Blended Living

Its a simple concept, list out your goals, give yourself a checkmark every time you achieve it.

This site might seem too simple at first, and may strike you as lacking some whiz bang feature, but in the end its simplicity is a bonus.  You get to spend more time on your new habits, than recording them.

There’s a simple logging feature to distinguish between, for instance, the type of exercise you did (weights, running, yoga, etc.) Or other notes you may want to track.  Maybe, if you are running, you could log your times and PBs (personal bests).

Also you can track negative habits you want to get rid of.  Smoking, over eating, etc.

Lastly there is a badge that you can activate and then paste into your blog, website, myspace, etc.

Joe’s Goals

• sleep – these darks days have contributed to me going off schedule
• its late, but a quick nap has me wide awake…again
• that computer book on powerpoint will likely do the insomniac trick
• middle east is at it again- that’s depressing if you let it get to you
• so much for trying to get in a library fine-less year
• made it 5 days, maybe next year
• all things seem to come in waves, and reserved books at NYPL is no exception
• trying to read more and faster, but can’t seem to cover all my interests
• should minimally scan all the books first, so I can better prioritize
• first attempts at a better reading/diversion/exercise rotation has been good
• this was first thought off during my trading as a living period
• chunking by setting routine breaks actually allows me to digest more information or get more done
• which may seem counterintuitive at first
• but yet it works
• and burns some extra calories during the day as a bonus
• combined with a steady water drinking habit
• it becomes a nice detox benefit too
• I like the buddhist concept of good and bad seeds in all of us
• just that we need to acknowledge the bad seeds
• and nurture the good ones more
• otherwise we find ourselves doing bad things for no good reasons
• like watching TV for hours and hours to dull our senses
• or eating all the Ice Cream
• or shopping for yet another thing we don’t have money or space for
• or worse…
• its OK and actually very healing to notice these trends in us, and actually smile when we catch ourselves and postpone that bad automatic desire or craving
• and take a deep breath in and let it out with a smile
• which is an addictive habit but in a good way
• as I notice I’m smiling more because random strangers are smiling back at me
• I came across a nice quote today
• Random Kindness and Senseless Acts of Beauty
• I helped someone carry groceries for a ways
• she was receptive to the help
• which is more rare than you’d think sometimes
• as the world conspires to cause people to be so suspicious sometimes
• but she thanked me with a smile
• you know recessions can be bad things, but they can be good things if you make it so
• like it causes you to focus on some more important things

Economy got you down? Looking for some inexpensive things to do?  Host a scrabble or boggle night.  The games are likely owned by someone you know, or they are not that expensive to buy.  Considering the hours of usage, the cost is lower than a night out at the movies.  The travel version of Scrabble is easily packed in a bag and can go to any coffee shop or friendly location.

Online Boggle if you want a quick diversion.  Random games are setup, you get 3 minutes to type in words, and then it scores it for you. The site has a wealth of other word related things yet to be discovered by me.

A quick boggle game is a nice little segue way between projects or tasks, or a little time shifting boundary between work and after work.  Its becoming a ritual as I get ready to leave work, or go to lunch.  Its a blended living practice- little habits or rituals that mark the boundaries between work and home time. ( Don’t take work home when you don’t have to.  Get it done there.)

The other benefits are that you get to keep your mind sharp, and off the crummy economy or any other negative seed that you would rather not water.  It exercises different parts of my brain and lets those other coding, computer problem solving parts get a quick rest.  For you NLP types, it can become an anchor to transition smoothly from work to home or play and vice versa.

Its very quiet right now as I type this.  I can hear the keys tapping, and the distant sounds from my neighbors… and I don’t usually hear anything except when its late and dark like now.  I can hear my daughters snoring slightly from their room – and its very peaceful to me.  One of them has a slight cold coming on, or they are allergic to something.

There is one more day of school for them, then the holidays.  Their energy levels and excitement are starting to rise, as they anticipate the joys of the year end- in spiritual as well as physical terms.  They wonder what presents they will get, and they think on some level about how they have changed throughout the year, or rather how the world seems to have changed to them.  They anticipate the family and friends they will spend time with.

Its easy to be jaded as the years pass, to not get swept away in the excitement, or at least vicariously.  That is a shame to not allow ourselves the fine moments that we can experience each and every day.  To be present, to be mindful such that these daily gifts aren’t lost.

I’d much rather find it in me to perform a random act of kindness than to curse my enemies, or think poorly of another.  I’d rather work to find the beauty in each moment – as hard as that may be while on line at the bank, or store, or crowded into a train or bus.  Our thoughts and actions are such things that carry on and get duplicated.  Like the saying how we treat our children is how they will treat society.  How we treat each moment is how we will see how empty or full our lives are… and so on to the next person.   It can be contagious – for the better or worse.

Its quiet now.  But otherwise I couldn’t hear my little ones breathing and experience the simple joy that brings to me.

Gmail recently added a tasklist in their labs section.  Its a rudimentary attempt and is pretty good for a first try.  Its nice to have this every time you open your email.  With some time maybe they will integrate it better with the other tools available, like calendar, etc.

Remember the Milk, or RTM for short, is another free website to load all your tasklists.  It has a strong following, and if you use firefox there is a nice plugin to better integrate it with Gmail and Gcal. They also have a Pro version for $25 a year with a sync program for iPhones, Blackberries and Windows Mobile phones.

