August is for Deep Thoughts...And Cake.

It's August! Birthday month is here! Yay!

As you all know I tend to get really self reflective (even more than my normal) during August and September. Another year on the planet makes me think about the past and September always makes me think of new beginnings so it's my most questioning time of year. Or at least self questioning.

It's usually when I start working on new goals and wrap up old ones. Though I've gone traditional now with new year and new goals just to make it easier. But I still am prone to weeding out the things that aren't working and trying new things during the end of summer beginning of fall.

Right now I'm looking at time management.

I love being retired.

I love not having to answer to a clock.

I love being able to shift my schedule around what needs done, or what I feel like doing rather than having a HAVE to staring at me.

But...

It makes me a little crazy as well.

One of the truisms in my life is that I take vacations to have something to do. I plan out what we are doing, I schedule all sorts of events and activities, I am super busy. Because I can do the traditional lay around doing nothing "vacation" as my normal day. But as Brent has discovered, I don't really do that well either. When I am home, even if I am reading something I want to finish, like that GIANT book I finally finished yesterday, I tend to get up and wander every so often. Or I pick up my phone and check the news. Or I stop and watch a little something on TV. Or I get up and do dishes. Or laundry. Or...on and on...I fidget. I pace. I wander.

Basically I'm not fully focusing on anything. I'm acting like a neurotic dog without a job.

Which then makes me think I should probably get a job. I don't need to have a job. We can afford for me not to have a job. But if I got a job I could put all of the money away in savings and then when Brent retires as well we would have more of a cushion. Which makes sense.

Then I think about the actuality of getting a job and remember how much I love not having one. And I also have been out of the work force for long enough that the jobs available to me aren't really appealing.

And around we go again.

The other big piece is that I want time to write. And a 9-5 doesn't really do that. I went years and years not writing at all. Just telling stories for fun, but always orally, but no writing anything down. I am not one of those incredible people who can work all day, take care of the things that need done at home and then sit down and pour out a story before bed. It's not in my makeup. But when I don't write I feel less than. I want to write. I want to tell a story. I want to share a viewpoint. And not having a job frees me up to write.

When I do it.

Because sitting down to write is also one of those wandery things. I look at Facebook, I get up, I wander around, I stare out the window, I open and close two different writing platforms while I decided where I want to write that day...I waste a lot of time.

Now part of the solution search this year was exchanging work with Dana. It was a big fix because I was in a huge slump at the end of last year. I wasn't really writing much at all. I was dry of ideas. I was feeling a bit like it was time to pack up my bags and quit. Dana wasn't having it and rode in to rescue me, and to force herself to finish a long term project as well. But we've pretty much run the course of that. She is thisclose to finishing and I have discovered (lie, I already knew this, I just reinforced it) that if I am given a deadline for a project I will most likely just work on that project and do it the day before it's due. So I have been writing. But not consistently. Just enough to pass. But it did break me out of the dry spell. Having a due date, having someone expecting a piece from me, helped break the log jam and get the words flowing again. I just need to change up how I am managing them.

So now I will focus on pushing Dana across her finish line. Realizing that Muse will sit with Practical Magic on the "long stories aren't really my thing" shelf. And try to figure out how best to focus my writing. I am really leaning toward blocks of uninterrupted time. Say everyday for 3 hours I am unavailable for anything else and all I do is write. Deep work. No switching gears at all. No disrupting the flow. Then seeing where that leads. I will still have the freedom to decide what to write in that time frame. Is it a blog? Is it a short story? Is it a longer piece? Is it poetry? (Sorry, Skip) But daily, sitting down and just writing. Or if not daily then a certain number of days each week.

Or is it a numbers thing? Instead of a certain amount of time I sit down and write a certain number of words each day? Some days that would be super easy and some days it would be torture. I'm thinking time over number...

Yeah, probably that.

So August is for deep thoughts and new plans.

Three more #selfiesaturdays until the end of this year...what will I come up with for 49?