Writing More

Do you guys have any tricks to get yourselves to write more? My main problems are 1) laziness, and 2) on the same computer I use to write lives a computer game I have been addicted to for 2 years.

Maybe somebody less lazy than me should organize a writing club?

20 Great Tools to Keep Your Life Organized

Here is a feature from Zen Habits that might interest people. Some of these web applications like "Backpack" and "Tiddlywiki" sound interesting. Can someone (Jack? Cane?) tell me which ones I should be using? I'm too busy to do this for myself.

Walking Slower

I don't want to take this next MLI too far. But I want to try to remember to walk a little slower. I think that will communicate calmness, confidence, and coolness and hopefully I will feel those things as I communicate them. Walking fast tends to communicate nervousness and lack of power and happiness. Walking too slow is really cocky, so I am just going to try to walk somewhat slower. If you see me out, please remind me and/or check in on my progress.

Saying No = Sometimes Being The Downer

After a week of taking great care not to promise anything too substantial, I've found myself in the situation of being a bit of a downer. If I don't think I can afford something, for instance, I've typically said, "Maybe later." Last week I started saying, "No, I can't afford this right now," and I met with considerable grief. I'm hoping this translates to less grief in the future, but it still really sucks at the moment.

Week Two

So, I had mixed results with my MLI last week. I was successful on 3 out of five days, but only on one of those days was my life actually improved. As it turns out, a lot of the time, but not always, I hit snooze the snooze bar on my alarm clock because I'm still tired and need more sleep. Forcing myself to wake up at a certain time gets problematic if I still stay up too late. What am I? 14 Years old? It's like I've never had to structure my life before.

This week's MLI is a refinement of last week's: I want to get 6.5-7 hours of sleep every night and get out of bed in the morning without hitting snooze.

Over and out.

So far, so good

My MLI is the very short diary entry each night. I almost had trouble about a week in. I had to catch up with about three mini diary entries on the same morning; and often I end up catching up on entries a day or two later; but that's fine. I've noticed that it's easy for me to catch up on multiple days at once, which I take as a sign that this MLI is helping me keep what happened each day in my head naturally. I have been more upbeat since I started doing this.

I'll share an upbeat lesson I've learned: when you look back on what you did each day, it often makes more sense than when you're actually doing it. You might feel unproductive doing nothing much on a Sunday. But when you read or write "it was a Sunday and I did absolutely nothing, just read the paper and watched half of a movie," you realize, "well, that makes sense, I was recharging." You work hard all day on something that doesn't pan out, and you feel stupid, but if you look back, it makes sense that you gave that a shot. Lesson: when it comes to making use of our time, we are making somewhat better decisions than we think.

Day Four: Backslide

Got out of bed with the second alarm today. Also was tired all day. Wondering if, without making sure I go to bed on time, this MLI was a terrible idea...

Day Three: Feel Like Garbage

I got out of bed with my first alarm today then forced myself through a morning where I felt like garbage. Right now, I'm wondering what's wrong with getting a little more sleep?