Monday, January 04, 2010

The year of balance


I like Alvina's declaration that this will be the year of "no guilt", so I will expand on that and say that for me I hope 2010 will be a year of balance. This means creating restricted, focused work time, letting play time be play time (so I guess I am shooting for "no guilt" too- love that Barry Goldblatt quote), and less mixing up of the two. Also I think I've underestimated how much quality down time can contribute to my creativity later on. So here are my goals/aspirations/resolutions that I hope will help to create more balance:

*Wake up at the same time every day, and earlier. I've been working at home full time for over four years now (part time for 6) and this has aaaalways been a struggle. I'm a night owl and would love to work all night and sleep all day. Problem is the rest of the world does not seem to be on that schedule, including my fella, so I aim to see more of the daylight hours. And be more consistent.

*Do more creative projects that do not have to do with my job. I think this was on last year's list, but it will have to be a rollover. Like down time, doing different kinds of creative projects helps feed your creativity. And I just LOVE makin' stuff.

*Panic less, relax more. Publishing is so unpredictable... I feel like half my time is spent panicking about signing up the next project, and the rest is spent overwhelmed with everything I have committed myself to. It really cuts down on the enjoyment of writing and painting, which is why I started doing this in the first place. SO. Time to relax. And just trust that things will work out as they should.

*Watch less tv. I am not a terrible tv addict, but I do have a bit of a weakness when it comes to watching Clean House and trashy fashion tv. Dare I cancel the cable? Tempting but maybe will try to wean off slowly. Also, less blog reading. UGGG.

*Less email. After listening to the below clip, and refreshing email like 12 times while he spoke about how people spend too much time refreshing their email, I see that I clearly have a problem.

Thats all for now.

2 comments:

Libby Koponen said...

Great post! I am the same way about down time -- and I too need to trust that things will work out instead of panicing and (what I do) wasting a ton of energy on complex "what if" scenarios for every imaginable catastrophe. The downside of having an imagination!

Happy new year Anna and here's to a balanced year!

danielle said...

I love this post and am glad I stumbled on your blog.

Amen to the email. I just set up a separate account for emails from actual people so I can find time later to deal with the ones from organizations and newsletters and such.

Here's to balance this year!