The other day I wrote about how ‘getting stuff off your mind’ is a nice little guiding light when it comes to doing something like choosing a way to tackle life’s difficulties.
The piece was written from the perspective of getting help from a professional, but it occurred to me after writing it, that this ‘nice little guiding light’ applies to everything.
(That’s the power of principles: they apply to everything, all the time.)
Scheduling stuff
So, for instance, when it comes to writing the Daily Reminders, I’ll have a long list of things I could write about. (I keep a Trello board on the go that I drop ideas into, as they occur to me.)
And I’ve noticed something about this.
If I don’t plan, or schedule what I’m going to write in advance—even if it’s just one or two—the mind really objects to that. It gives me grief. Not so much the in-your-face, worrying-about-it kind of mind grief, but more that low-level, heavy sort of Oh-and-there’s-also-this-I-haven’t-attended-to-yet ‘open loop’ grief that just seems to lower the mood, generally.
And it’s important to note that I don’t have a choice in the way the mind responds to this situation. I can’t muscle my way into thinking (or feeling) differently, or reason with the mind; try and get it to see logic and simmer down (that has a tendency to make matters worse.)
No, what I have to do is work with the mind and take some action.
The good news is, it’s a really simple action. I literally sit down for five minutes with Trello, have a scan through the list of ideas and move them from one column (‘Ideas’) into another (‘Write next’), in the order I’d like to write them in.
That’s it. Nothing more complicated. Once I’ve done that, an invisible weight comes off my shoulders and my day seems a lot easier; a lot lighter.
But the bit that always makes me laugh is the fact that I often don’t end up writing about those things I’ve scheduled!!
😂
The power of thought
Again, we’re back to how-the-mind-works and how best to beat it at its machinations.
Because if the entirety of our experience boils down to:
- being in the flow of life, vs.
- being in the flow of life, while distracted from it by mind-activity
…then this little act of what we’ll call ‘faux-planning’ simply gives the mind permission to shut up for a bit, so I can get on with the business of living.
And then write about whatever the hell I want to write about, when the time comes.
😁
It all comes down to getting stuff off your mind.
So my question to you, today, here at the beginning of the week, is this:
🚀
Giles
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Giles P Croft
In which I take planning too far… and suffer the consequences.