Rolling with one change a month…January…

In a previous post I wrote about rolling into the new year with a plan to make one change a month this year. That post was the introduction to the series and my idea was to write about each change in a separate post. I’ve been resisting this structure a bit, because I’m trying to keep this blog unstructured and maintain it as a free-form forum for my thoughts. I’ve been bouncing back and forth on this approach and have decided, at least for today, to just roll with it and write the second entry in the series.

I’ve been thinking a lot the past few days about what change I should make in April. When I first initiated this plan, I wrote out the first few changes for the first few months. The change for April was supposed to be starting to work in a community garden.

I found the garden and signed-up with the organizers to volunteer. The work may not start until May, which got me thinking that I may need a back-up change to start in April. I say this partially to convince myself that continuing to document these monthly changes will serve to remind myself of the changes I’m making and also keep me motivated to stick with the program, especially now that the novelty of newness is fading.

So finally, on to the changes I started in January ☺

In January, I actually started two changes. The first was to start a daily writing habit and the second was to unplug on Sundays. Starting a daily writing habit was inspired by this post on Zen Habits, as well as question #41 of 77 Questions for Skillful Living -

“41. Are creative activities a part of your work or leisure time?”

I wrote about unplugging on Sundays in a previous post you can find here. Since I’ve already written about unpugging, this post will focus on the daily writing habit.

I’ve written about the daily writing habit sporadically througout this blog, mostly from the perspective of trying to keep up with it daily. This has been a challenge and I’ve kept to it for the most part. Curiously enough to me, I find that the biggest challenge is to meet my own expectations and demands of keeping up with it EVERY DAY WITH NO EXCEPTIONS. I read somewhere that writing every day is the key to a successful daily writing habit, even if you just write a sentence or two. I think I’m also afraid that if I start to slip a little, that eventually the daily writing habit will fade into oblivion. I also find that earlier I write in the day, the easier it is to write and to find the writing experience an enjoyable one.

During the week, most of my writing is done directly in the Ghost blog editor, which I find to be a very nice and distraction-free writing environment. If I’m pressed for time and on the go, I write a quick entry in an Evernote note that I maintain for the purpose. On the weekends, and to reinforce the concept of unplugging, I take pen to paper and write in an indestructible Miquelrius notebook.

I feel that this change has been helpful and beneficial, as the writing is providing stronger benefits to me that I would have expected.

When I have time to write in the morning, the experience provides a good release for the creative energies that have built up during the previous day and evening.

I feel less restrictive and lighter, as I’m able to get a lot of ideas out of my head, rather than to have them occupy and create distractive mind space by spinning and churning around throughout the day.

Doing this also give me the feeling of accomplishing something for me, before my energy is subjected to the demands of others throughout the rest of the day. This helps put my mind at ease, rather than be in a state of concern throughout the day, wondering if I’ll be able to find some time to do something constructive for myself today.

If I’m able to publish a post that day, I also feel like I’m able to make an important connection to the outside world, before I bury myself in the responsibilities of the day, which usually consist of working solo in my home office.

So I’m glad that I started the daily writing habit and look forward to continuing it throughout the year and upcoming years. I think a couple challenges to keeping up with it are -

1 — Continuing to find the time to do it, which I hope becomes easier over time, as it becomes a more consistent part of my life.

and

2 — Keeping up with the habit in a way that continues to be enjoyable, without putting undue pressure on myself that results in the structure of the exercise slowly squeezing out the enjoyment of it.