked up and makes it harder to fall asleep. I need to find other ways to reward myself for turning off the computer, aside from TV.
• I had planned not to be distressed when I take a long time to fall asleep on a given night, or wake up in the middle of the night. Nice theory, but when the tossing and turning and mind-racing go on for hours, mm, not so easy to let it go. I need techniques to call on when that happens. Indeed, you yourself may have been wondering, “But Janet, what are you supposed to do when you go to bed early and then lie awake? Because I [meaning of course you] do not find that kind of thing at all motivating!”
So here’s what I’ve been trying, on nights when sleep is difficult:
Mindful breathing. Middle-of-the-night Mindfulness 101: Notice what’s going through your mind, without getting involved in it . . . notice what’s happening in your body, without feeling compelled to fix it. Then bring attention to your breath, observing when your mind wanders away from the breath and gently bringing it back. I admit that switching from thinking (with mind racing) to observing (without attachment) does not come so very naturally! I’m practicing . . . Anyway, here are some ideas for doing this at bedtime. (The breathing exercises are all good. Pick the simplest one, or the first one, or close your eyes and point. Don’t get all agitated over which one to use.)
Acupressure. One night this worked! Not every night. There are lots of acupressure points that are supposed to help with insomnia. This video explains two of them very clearly. (Sorry about the brief ad. But note the video is from the lovely people at the late lamented Elephant Pharmacy!) An internet search will turn up lots more.
It’s 9:30pm (oops!) as I draft this. Turning off the computer now—will edit and post during daylight hours. See? Stopping before I’m finished. I can do it.
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The battle over bedtime
Posted: Tue, 26 Jan 2010 22:56:03 +0000
I’m a night owl, as you may have deduced from the time stamps on my blog posts.
I actually like mornings, I do!, but for years I’ve been in the habit of doing my creative work (and often my less creative work too) late, late at night.Nothing wrong with that. Being free to stay up and sleep in is one of the main reasons I became self-employed all those years ago. (It is true! Maybe the main reason.) But this style works less well for me than it used to. I feel tired and behind the curve a lot of the time—kind of in a state of perpetual jet lag. I do seem to have more potentially productive energy in the morning, on the occasions when I’m awake—I’d like to take advantage of that. And the late-night schedule presents problems when I have to get up early to lead a workshop.
I experimented with shaking up the late-night habit on my mini-vacation last month. I got a spa treatment in the afternoon, which left me super-relaxed. I fixed a simple dinner at the place I was staying, watched a low-key movie on DVD, and went to bed at 11pm. 11pm is early for me! Ah, the benefits of being out of my usual environment, without the usual stimuli, and with lots of pampering.
I was able to build on the post-vacation-early-to-bed momentum for a few days. But as with previous campaigns, I quickly slipped back into my old ways. Nevertheless, I continue to examine this habit with an eye to changing it! One idea seems key:
Turn off the computer by 8:30 or 9:00pm. This also includes stopping other work, such as bill-paying. So that I have the time I need to wind down before bed.
Habits—not so simple
This intention has a lot of sub-issues attached to it, making it not so easy to stick with. For example:
I need to get used to stopping before I feel finished. (This principle alone could be a whole series of blog posts.) Also, I need to practice accepting that a lost day doesn’t have to be paid for with a late night—or another way of putting it, accepting that for an earlier night to happen, there may be Less Accomplished and that’s OK. It doesn’t feel OK! Need to work with that.
And there’s a big piece in all of this about not wanting to miss anything. I’m like the little kid—I was that little kid—who wails, “Do I have to go to bed? Can’t I pleeeeeeze stay up longer? When I grow up, I’m going to stay up as late as I want!”
I need compassion for the part of me that doesn’t want to Miss All the Fun.
Another piece: Often what throws me off the Earlier Bedtime Project is an imminent deadline. Staying up half the night seems to be a major way I cope with the anxiety of turning nothing into something. Whether it’s the lack of distractions, or sheer exhaustion that eventually wears away my resistance, it’s hard to give up a successful, if dysfunctional, coping mechanism.
