Listening to: Her voice reminds me of someone, but I can't figure it out...
Bliss: Getting back to more regular "paper & pen" journaling. Getting back to longer stretches of Kundalini yoga -- makes me feel shiny! Getting back into regular rhythms.
Somewhere in her blog or on her Facebook page, Diane Cesa mentioned using a timer to keep herself from spending too much time working without taking breaks or without stopping to do some yoga.
This struck a chord with me, someone struggling with getting stuck in the labyrinth of the Internet far too often. Perhaps a timer could act as that piece of rope you hold onto that ends up guiding you out, I thought to myself.
As I mentioned on Friday, I am trying to move from learning lessons about being committed to things that matter to me; now I am trying to get to that next level -- ridding myself of distraction (as much as humanly possible, of course).
The timer idea seemed to fit in with a lot I've been thinking about.
And I have this really cool timer. It's a free downloadable meditation timer made by Apple. It makes a cute, little blue cushion show up on my dock.
But besides being cute, I like the way it functions. You set the total time you want to "sit" for, and then you can choose increments of time when a bowl or bell will sound to bring you back, theoretically, to your meditation. At the end, you can have it set to ring a different bowl or bell to tell you your time on your "cushion" is complete.
Of course, I was going to be using it for something different, but the principle remains: it is meant to keep me mindful of being mindful. It is meant to remind me that I exist within time and how I use that time matters.
I used it for the first time on Saturday, and it went beautifully. I set it so I only had two hours first thing in the morning to get a list of blogging and other computer related tasks done. Then I set it for some reading time, then some yoga time, then some...you get the idea.
Now here's the thing that I was not expecting: I have way more time than I ever thought, and I tend to overestimate how long certain tasks will take.
I have way more time than I ever thought.
All those book ideas that sit. All those poems rattling around in my brain. Those Italian tapes. Photographs that are begging to be worked with.
All those book ideas that sit...
This is scary stuff.
I'm betting a lot of you will recognize this: For someone who uses a lack of time as one of her favorite excuses for not having three (or one hundred) manuscripts and a variety of other creative endeavors finished, this is scary indeed.
My concept of the time I have is limiting the time I have.
It's not time's problem. It's mine.
(Shudder.)
10 comments:
I love this post :)
"My concept of the time I have is limiting the time I have."
This is so true, and it's something that surfaced in my morning pages this morning, although your sentence puts it waaay more succinctly!
I have been working with a timer, particularly for growing my daily writing habit, and it helps me to focus more on the task in hand - instead of being distracted and losing time with unfocused surfing.
Thanks for your post!
Excellent post!
I started working with a timer several years back, as I had to divide my time between being a mother, a biology program, and house chores. Just like you, it made me realize that I had more time on my hands then I thought I had, and that it was really all in my head. I think that sometimes we just feel overwelmed, and then our notion of time gets distorted :0)
I definitely know what you mean here!!
I've become a huge fan of simple timers to help my children (and even my spouse) manage their scree-time, but I must admit I haven't used it for myself.
You put it in such a helpful light. Thanks for the inspiration.
this is so true, and that little timer is so cool-thanks for the idea!
here's the link for the timer for fellow mac users...
A cool and scary insight. We limit ourselves and not time.
Interesting. I use a timer also - a more prosaic kitchen timer - that I use to persuade myself to do "just" twenty minutes of housework, or to limit myself to just twenty minutes online. Sometimes I ignore it when it goes off!
But I've found the opposite to you - I almost always under-estimate how long something is going to take me.
I am finding that having a lot of time is intimidating. I am so accustomed to my time being structured. I figured out the other day that working took up 12 hours each day (at least) - if I slept 8 hours each day - this left me 4 whole hours for everything else! Good grief how did I get anything done!! Weekends of course - but I can't tell you how many of those I spent working.
Now I have 16 hours all to myself every single day. And I have absolutely no clue how to manage them !! Oh, TinMan manages to take a chunk of those hours each week, but still.....
I'm just beginning to glimpse that perhaps time is not to be managed but just to be lived...
but how do I do that??!!
PS: thank you for the hint for an online timer - although I don't use a Mac I just found some great meditation timers I've downloaded. Never occurred to me to look before.
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