I’m fairly new to using an online tasklist consistently, as I have been using a combination of paper and PDA for this function, but realizing recently that I’m about 95% of the time within arms length of WiFi, I thought I’d try an upgrade. I like what I see with the combination/integration of RTM, Gmail and Gcal.  There are numerous keyboard shortcuts and some nifty features.  I’ll see how I feel after a month or so.  It should be easy to GTD-ify also.

I almost pulled the trigger on that Radio Shack deal for the Acer Aspire One netbook and ATT mobile broadband, but the $60 a month for 5GB data is just too limiting.  This however might be a sign of the future, subsidized tiny laptops, or netbooks with data plans.  Give me a more realistic data plan and I’ll be there to buy it.

Despite reaching a mature age and above average knowledge – in the form of books, people and in the ways of how the world works, I sometimes feel like a pup.  It might be the weather, or the lack of sunlight.  It shouldn’t be the lack of social contact, as the holidays provided me a full serving of that.  It could be the weight of many responsibilities heaped together into a dish I can’t quite chew all at once.

Still I feel like I’ve had a relatively good time lately.  Saw a couple movies, went out for meals with friends, had many long walks in parks and new neighborhoods.  Been keeping up with my running regimen – and that hasn’t been a small feat given the windy coldness.  Been blogging enough, keeping up with my coding ideas and learning.  What I haven’t been doing enough of is drawing, morning pages, taking photos, and the weekly remoteness appointments (times where you spend an hour or two alone at something you normally would not do- go to a museum, wander into new stores/ nabes, browse sections of bookstores/libraries you normally wouldn’t.  I like to think of that line from Monty Python’s Flying Circus when I embark on this journey, “And now for something completely different…” ).

Ritually, Sunday nights have always been my “Gap analysis”.  That moment when you focus on what you want and what you have and see how wide that gap is.  This is a term I borrowed from the MBA types, it was hot about a decade ago.  I like it because it describes what I naturally did most of my life.  You see what that gap is and you build a bridge, or think about the ingredients to build that bridge to connect the present with the intended future.  Lately I feel like that beagle pup looks- which could be a good thing- there is a metamorphosis going on, whilst being scary in its uncertainty.

In the last few years, when I developed the habit of an emotional laundry basket, that got me through some rough times.  I try to identify those sticky, stinky smelling, emotional to-do’s and I put them into the hamper.  Then when I have the time and energy I take out some laundry and wash and spin and dry so to speak.  I like it, since it allows me to put it ‘there’ and not worry about it for a while, and then I know to come back to it later.  Its somewhat like the basic tenet of GTD (Getting Things Done),  make reliable lists so that you can free your mind for more creative thought.

Sometimes, I guess the really dirty emotional laundry sinks down to the bottom of the hamper and you just have to make the time to flip it upside-down and take them all out and do some extra work/cleaning. Deep breath in, and set an alarm – emotional time doesn’t work the same.  Wouldn’t want to get stuck in an emotional wash cycle.   During might not be so special but afterwards is nice.  Its like that feeling when you get all the fresh smelling clothes folded and put away.  Then you have that cup of tea.  Exhale.

My daughter remarked to me the other day that time is running so fast for her now.  I realize that since she is now officially a teenager, and that her life is full of High School applications,  Algebra homework, and the end of her Middle School years, I said without thinking, “It just gets faster as you get older.”

I almost regretted telling her that, but its the truth.  For most people those younger days are looked upon with a strong sense of nostalgia and wanting.  Is it the innocence that is lost, or the skill of being in the moment the way a child so naturally does?  We fill our days with more distractions to not feel that wanting.

If being in the moment is a skill brought in with our births, shouldn’t we practice it so that we don’t wake up some night and wonder where all our time has been lost?  In “Time Shifting”, Stephen Rechtshaffen writes about the concept of a time retreat.  A chance to be in the moment, to create time boundaries, to honor the mundane, so that we can create some spontaneous (unscheduled) time, a chance to do what we want in our own little time retreat.

“That’s so selfish!”,  you might say.  I’d rather think of it as enhancing our lives, for ourselves and for the special people in our lives.  If I were to practice meditation, or some form of a time retreat, perhaps my answer would have been different to my daughter.  I would have been a different Dad with a better answer.  If I can blend in some silly self time, some time to take some deep breaths, what wondrous things might I think, and say and do?

Is it possible to take time to make time?  Can I actually step away from the fast paced rhythm, to shift into ‘me time’ and come back refreshed and accomplish more?

[Photo taken in Riverside Park, NYC by John]

Digesting all that Holiday food, my thoughts turn to some exercise and I did some research into some ways to keep that ol’ heart of ours healthy.  It seems a lot of what affects the heart are choices about what we do and what we eat.  Others are about how we react to things, the stresses in our lives.

The easiest among what I’ve read just now are drinking more water, getting 30 minutes of exercise daily (like walks, stairs, or running if you prefer), and watching what you eat (eat breakfast, more fruits and veggies, and take a low dose aspirin)

The Men’s health article lists 100 ways, and you can pick among them to get healthier.  Check with your Doctor first.  Which of these can you blend into your daily living?

American Heart Association

Men’s Health Article