Hi everyone! Since we are already midway into May {how did this happen??} I wanted to write a brief post about my focus for this month from Ben Franklin’s List of Virtues. During the month of April, focusing on industry was very helpful in moving forward on some important projects that had sort of stalled-out midway through.

I completed and submitted a short story that challenged me {in a good way} and that I think is one of the best pieces I have written since graduate school. It ended up being a much longer piece than I had originally envisioned, and it felt SO rewarding to complete it!
I also made a whole bunch of headway on the publication of Dancing With The Pen II, and organized a book launch pizza party for the Bay Area contributors.
And Allyn and I made lots of progress in the wedding planning arena. Proof: our “wedding corner” is slowly taking over our apartment!

I really want to continue this momentum, so for May’s focus I decided to go with number four on Ben Franklin’s list: resolution.

RESOLUTION: Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

To me, this is a virtue that requires two steps:

First, figuring out the most important things you wish do to {perform what you ought}
And secondly, resolve to perform these tasks without fail {make it a habit}

May seems like the perfect month to look back at those resolutions we made in the shiny potential of January 1st and re-evaluate them. Which resolutions are working for you? Which ones are not? Are there any resolutions that you made with the best of intentions and have since let drop to the wayside? Maybe this is a good time to re-commit to those activities or goals.

At the same time, you might have made some resolutions that were more based on your “fantasy self” than your real self. Gretchen Rubin talks about this on her podcast “A Little Happier.” We all have ideal versions of ourselves, but these self-images can be based more on fantasy than on reality. For example, maybe you like the IDEA of being someone who does CrossFit, but in reality a long solitary run or a low-key exercise class like Zumba is much more up your alley. If your resolution was to join a CrossFit gym and go three times a week, and you have yet to make much progress or have stalled out, perhaps it is because you like the idea of being “someone who does CrossFit” much more than you enjoy the actual activity of CrossFit. In that case, it may be time to tweak your resolution to fit your ACTUAL self and the activities you actually enjoy or find the most meaningful.

For my resolutions this month, I am resolving to continue my healthy habits of drinking a green smoothie every morning, going to yoga at least once a week, and working on my creative passion projects for at least half an hour first thing every morning. I am also resolving to continue last month’s momentum by completing my work on Dancing With The Pen II and officially release the book into the world! I can’t wait to share it with you guys when it is available on Amazon.com. Stay tuned! 🙂

Questions of the day:

What does resolution look like to you?

Happy Monday, everyone! How was your weekend? I am back home from a whirlwind AWP conference in Los Angeles, where I got to attend so many helpful and thought-provoking workshops, snagged a whole bunch of new books I can’t wait to read, and connected with some dear friends I had not seen in quite a while. By the end of the conference, I felt filled-to-the-brim with a strange combination of brain-dead exhaustion and recharged motivation in my writing life.

My brother, coincidentally, had to work a conference in Berkeley the same weekend, and got a couple days off work following the conference. So my parents drove up from So Cal with me and we spent three lovely days together in the Bay Area as a family. Allyn called it my “staycation” and that is exactly what it felt like — a little relaxing mini vacation right at home! It was wonderful to all be together, and we lucked out with absolutely gorgeous weather. I joked with my family that San Francisco was showing off for them, because immediately after they left, the weather turned gray and rainy! It matched my mood — I miss them! It is always hard saying goodbye.

Today, since we are already a week and a half into April, I wanted to write a brief post about my focus for this month from Ben Franklin’s List of Virtues. It was a bit difficult for me to choose what I wanted to focus on this month, because I am feeling a bit scattered and pulled in many different directions. Summer and our wedding are just visible on the horizon, but not close enough to touch yet. And yet at the same time, I feel like the new year just began an eye-blink ago and I have so many projects I want to make more headway on before the busy summer begins.

I decided to go with number six on Ben Franklin’s list: industry.

INDUSTRY: Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.

To me, this is a virtue that must be dealt with carefully. It reminds me of Gretchen Rubin’s Secret of Adulthood that many things in life are good servants, but bad masters. To let industry rule your life would mean you become a productivity robot, and nobody wants that. I have written on this blog before about my quest to make time for what really matters to me and to value myself and my day not just on the number of things I check off my to-do list. I think we need to be careful with industry that it does not become a barometer of worth; that we do not multitask our lives to the detriment of deep thinking and intentional listening; that we do not speed through our days on auto-pilot, constantly rushing from here to there, constantly checking our email and social networks and newsfeeds. {After all, when Ben Franklin wrote these virtues, there were no such things as smartphones or Google!}

This month, I am focusing on industry with the perspective of being employed in what is most useful to me — what I most want to make headway on in the forthcoming weeks. I have a couple big projects that I really want to move forward with and that I have not been giving the attention they deserve of late. Also, I want to make little-by-little progress on our wedding planning while we still have plenty of time until the big day. As I learned during my year of living simply, taking care of tasks far in advance takes SO much stress away!

My brother shared this graph with me that I thought was very interesting: Steven Covey’s Time Management Matrix. Here is a great article explaining it in depth. Basically, “urgent” tasks mean tasks that you need to get done for someone else; “important” tasks are those that are important to YOU for achieving your larger goals.

This month — and beyond! — I want to focus more on important tasks, rather than defaulting into giving most of my time to the urgent column. And, interesting to note, in the important column Covey lists “relationship building” and “recreation” — two items definitely not on the to-do list of a productivity robot. Yes, perhaps it is possible to be industrious AND have a balanced life!

Questions of the day:

What does industriousness look like to you?
What quadrant on Stephen Covey’s matrix do you spend most of your time in?

Day-By-Day Masterpiece

Tag Archives: task

year of virtues, month five: resolution

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year of virtues, month four: industry

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