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The growing list of things I want to do:
This came on the heel of being unemployed. I might have piled on too much, but I needed to keep myself busy. Otherwise, I’ll be on Netflix most days…
It still doesn’t change the fact that there is too much to do. So what do I do? Take it one grain of sand at a time. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed with a piling list of todos. It doesn’t change whether you’re employed or unemployed. The trick is when the mind is overwhelmed, just do one thing at a time. I even found a trick to this:
I write the task down, slowly.
I am a big fan of bullet journal, but I haven’t been able to implement it the way that suits me. I like the “always beside me” feeling of using a digital app on my phone, but I also like the deliberate feel of writing or sketching things. Shawn Blanc has a hybrid approach but I feel that all I need is to have the act of writing rather than a system to track my writing. This is when I discovered that by writing just slightly slower, making sure each letter has its own space to breathe, this act itself has provided a sense of calm. And because I am writing slow, I cannot write everything, and hence, only the important ones will be written down.
This idea of “if it’s not worth writing down, it may not be worth your time” didn’t come from me. It came from Ryder Carroll, creator of the Bullet Journal method. However, I emphasised on the mindfulness practice into writing a simple task, and that in itself has provided a sense of calm and focus that I haven’t felt in a while.
I am looking forward to the course on sketching and that might take this mindful writing to the next level. Stay tuned!
