Were you in an eclipse-viewing part of the country on Monday???
We had the “total” experience here in Austin, TX, and in spite of the clouds…it was so cosmic and amazing.
Current Musings:
As an avid podcast listener, I am constantly wowed by really great nuggets. Listening to one of my faves by Jon Acuff (All It Takes Is A Goal), he dropped one. One that I feel compelled to share because it’s that good.
Do less of what you LIKE and more of what you LOVE.
If ever there were powerful words of wisdom…
For many years, I participated in triathlons. Wait, let me rephrase: I was a triathlete! I swam, I biked, I ran…a lot of races. “Sprint” Tris like the all-female races sponsored by Danskin got me started, then a few Olympic Tris (yikes those were HARD!). Throw in a boatload of 5ks, 10ks, a 10-miler and twice I did a half marathon.
Yikes…no thanks on the half marathons!
What is it about races?? Comradery, community, we-got-this-so-let’s-keep-going energy!! Races are a great way to support amazing causes and also to get all types of peeps out and moving…and I suppose people do it for the swag, too!
At some point, I stopped. I stopped signing up for races. Well, I think I signed up for a few that I didn’t actually participate in…this was not a Covid thing because I stopped before that.
Maybe I got too “busy” as a mom of three teenaged boys. Maybe my love for tennis was checking the boxes: fun, friends, competition, exercise, cute outfits…
But I stopped…hmmmm.
Last Thanksgiving, my hubby (rather out of nowhere) decided he would do the Fort Worth Turkey Trot. Again, a great event that supports the FW YMCA and gets families out and moving!
Something amazing happened to him that day: he got bitten by the race bug! Oh my, did he!!
Since then, it’s been so on! He chose the 48th annual Austin American-Statesman’s Capital 10k on April 7th as his target race to train for. It’s been a joyous wonder to watch him plan, scheme, practice, train, equip, and execute on this new passion.
Rewind back to my previous description of my race life…I did, in fact, participate in the Capital 10k many, many times. So, guess what? I decided to sign up too! I planned to walk “with purpose” and not put pressure on actual running. All those years of triathlon etc showed me that, no, in fact, I do not really LIKE running! (I love movement and being active…but actual running? blechhh)
This past Sunday was THE DAY! I jammed along at a nice active walking clip enjoying the moment and revisiting the “glory days”!
I just LOVED it! And I want to do more!!
And guess what? That afternoon, we sat down together (in a creaky-legs-groaning way) and signed up for some more races, woohoo!! The Sunshine Run in early May and the Maudie’s Margarita Run in early June! I guess you could say we are off to the races!! (yeah, I did that lol)
The point is: checking the boxes of things we love.
Do MORE of what you love, and LESS of what you only like, because life is too short!
Current Tool:
The omnipresent goal: efficient and trustworthy thought/task capturing. Oh boy, that’s a moving target.
How do you handle thoughts that pop into your head that you want to record (so you can take action later)? I realize that I likely just triggered fear in your body with that question…and I feel you. It’s so hard!
The key is to clearly identify the locations where you record such things. I will argue that we need BOTH digital and analog formats.
The digital is essential because we tend to have our phones with us.
The analog is also essential because paper is always there for us in a pinch! Scratch paper. The back of a napkin or a receipt. Comforting. Old school. And then you can migrate that scrap paper thought into your actual tool!
Personally, my main digital tools are Google Calendar, Trello (mostly for reference) the Teux Deux app. For analog, I use a Bullet Journal and sticky notes.
It’s an evolving practice, so give yourself lots of elbow room to play around and try on different things, but once you decide, try to stick with it, (until something shiny and new comes along!). LOL.
Current Offerings (AKA tools):
For all of April’s Digital Decluttering Workshops: (Thursdays at noon CST) it’s all about this unwieldly beast called task-capturing!!
I’m so excited to share that we will welcome Amy Novick, certified Google trainer and owner of Clutter Care Organizing, and I assure you, you won’t want to miss this! She will give us an overview of how to use Google Tasks.
Replays available in the CALM Collaborative, of course.
