how do you organize your life?
Up above these words is our tagline: "living our values, as soon as we figure out what they are." We came up with it in a moment of inspiration and it's kind of a joke, but it's also kind of absolutely true. Like most people, I assume, we want to live in accordance with some higher principles. The hard part is doing that when ignoring principles would be easier—like, with cold rain in the forecast for the rest of the week I was kind of wishing we had two cars so I could drive to work. Good thing we could never afford another car anyway!
Lately I've been thinking about living values on another level: whether I actually spend my time doing the things I claim to want to do. That comes down to organization.
Modern life and media makes it easy to use up a lot of time on things we might not care that much about, objectively considered. I sit down at my computer and impulsively check out Google News... why?! I don't care, particularly, about what's happening in the world—at least not at that arbitrary moment. And beyond the news there's an endless galaxy of writing on all kinds of topics—fantastic writing, about things which would expand my understanding of the world! (also, for the record, lots of bad writing about stupid things). But when I have concrete tasks to work on—tasks I want to work on!—reading for enjoyment and vague self-improvement isn't the best use of my time.
Don't get me wrong, I'm no sort of Puritan. Reading is awesome, and just about any reading is self-improving. Watching TV shows too, if you're into that. The question is one of time management. And I'm trying to think more explicitly about it this week. To that end, I've set myself some goals for the week—high-level ones, rather than to-do list items. My theory is that, with them in mind, I can look at what I'm doing at any moment and see if it lines up with any of those goals. If it doesn't, do I have a good reason for doing it?
It's Wednesday morning; so far, so good. It does mean that this blog post, which I started Monday, is only getting finished now. Every other point when I though about sitting down at the computer I prioritized something else—sleeping, largely. But this morning it's too wet to work in the garden and the rest of the family isn't up yet, so it's prime writing time. So here you go!