Best of 2009, #8) Moment of peace
Moment of peace. An hour or a day or a week of solitude. What was the quality of your breath? The state of your mind? How did you get there?
I'm all about this. Setting up my own office space above Vain was a BIG step in this direction. Having a place to work in solitude has done amazing things to my productivity and sense of motivation.
My routine is simple. In to work by 10am. It's not incredibly early, but it syncs with Kellianne's schedule mostly. From work, I have a private wiki on pbworks.com in which I try write ~750 words every morning (the equivalent of 3 typed pages). I got this idea a few years ago from The Artist's Way (pretty much the only idea from that book that I think is worth keeping) and because I'm the kind of person that can only really think when I'm writing, these daily pages are a great way of cleaning out my subconscious, getting things down, and figuring them out. The 750 words can be about anything, I try to focus on anything that's an "open loop" in my brain (something that hasn't been resolved and keeps turning up in thoughts). A brain dump. The first 3 seconds of running water from a faucet that hasn't run in a while.
That's my moment of peace at work.
Running and yoga are my moments of peace outside of work, and I think they work similarly. Rather than getting the gunk out of my brain they get the gunk out of my body. All that nervous energy that builds up over time.
I'm all about this. Setting up my own office space above Vain was a BIG step in this direction. Having a place to work in solitude has done amazing things to my productivity and sense of motivation.
My routine is simple. In to work by 10am. It's not incredibly early, but it syncs with Kellianne's schedule mostly. From work, I have a private wiki on pbworks.com in which I try write ~750 words every morning (the equivalent of 3 typed pages). I got this idea a few years ago from The Artist's Way (pretty much the only idea from that book that I think is worth keeping) and because I'm the kind of person that can only really think when I'm writing, these daily pages are a great way of cleaning out my subconscious, getting things down, and figuring them out. The 750 words can be about anything, I try to focus on anything that's an "open loop" in my brain (something that hasn't been resolved and keeps turning up in thoughts). A brain dump. The first 3 seconds of running water from a faucet that hasn't run in a while.
That's my moment of peace at work.
Running and yoga are my moments of peace outside of work, and I think they work similarly. Rather than getting the gunk out of my brain they get the gunk out of my body. All that nervous energy that builds up over time.