So, when I inevitably slip back, for whatever reason, I’d like to not be surprised or overly discouraged by it. To notice the pull of the old habit and let that be OK…and then get back on the horse.
Inviting, not just avoiding
Some positive incentives might help too. For instance, really noticing what my energy is like in the morning. Do I create/think better then? If so, acknowledging and running with it might be self-reinforcing. Also self-reinforcing: Luxuriating in the post-computer time. I worry about being bored. What if I looked forward to watching a TV show I love, fixing a nice snack. Thinking of it as really treating myself to lovely, restful evenings. Enjoying my evening Sabbath. So that I’m going toward something I value, not just giving something up.
One other thing: Not freaking out if I take a long time to fall asleep on a given night. Tossing and turning for a while doesn’t mean the plan is flawed or that I should give up. I need to remind myself that one night, a couple of nights of restlessness are not a big deal.
These are all great-sounding ideas, but a lot to keep in mind—more than I can keep in mind when feeling the tug of the usual way. My focus:
Computer off at 8:30 or 9:00. Treat myself to some lovely rest. Kindly thoughts for the worker bee whose work never feels done, and for the kid who doesn’t want anyone to tell her she has to go to bed, ever.
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Slowing down for the new year
Posted: Thu, 31 Dec 2009 23:26:19 +0000
I like the quiet slow week that eases me from Christmas into New Year’s.
I spent a day and a half in Sebastopol, one of my favorite places. It’s an environment conducive to slowing down—to the degree that I found myself doing things like setting my wallet on the bakery counter and then wandering away. (The wallet stayed where I left it. Good wallet! Good people!) I strolled the Zen garden at Osmosis. I went to bed early.
I’d brought along the book Sabbath: Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest. It’s a meditation on the danger of focusing on accomplishment at the expense of dormancy, and full of musings on the delights of rest. I opened it to the chapter “Selling Unhappiness,” which seems well-timed for the end of the Christmas shopping season, and for setting intentions in the New Year.
Author Wayne Muller talks about the illusion of Sabbath time that’s portrayed in innumerable ads—of carefree, attractive people at leisure, relaxed and happy. We long to be like those fictional people, and we imagine that if we buy what the ads are selling, we can have a bit of their lives. Except, writes Muller:
“While they are promising happiness, they are really selling dissatisfaction. Our entire economy is predicated upon dissatisfaction. If we are satisfied, we do not need more than we already have…
“Instead of buying the new coffee maker, make coffee in the old one and sit with your spouse on the couch, hang out—do what they do in the picture without paying for it. Just stop. That is, after all, what they are selling in the picture: people who have stopped. You cannot buy stopped. You simply have to stop.”
Stopping is easier during this quiet week; it’s easier when I’m away from my usual routine. I want to build more rest into my life. I’m starting with turning off my computer in the evenings. Maybe I’ll add naps in the afternoon. Where will you pause today?
Have a delightful new year.
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How to juggle multiple projects with more happiness, less stress
Posted: Sun, 06 Dec 2009 02:32:34 +0000
Second in a two-part series! Wherein I (a) use a helpful structure to explore how I could get what I need, and at the same time (b) see what it’s like to do things just-enough. I don’t have to be a perfectionist all the time.*
What I want: I’d like to enjoy those Big Projects I’m juggling!, rather than stressing out about them.
Ways this could happen:
• I could allow myself to feel whatever I’m feeling as I start work and continue working.
• When I have the urge to take a break, I could gently ask myself whether I’m giving myself a gift, or running and hiding (or both!), and listen compassionately to the answer.
• I could allow myself breaks way before I get tired or sore or burned out.
• Even if/when my inner editor is cricitizing or worrying, I could allow myself lots of awareness outside of her voice.
• Even if/when my inner editor is worrying, I could let myself enjoy the topic I’m engaging with and the information I’m learning and sharing and working with and transforming so it can be helpful to others.
My commitment: I’ll print out what I just wrote and read it over, every day, this week.
