HOW MUCH TO PLAN
On the phone to Ross yesterday, talking about the degree to which we plan our days. “Do you have a list for what you’ll do today?” I asked. “Oh no! No way, I stopped doing that years ago.” We’ve both had the tendency to be a ‘workaholic’ in the past, I probably still am, so I was keen to hear how he’d managed to move away from this. Also, did it feel good to have done so? He said that he felt much more present and less anxious, but that he’d had to come to terms with getting less done. I must admit there is something lovely about listening to oneself ‘what do I actually feel like doing right now?’ rather than consulting the list. After the call with Ross, I checked in and noticed that I really wanted to play guitar. Had a lovely afternoon doing so, did less of the writing/work things than I meant to. None of them were urgent, so it was fine. Perhaps it really comes down to how many urgent tasks there are in your day-to-day. I also remember a great article from years ago about just choosing the top three things you want to get done in a day and focusing on those. If you have time after that, great, but at least you know you’ll have acheived the three most important to you. Also checking in with the underlying goal or value behind the task often helps - I want to get better at guitar, express myself creatively and do meditative activities which make me happy.
DURATIONAL WORK
Eike told me about a book which discussed having daily, weekly, monthly and annual offerings. I think the context was that of a business or brand, which might post a daily social media item, have a weekly newsletter, host a monthly podcast and hold an annual mini festival, for instance. Of course, one could apply this same idea to their own creative practice, or even overall life. I like the idea of using these frameworks, almost as if time itself is a collaborator. Over the last month and a half, I visited the same spot in the Icelandic town I was living in. Each day I walked there and then jotted down whatever observation came to mind. This poem was, potentially, more interesting than if I’d just written a whole lot of thoughts in one sitting. The durational nature means that the reader of the poem can feel the changes occuring in weather, or different people and happenings of the day. I’m doing this blog as a weekly engagement, which feels really nice. I’m interested in considering what meaningful monthly and annual outputs could look like. Can imagine something fun in creating one’s own holiday event. Maybe it’s today... December 6 is now officially popcorn day or something... making a real thing of it and turning this day into something to really look forward to in the calendar. Cool that we have the power to do that for ourselves.
FOR THOSE I LOVE
This week, have been listening a lot to an Irish rapper called For Those I Love. That same gritty storytelling energy of The Streets but perhaps the beats are darker. It’s pretty heavy stuff, but finding the form super exciting, spitting words quickly over intense music, often quite simple rhymes, very expressive, you can feel the emotions of the story in the way the words are expressed, it’s much closer to slam poetry than a lot of rap I suppose.
DECOR
A lot of what I’ve been making this week has been drawings and pieces for my new bedroom walls. I find it such a nice opportunity to create an energy, perhaps aspirational, ‘what do I want this chapter of my life to be? Let’s reflect that in the way the bedroom looks.’ For this chapter, I seem to want a lot of text on the walls. I used white paint on black paper and wrote out 42 statements, lines from poems and useful phrases to remember. Excited to put them up. Joked to a friend that I decorate bedrooms like I’m still a teenager, perhaps one area of life where it’s fun to remain pretty young at heart, I think.