(part of new painting on a map, at Flickr)

I had decided before my hiking trip with Korben that I would come home and blog my face off afterwards, because I was so bursting with ideas and inspirations to write about that week. I now can't remember what any of it was, nor do I care. After spending all day every day last week scrambling up rocks and crawling over boulders and plunging in icy water and staring into Vermont and Maine from the top of a New Hampshire mountain, sitting in front of a computer has seemed an utterly impossible activity. I can't believe they havent yet figured out a way to let me just hit "play" in my brain and let my thoughts dictate entire blog posts which immediately insert themselves into the Typepad compose screen without me ever having to be near one of these little body-imprisoning brain-depleting laptoppy contraptions (contraption is one of the words John Stewart advises John McCain never to use because it betrays his status as an old geezer, BTW). Seriously, this week, if I spend more than one hour looking at the screen, I come away with the equivalent of a severe hypoglycemic crash: spacey, headachey, and with a warbly, half-dead voice. But here I am.

Needless to say, I had a good time on vacation. Totally restorative, and in several ways, clarified a whole bunch of major confusions I've been stuck in for a couple of years.

And glad to find comments on the "how to make time for art" post. I thought of another big one I've been trying to live by:

 - at the beginning of the day, make a list with two items on it. These are the main things you are going to get done for the day. No more doing lots of little teensy things on the to-do list all day just to watch it get smaller. Chances are there are a couple of things on the long complicated list which constitute real work, I mean the kind that moves your mind and creativity and maybe your "career" forward - writing an article (for an audience or not), working on a painting or puppet show, redesigning your web site, or organizing and event, or something less fun but just as important, like researching health insurance plans or cooking all your lunch food for the week, or something else YOU-nourishing that you would otherwise have left to the last minute after you got all the leetle teensy things out of the way. Sometimes the activity will be job-like...like for me, on mondays and tuesdays, it will just be teaching all day.

Then take all the teensy things and quickly number them in order of importance. set aside 30 minutes sometime during the day to tackle the first few. Then stop and do the same thing the next day. BAM. Little (though sometimes necessary) things are now put in their place in relation to the thing that make a much bigger difference to you.

For example.

7 - 8          run or stretch, and breakfast
8 - 12         ART: work on new sculpture
12-12:30     SUSTENANCE: lunch
12:30-1:30  COMMUNICATIONS: emails and communications and blog attention
1:30-4:00    WORK: redesign web site. OR: plan class OR: list new work and process orders. OR: etc..
4pm - 4:30  THE TEENSY THINGS: (on this day it might be: email 4 people to plan things. make dentist appointment. water plants. fix that stupid door hinge. order supplies)
5pm           SUSTENANCE: go home. eat. love. talk. sing. sleep.

Again, as I said in the other post...its about establishing the ideal. Sometimes life hands you days when you just HAVE to get FOUR major things done in one day, and you just stay up 'til 2am doing it all.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q. Amy, do you ever actually stick to that schedule?
A. About one day in every 4. Which is enough to change my life and make the other days closer to the schedule than they would have been otherwise.
Q. What about loneliness?
A. Yeah, working by yourself all day is lonely. So, calling a loved one and chatting for 10 minutes and getting some giggles in trumps other things in the plan sometimes, as it SHOULD. Screw capitalism!
Q. What about blogging for an hour about how to organize your day?
A. Total procrastination. Don't do it if you value your time.

Comments

[sarah]

Love it :)