* Here’s the post (Havi’s) that gave rise the comment (mine) that led to this post (here) that-lay-in-the-house-that-Jack-built!
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How to write a blog post, fast (for perfectionists)
Posted: Wed, 02 Dec 2009 05:45:32 +0000
Elsewhere* on the interwebs, I’ve been exploring how I might get a blog post up faster than usual this week, even in the midst of juggling other Very Big Projects. It occurred to me that these same explorations might themselves make a good post.
Here are my musings, posted almost verbatim, as an experiment in doing things the just-enough way—stretching my NONperfectionist muscles. Shout-out to Havi, who has turned this structure of asking-for-things (what she calls a Very Personal Ad) into an art form.
What I want: I’d like to write a blog post this week with very little effort and stress. (Leaving lots of energy for the big projects I’m juggling at the same time.)
Ways this could happen:
• I could dash off a really short post, for a change!
• I could get an idea that motivates me to write a post about it immediately!
• I could notice something going on in my life that I realize could be a post topic, and write about it with minimal effort.
• I could look over my list of post ideas and one of them could grab me.
• Someone could suggest a post idea that inspires me to write something, quickly and easily.
• I could notice myself having fun writing a post!
• I could have some insights about someone else’s post and link to it with a few brief comments, giving myself permission to be brief.
My commitment: I’ll print out what I just wrote and read it over, every day, this week.
Coming next: Ways to enjoy (yes, enjoy) all those Very Big Projects I’m juggling.
*Here’s the post (Havi’s) that gave rise the comment (mine) that led to this post (right here) that-lay-in-the-house-that-Jack-built!
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Learning to ask for help
Posted: Wed, 18 Nov 2009 03:26:40 +0000
I’m in the middle of a couple of big, valuable, but tiring and potentially overwhelming projects.
One is a paper I’m writing with a small, all-volunteer group, on behalf of an organization I’m a devoted member of. There’s a lot of conflict and dissension involved—not on our writing team, but around the situation that we’re being asked to write about. The conflict is no surprise, but it adds to the stress and fatigue.
The other is a corporate training program I’m creating—also, interestingly, having to do with conflict, negotiation, and communication.
I have confidence (in the abstract) that both projects will turn out well. But the process of creating them has been or threatens to be more painful and difficult than I think is necessary. That’s a pattern for me, and I’d like to break it.
One way to do that is to see if I can make steady progress, in short work sessions, rather than bingeing (as Robert Boice calls it).
Another is to depart from my lone wolf approach. After all those years as a freelance writer, I’m used to Doing Everything Myself. I’m not in the habit of asking for help.
Changing my m.o.
For the writing project, which I’m currently editing, my usual m.o. is to try to mind-read the other contributors and come up with the perfect phrasing to express what I think everybody means. The alternative I intend to try is to get the other committee members on the phone and hash it out together. In fact, that’s how we were working during the conceptual phase, before the actual writing started. But somehow when the dreaded draft phase began, we fell into the more isolated pattern where one person writes, then passes it on to the next person for revision, who passes it on to me for editing. Discussing it in community would be less stressful and more productive, I believe.
For the training program, I’m putting out a call for support buddies on my favorite online forums. Maybe I can check in with them with progress reports (thereby helping with goal #1, steady progress) (yay accountability!) and for regular cheerleading. And especially for brainstorming and bouncing ideas around.
So that’s the plan. Asking for help. Not sure why this has always been so hard for me. Fear of rejection? Maybe just forgetting it’s an option, after having been self-employed for so long? I don’t need know the Why, so much, at this point, but I’m hereby declaring my intention to change the What.
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The empty inbox: How it’s going
Posted: Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:11:15 +0000
Well! This emptying-the-inbox plan is taking longer than I expected.
One reason I posted my intention to clean out my inbox, rather than just write about it afterward, was to give me some accountability. Going public with my plan has been keeping it at the front of my mind—pushing me to actually do something I’ve been thinking about doing for months. But it isn’t done yet.
So here’s what I’m noticing.
