Wellness Journalism: What To Do?

Every summer break (or winter break, or spring break, for that matter) I get excited about all of the projects I can accomplish with my free time: re-organzing my living room, writing a manuscript, planting a garden, teaching my 5-year old to read at a 5th grade level, researching graduate schools…

…and then, before I know it, I am wondering where the time has gone. How it can be that I don’t seem to have gotten anything done?

If this sounds familiar, you may be experiencing “Temporal Obselescene in Determination of Objectives” (TODO). My To-Do List hangs on my wall in innocent expectation, quietly awaiting fulfillment, while I bounce off to run errands or meet friends or do laundry.

Some things happen in time and some things happen out of time. Let me explain.

The projects I get excited about require a certain creative energy. If I am not cultivating this specific energy, these projects will not get done. Simply making time for them isnt enough. I have to be in the right frame of mind—otherwise, I will find that I am busy doing something else.

How, then, to shift gears? One approach I am taking is to change my routine and shock my system, so to speak. Every morning when I wake up, instead of stumbling into the kitchen for a bowl of cereal, I stumble to my desk. I choose one task related to my goals, and make it a priority. I schedule my day around IT, rather than trying to fit IT into my day. I then visualize it, nurture it, feed it with my intentions and energy, do rituals and prayers and voodoo and anything else that focuses my attention on the task in new and unusual ways. I talk about it, think about it, dream about it. I make it the apple of my eye. Then comes the tricky part: I let it go. I surrender to the flow of what comes that day, trusting that it will unfold according to a master plan. I realize that the expectation of doing actually prevents being (which yields happening). Then, at the right moment, I discover the impulse—the magic mind frame—and I find that the goal is achieved almost effortlessly. It comes about in a natural sort of way, nothing like the feeling of contrivance that lingered before.

Go ahead, try it! You have nothing to lose…not even time.