5 Powerful Reasons to Do Less in 2008
Monday, December 31st, 2007I've spent 2007 attempting to responsibly act regarding my money and my stuff. The first 11 months of the year I tried various organizational tools to help me Get Things Done [1] ala David Allen [2]. Vitalist [3] and Remember the Milk [4] were helpful. But I had fallen prey to an-all-too common GTD behavior: I was spending more time updating my lists than actually doing the things on my list. So I pared back by moving everything to a lo-fi list using a moleskin and Behance's stunning, wonderful swag [5]. I highly recommend their tools if you are a pencil and paper kind of trannie, queer or genderqueer. The fact that I don't have to fire up the laptop every time I want to check my grocery list is worth the cost alone. Plus, Behance really convinced me that using beautiful tools enahce's my creative output. Don't know if that is true for you, but it certainly is for me. Behance's tools make me happy to write down my to-do items, happy to review them and happy to check them off. And what's more, I actually save the lists as a reminder of things I've done. A quick review of the lists whenever I'm not motivated can help me get motivated. But even with these inspired and inspiring tools, what has really helped me get organized is doing less. The art of doing less has been an kind of awareness-shift for me, and I'm going to work very hard on doing less in 2008. Here's why: 1. Spiritual Growth ~ Don't know about you, but I'm the perfect workaholic tranny activist. This past weekend I vowed that I would neither turn on my laptop nor work on work. Instead, I finished up a funky-looking frame for postcards from our Ireland trip. Now, this frame has been on my to-do list since about September of 2006. With always working, though, it kept getting pushed back to someday. But by not working on working, I was free to finish this project. As an experiment, I just watched my mind and feelings as I puttered around the basement finishing up the frame. What I observed knocked me off center. I work because I hate unstructured time. In fact, I fear unstructured time. By doing less I've gotten in touch with a core fear. Namely, that I am nothing and will amount nothing in my life. Knowing this fear is within me, I can work to more fully integrateit into my psyche and be okay here and now. 2. Personal Care ~ You know, the dishes, laundry, cooking, cleaning just really aren't that important because, you know, I'm working on the Revolution! The dishes piled up and so did the laundry and I possessed a nagging sense that these tasks were somehow the work of Ms. H. since she wanted a clean house. Such a lie! Such bull pucky! I've always wanted a clean house but somehow I had positioned cleaning as diametrically opposed to work. So I've spent this past week between jesus' birthday and new year's eve cleaning as I go, wiping down the kitchen counters every night before I go to bed and doing the laundry regularly. By doing less, I can take better care of the messes I make. This helps me feel less flustered, angry, more integrated. 3. Political Revolution ~ I can hear all of you saying what does political change have to do with doing less. A lot. By more meaningfully integrating personal care as part of my responsible work in this lifetime, I'm creating less messes. I'm also taking one hundred percent responsibility for cleaning them up. This helps reduce a behavior I call "shitting in bed, kicking it on the floor and expecting somebody else to clean it up." In our North American society, how many of us unconsciously act like it is somebody else's job to fix the crap in our life? By doing less, I create less crap, can clean up the crap I create and more fully and responsibly enter into my next crap-making endeavor. 4. Time for Lovers, Family, Friends ~ This one seems like a no brainer. But for a workaholic like me, doing less means doing the difficult work of maintaining my connections with Ms. H., my family and dear friends. In the end, they are the ones thatcare for me as I age, spend time with me when I am sick or troubled, support me through the ups and downs. An empty email inbox can't do that. Now, I'm totally down with an empty inbox, but if I'm frittering away time checking email fifty or more times a day instead of calling my family every once in awhile, I've lost sight of the profound fact that Ms. H. and my family love me. By doing less I'm willing to face all the difficulties and ickiness that is sometimes part of relationships. Most importantly, though, by doing less I have to face the fact that they do love me, which for me, is one of the top three most difficult facts for me to accept in life. It's probably no. 1, actually. 5. Time for Hobbies ~ Do activists have hobbies? I surely don't. Everything gets subsumed under the Cause and the Revolution. Hobbies are Frivolous. So by doing less, I'm actually learning to engage in activities for the simple pleasure they bring me. Shocking. And I'm learning to deal with how very awkward I feel about engaging in activities that are not good for the Cause, my Health or the Work, they are just good for me, because they make me happy. Bonus: Bigger Bang for Your Buck ~ One of the main problems with staying busy, busy, busy, is that I've frittered away time on low-hanging fruit. Not focusing on the big ticket items like this blog, Homofactus Press, working on my novels and short stories, my various speaking-gig presentations and my cartoons, just about guarantees a kind of successful mediocrity. By doing less, I am working more productively on those tasks that are most important. I am also learning to view email and such as the work to be completed around the big tasks, not instead of. Happy New Year! [1] http://www.43folders.com/2004/09/08/getting-started-with-getting-things-done [2] http://www.davidco.com/ [3] http://vitalist.com/ [4] http://www.rememberthemilk.com/ [5] http://www.behance.com/Outfitter#cat2