The hugeness barrier
I’m loosely following Mark Hurst’s cleanup guidelines in Bit Literacy. He insists that a pristine inbox starts with one intense purging session (what he calls the Induction process). Devote a couple of hours to nothing but shoveling? I thought I was game for it, but gee, somehow that three- to four-hour window just never seemed to materialize. And my resistance to the task was only growing as time passed. So I decided to buck Hurst’s prescription and tackle the job in stages.
I’m happy to report that in one hour I pared things down from 251 messages to 156. Not bad. What helped:
• Sort. This is a Hurst technique I liked. I sorted by subject line first, which tended to put the newsletters and other related messages together…making it easier to delete the older stuff.
• Create new folders, as many as you want. My half-tongue-in-cheek plan to create a “Read-contemplate-decide” folder really did work. I created an “Inspiration” folder too. I even made a subfolder for one particular author. Don’t those folders sort of overlap? Who cares? Now I have a place to file all the messages and articles I’ve been meaning to re-read in hopes they would Change My Entire Way of Functioning In the World. Zoom, zoom, zoom, file, file, file. Will I read them now that they’re in the folders? Who knows? But I wasn’t reading those articles when they languished in my inbox, and now they’re not causing me stress.
• Use the one-minute rule. For this, I thank my commenters. I’ve never liked the much-recommended guideline that says: Handle immediately any email containing a task that will take two minutes or less to finish. Let’s face it, an inbox full of two-minute tasks will take a lot longer than a few hours to get through, making the whole cleanup project look even more unpleasant. Sharon Anderson suggested, instead, tackling emails that look like they’ll be one-minute tasks. I’ve been using a timer to see how much I really can get done in a minute, and even when the action takes longer, the one-minute goal keeps me alert and moving quickly. (I use a timer that counts up, not down, so that I don’t have to hear the preachy old “ding” and feel like I messed up. I just note how long the task actually took.)
Everything else gets entered in the calendar or added to the to-do list.
I’ve been waiting for another hour to materialize so I can get through the rest of the inbox, but the idea of spending another hour on this is feeling kind of oppressive. So I’m interested to see how many messages I can clear out in, let’s say, a half-hour, or even 15 minutes.
The moral I keep coming back to:
No matter how much you like the sound of somebody else’s method, don’t wait too long to spin it your own way.
Onward…
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Approaching the inbox—with a shovel (or maybe a bulldozer), tea and lots of chocolate
Posted: Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:20:05 +0000
I’m in favor of keeping a close-to-empty inbox. In theory. I have managed to get mine nearly empty, from time to time.
There are good reasons do to it: All those undealt-with messages create background stress. And it’s a waste of time to keep re-opening the same messages only to continue leaving them there, unresolved.
But like so many vaunted time management strategies, the empty inbox is hard to maintain once you’re past the initial exhilaration of seeing it nice and clean.
Ah, emptiness
I’ve been reading Mark Hurst’s Bit Literacy. Hurst certainly isn’t the first to recommend clearing out your inbox regularly. (Merlin Mann, for one, is writing a book about it.) But I like that Hurst doesn’t make things too complicated. With each message your choices are to…
- delete or file it (if it’s an FYI);
- act on it (if the action takes under two minutes) and then delete it; or
- add the task to your to-do list (if it will take longer than two minutes), then delete it.
Something else I like: He recommends dealing with personal email first—savoring it. OK, that’s different! I’m all for rewarding yourself first and making personal life primary. That’s a value that draws a lot of us to the entrepreneurial life.
Now, in order to get to that happy “Steady-state” where the emails are flowing right along day after day, you must first go through the radical process of “Induction”—clearing out your inbox in one intense session lasting several hours. (BTW, note that Hurst has achieved the minimum requirement for a bestselling time management philosophy—cool terms for common functions.) During Induction, you have to be especially tough (brutal) about unread newsletters and such. Delete, delete, delete.
Then you sort so that the oldest messages are on top and deal with them one by one: either file, take quick action, or plunk them onto your to-do list. And delete.
