Order Amid Chaos

Well… it seems my writing muse’s appearance is dependent upon me exercising in the morning because this morning I didn’t walk or run and I also can’t think. Have to rest though….race tomorrow.

SO maybe I’ll just do a little stream of consciousness writing and see what happens. Should be fun for everyone.

I listened to a podcast the other day in which this guy – a productivity “expert” – shared the 5 things he does every morning. It actually turned out to be the 5 things he attempts to do every morning and if he completes 3 he feels like he’s won the day. I decided to listen and this is what I got:

The first one was Make your bed. I can get behind that. He’s not the first person who has suggested this. Some people see this small tidying task as a metaphor for creating order out of chaos. Control what you can control…surrender the rest. It’s also a way to start building momentum – once you’ve completed one easy task, other tasks may come more naturally creating a flow. And then when you return to your nest in the evening, no matter how cruddy or wasted you feel like your day was, there is evidence that you did, in fact, take one task to completion. It also offers maximum benefits for minimal work. I like chores like that.

The second one was Meditate – this makes sense too. I don’t need a lot of convincing on this as I already KNOW that I should be doing this every day. That’s why I did (did NOT) do that 30 days of Yoga challenge. It was intended to be about creating meditative time and space for me to decompress. I should probably figure out a way to try that again. He did offer some more realistic ways to turn it into a habit – websites and apps -- that I will likely employ for any future attempts at adding this discipline to my everyday routine. I’m willing to give it another go.

I’m going to skip 3 and 4 for the moment and jump to number 5 which is Journaling. That’s kind of what this is, but probably not what he means. He writes in his journal to establish priorities and behaviors for the day. That sounds like a good idea, but sometimes I just want to ramble about things such as ridiculous running ensembles or burned-out Christmas tree lights. So can’t blogging count? I think so. Or maybe some more introspection is called for? Whatever, I’ll think about it.

And now I’ll go back to the other two which are, frankly, not likely to be embraced by me. Or if I can find some other way to do something similar -- something I find more appealing and therefore would be more likely to adopt as a habit. Anyhow…

The third one was Hang. Man, he couldn’t get to the explanation of what the heck he meant by this fast enough – I could not even begin to imagine what he was referring to. And then once he started, he couldn’t finish fast enough for me. (That’s not what she said.) I quickly hanging was not something that was ever going to make a list like this for me. In short, he spends a few minutes each morning hanging by his hands from a bar on this contraption that he built himself. He also hangs upside down using…gravity boots which apparently cost only $99 and he keeps a pair in the 3 cities where he spends the most time because they are so difficult to travel with.

He only hangs upside down in the afternoons though. He said something about improving his circulation and clearing his head and blah blah blah. I don’t know ya’ll, I’ll try anything but I’m trying to imagine it and I just don’t see myself purchasing gravity boots unless someone is planning to take me to the moon. And then, I’m hoping they provide them as part of the travel package. Maybe if someone gave them to me? Would I ever use them? What if I’m hanging from the ceiling and I snap my neck? How the heck do they work? I have to stop thinking about this now because it’s kind of giving me anxiety. How about this for keeping an open mind? My daughter has a door-mounted pull-up bar and if I think about it someday I might give hanging from my hands a try. But I would rather run sprints around a track or do hill repeats to stimulate blood flow and clear up any brain fog. As much as I don’t like either of those things, they work pretty quick and don’t seem as…well…weird.

And just when I had finally recovered from that bit of eccentricity, he moved onto the fourth one which was drinking Tea. OK. SO he’s a tea drinker. I like tea. This is not a strange ritual by any stretch…but it’s an afternoon drink for me. Coffee in the morning, tea in the afternoon, water all day. But I listened. In fact, I listened through about 6 minutes of this 15-minute podcast about how he prepares his tea and what kinds he mixes together and how “tea snobs” will scoff at his preparation techniques and the special cup and kettle that he uses and where he gets it all and the temperature of the water and the length of time you steep it and what goes in it and OH MY GOSH I thought we would never stop.  Coffee Mug…$10 kettle from Bed Bath and Beyond…Yogi Tea Bag…honey. THE END. If I ever drink tea again, that is, because he almost ruined all tea for me. Forever.

Actually, I like this guy and the mini media empire he’s got going on. This was the first time I reacted to him this way. I also referred to him yesterday. He kept me hooked through an episode that was one hour and 45 minutes long. I’ve adopted some of his other suggestions, such as a couple of email add-ons and some writing software – productivity stuff – that have been great resources. He seems to do a lot with very little, so rather than write off the entire thing, I examined it all closely for what I could use to my benefit. Establishing daily disciplines, in general, seems like something that some productive adults might do so maybe I’ll just choose 5 things of my own.

Let’s give this a try:

I’ll make my bed. Maximum impact, minimal effort…sounds like a winner.

I’ll drink a cup of coffee. (This is the ONLY thing that I already do every morning but based upon the 3-5 times in the last year that I didn’t drink it, I know that it is an absolute must. Some people call that “addiction”…I call it “knowing your limitations”. One cup of coffee. Without the tea-style fussiness. Done.

As I have been writing I’ve been thinking about how I can expect to make running or walking a part of every morning when rationally I know that when I’m training for a marathon I will need  to have a day or two each week when I rest. Or maybe an easy walk outside wouldn’t make that big a difference on a rest day? I don’t know. But it seems like it should be one of my 5 things. So let’s say at least 20 minutes outside running or walking. Or doing handstands on the front lawn. That’s kind of like hanging but without the gravity boots.

   

Meditate. I’ll try once again but not 30 minutes. 5 minutes for 5 consecutive days. That was his suggestion for getting started and that’s something I can commit to.

Journaling. For me that’s going to be stream of consciousness writing. Which is what I just did here and then tweaked it a bit and that was that. It was much easier to compose when I didn’t let myself stare at an empty page, I just started clicking away on the keyboard. Eventually I made words which became sentences and, I don’t know, you tell me. I like it enough to publish so that’s something.

Who knows what Monday will bring – Monday being, of course, the day that all things start and thus will my attempt to establish these 5 morning habits.I shall ponder all of these things as I spend about 2 hours running on the streets of Memphis tomorrow morning in what looks to be perfect racing weather for me.

Oh and the curse jar currently contains $2.75.

Peace out, yall. Have a good weekend.