And none of this almost-empty business for Hurst. It’s gotta be all the way to zero. Otherwise, he argues, you’re doing the hard work without getting the nice refreshing payoff of total emptiness. Plus the emails that accumulate tend to be complex, making it progressively harder to get back to that blissful empty state.
Getting ready for the purge
I’m gearing up to tackle my own inbox, which has 223 emails in it right now. I want this to work, so I’m thinking through potential obstacles. My reservations:
- Can Induction really be completed in a few hours? And am I OK with the level of brutality required?
- What do I do about the emails that require pondering? The ones that contain messages or that link to articles worth contemplating (maybe for future blog posts), or rereading, or printing out, or deciding about, or…? I think I know the answer to this—move them into their own folder, called something like “Read-contemplate-decide”—maybe a subfolder in my Blog ideas folder. Or print them out to take with me for when I’m waiting at the bus stop or the checkout line. I’ve been leaving them in the inbox to remind me to read-contemplate-decide-blog-about them. Since I’m not doing the reading, this system isn’t working. We’ll see if shoveling them into a folder works better.
- How do I manage that consarned two-minute guideline? Tasks that should take me two minutes nearly always take longer. Not sure if that’s from me being a perfectionist or being overly optimistic about estimating time or what. Maybe I’ll just track myself for a while—set the timer for each supposedly-two-minute action, see how long the task actually takes, and find out if my speed or estimating skills improve. I’m also skeptical about whether this two-minute campaign will get me through the whole inbox in a few hours. (Calculating: two minutes over two hours equals 60 emails—I’ve got a lot more than 60 to get through.)
As with my paper clutter, a lot of the clutter in my inbox represents good intentions…not to mention decisions I still need to make and don’t want to. Maybe I need an email folder called Good Intentions! And another one called Decisions! I’m wondering whether a similar approach to the one I’m trying to take with paper (talk about the idea the message represents, blog about it, trust my good sense and life experience so I can let the message go) would work for my electronic clutter.
Anyway—I’m going to experiment and see how long Induction actually takes, what the stumbling blocks are, and whether it’s really worth it to keep my inbox empty. Hurst says to empty it at least once a day, the end of the day being a logical time to do this.
An important thing I want to pay attention to is: when any part of the process takes too long, where am I getting stuck?
Here goes. Tea and chocolate at the ready. I’ll report back.
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The dreaded backlogged project–now less overwhelming!
Posted: Wed, 30 Sep 2009 05:42:01 +0000
I’m big on gentle accountability. So I’m a fan of Cairene Macdonald’s monthly Bite the Candy sessions. You spend the morning working on a backlogged project, with moral support (via phone check-ins) from Cairene and your fellow project-doers before and during your work session, and celebration after.
My project for last week’s Bite the Candy was to reorganize a file drawer of materials from some of the business writing workshops I’ve led. There’s good information in those files, but it’s been jumbled. I need to be able to get my hands on what’s in there, quickly—especially exercises and examples that I can adapt for future workshops.
Just thinking about reorganizing all that information made me tired. My typical pattern, when I go through files, is to get caught up in looking at every page, evaluating whether to toss or keep it, and if I keep it, whether it should be moved and where. (I’m a detail nut and a reading junkie—what can I say?) It takes hours just to go through a few folders. I love dumping the castoffs into the recycling bin, but I don’t get to enjoy a feeling of accomplishment because so much more remains to be done. Plus I know this is not a great use of my time. So I’d been avoiding these workshop files.
Yet I got the job done in one morning! Here’s what was different. I pre-planned how to manage the project so it wouldn’t drive me crazy…and so that if I stopped before I finished, I’d be able to pick it up again without wasting time figuring out where I’d left off.
I also asked myself—important—what would be the simplest way to approach it, involving the least amount of work.
The two-part solution:
- I got out a plastic file crate, so that I could pull from the drawer just the files I wanted to work on, and put them in the crate.
- For the few hours I devoted to the project, I made it my task just to locate the various writing exercises and examples, wherever they were in their different folders. I didn’t have to revamp all my workshop files. I only needed to find out what was there.
The crate meant that I could easily come back to the project if I didn’t complete it that day. It also put a comforting physical frame around the task.
Limiting my goal to identifying the exercises and examples meant I didn’t have to study each piece of paper. It was enough to glance at a page, and if it was what I was looking for, to mark it quickly, with a sticky note or by turning it sideways.
I didn’t create (as I’d previously thought about doing) a new filing system that was topic- or function-based rather than client-based. I just left the pages in whatever client folders I’d found them in—but I clipped the examples together and put them in the very front of those folders. Now I can search by client and find the examples pretty quickly.
On a separate piece of paper—bright pink so it will be easy to find, and in its own folder in front of everything else—I scribbled the names of every client file that contains useable examples. It’s a decent workaround and a good-enough solution for what I need.
For the first time in recent memory, I finished a filing-related project in a couple of hours. Whew.
If you have a project to tackle and don’t want to wait until the next Bite the Candy session, set up a joint accountability day with a friend. Email each other at the beginning of the day about what you’ll be working on, then report on your progress (and cheer each other on) throughout the day.
Before you begin, ask yourself: What’s the least I can do that will give me a feeling of accomplishment?
In fact, why not ask yourself that question about any project you’ve been avoiding? Post your answer in the comments if you like, or send me an email: janet [at] janetbailey[dot]com. I’d love to hear how you’re simplifying your projects.
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The new to-do list, and breaking the rules
Posted: Fri, 25 Sep 2009 02:55:16 +0000
OK, enough writer’s angst. Today, back to the to-do list! Specifically, Mark Forster’s take on it, called Autofocus.
I’ve referred to Autofocus a few times not because it’s the be-all and end-all of time management tools (no such thing—you gotta do what works for you), but because it’s so different from what’s out there. It acknowledges resistance to tasks—something a lot of other systems gloss over—and works with that resistance in a practical, matter-of-fact, friendly way. I think it’s especially useful for creative, rebellious sorts who don’t like to be regimented but still want to see progress on important tasks both large and small.
The last time I blogged about Autofocus (AF for short), Mark had just come out with a revised version that addressed some problems with the previous version. Now he’s got an even newer version, AF4, that addresses problems with earlier revisions. I know how this sounds!, and lest all these revisions raise doubts about how well the system works, give Mark credit for testing and adapting it—incorporating user experience and not treating AF as set in stone.
Besides the instructions for AF4, there’s now a really helpful illustration of the process: a PDF based on Mark’s own real-time list. (You can get to it from the AF discussion thread by clicking the link in paragraph 2.) Created by a fan of AF, the PDF is worth downloading—it’s a large file—as it gives you a way to look over Mark’s shoulder and see the system in action. Don’t worry about the high page count of the PDF—just keep advancing the pages and you’ll get a quick, straightforward experience of watching Mark work his way down the list.
This is key: Autofocus wasn’t revealed to Mark from on high. Same with any other time management system or guru. Mark’s got his rules, and it makes sense to follow the rules as you’re learning the method. If you’re someone who keeps trying and giving up on complicated time management systems, remember that a system works great for the person who designed it, a person who is wired differently from you. So do what you need to do, to get it to work for you. Cobble together pieces of systems that you like, and don’t worry about the pieces that don’t work.
I myself started using previous versions of AF with gusto, only to abandon them when life got too busy and hectic. This is a danger that people report about pretty much any time management system, and it’s one reason I’m skeptical of true believers in any approach.
So I made my own adjustment this week. I got back from vacation a few days ago, to a typical post-vacation pile of tasks with semi-urgent deadlines. It didn’t make sense for me to work Autofocus the usual way, cycling once through current tasks, then zooming through my backlog a few times before returning to the current list. (Don’t attempt or evaluate AF based just on my summary! Read Forster’s instructions and skim the comments to get an idea of the benefits of AF as well as the details.) Instead, I did a brain dump of everything that needed to get done the first few days I was back, and cycled through that stand-alone list until sanity returned. Now I’m ready to go back to Mark’s rules. With renewed enthusiasm.
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