Pre and Post Work Routine

Today I learned that when I step into my daily routine, that I need to respect that space. Routine helps me transition from one activity to another. It helps me know what’s coming. It helps me prepare for the next day. And it helps me feel like I care and respect the work that I do before and after the routine. Does routine add value to your work?

Daily routines add value to our everyday lives in many ways. I do feel that routine adds value to our work. When we act intentionally to prepare and conclude our work session, that is working. Discipline and routine is what leads to mastery. Not talent, not perfection, not candy and coffee. Take all those things away but maintain your discipline, and you’re on you’re headed in the right direction. I heard on a business discussion it’s not the best baker or the most popular one. It’s the baker that withstands time. Sustainable practices like daily routine and discipline are two key strategies to avoiding burnout.

Now that I’ve accepted the value of my prework and post work routines, I’ll have a better idea of how to respect them.

Do you have a pre and/or post work routine? What is it? How long have you been doing it that way?

Artist Dates Still Going!

I challenged myself a few weeks ago to have artist dates once a week until the new year! Today’s artist date was a stay at home date. I took my time matching socks and folding warm laundry while listening to a The Bible Project talk about apocalyptic writing in the bible. ( Here’s the link if you’d also like to watch it.) Some of you may be thinking, well cleaning doesn’t count as a date. On the contrary, this girl (me) loves her some freshly washed and dried, still warm laundry. (But not when I’m on crunch time.) Ready for more boring description of my amazing day, I wandered around, laid in bed, and made some left over chicken n veggies. Being home and not having to lug all my stuff around to have a moment alone, is amazing!! Thanks husband for taking the kids!!

So two dates left for the year. I got this.

What Could You Do Less Of?

WordPress prompt

What Could I Do Less Of?

I could absolutely work less. I’m living in such small portions of everything that I wouldn’t slim anything else down but my work hours. Don’t get me wrong, I love my job. It’s brings me so much joy and inspiration. It’s a gift really. I just have so many dreams and goals that I want to reach. The job really slows me down from focusing on those things.

I feel bad writing that because I appreciate my job more than I ever thought I could. What’s also important to mention is that I haven’t worked in 8 years. So… it’s going to take me some time to place having a job as one of my priorities. After so many years, I came to love managing my home especially when I got all my energy back! Transition is great. And I’m transitioning back into the workforce like a champ (it helps immensely that my coworkers are nice and understanding) 8 years ago, I couldn’t imagine life without a job. 4 months ago, I couldn’t imagine a better job than managing my own home. Life is a wild ride that has surprises around every corner. (psst, I like the good surprises)

What would you do less of?

Wait a Minute

What helps you prioritize? What helps you be more empathetic? What helps you live your life in a more fulfilling way? What stories do you tell yourself about your divine purpose?

Your beliefs are important to me.

I found myself objectifying a general group and had to get real honest with myself. That’s their belief system. It’s the belief system of grown and intelligent human beings. People who are smart enough to do their studies. People wise enough to decide what path works for them from years of trial and error. While I find their complexities to be an amazing work of art easily be put on display, I also feel a sting of discomfort from finding their passion as some sort of novelty item. Let people be off the podium and out from under the microscope of judgement and see how they dance to their own tunes. This is what helped my perspective shift into a place of acceptance.

What I came to accept after this honest conversation, was that it was more important to live my life in a way that is in line with my belief system. Just being myself in my own thoughts in my own safe space, helped me change my own perspective.

I enjoyed this moment of growth.

Wild Animals

I enjoy writing about the mysterious happenstances that come about from wild animals. Could have something to do with watching Aesop’s fables over and over on VHS for months straight as a kid. I also love Narnia. We finished book one with my youngest. We went to books with less words so she’s able to be more involved with the reading experience but to return to the point, animal happenstances.

Animals have a funny way of showing us that there could be more to this world than we realize. Birds falling from the sky. Cats and dogs saving babies. Bucks standing majestically in the fog on a writers journey through the mountains. Wild animals add life to the messages being shared with us.

Have you had a divine intervention with a wild animal (or pet) ?

Prompt and Artist Date

WordPress Promp

Share five things you’re good at

  1. Words of Affirmation- I got a lot of practice while I was learning to love myself.
  2. Sleeping- I love sleep. I love naps. I love feeling energized. and I very much love dreams.
  3. Writing- Thanks for reading 😀
  4. Walking- I reaching here lol
  5. Blogging- wahoo 5 things! After 3 things it was tough to figure out anymore.

I did my artist date today!! I’m still in there!! How many weeks left? Have you joined me? Make sure you record your artist dates. You need reminders about why they are so important!!

I don’t like to do artist dates after work because I’d rather spend time with my family. But I wanted to hold my end of the bargain. I wandered around a few stores and ended at a bookstore and sat on the floor by the bookshelf and read my time away. It was nice. Got to have a quiet car ride home. Why was today’s artist date important? I kept a commitment with myself even when I was tired and wanted to go home. Now my inner artist can trust me a little bit more than she did before.

Show, Don’t Tell

We hear it all the time as writers. For those who are reading this post that aren’t writers, let me explain. Show, don’t tell is when you’re writing a about a character, instead of telling us things about the character like “He was mad,” you’d say something to the affect of “He swiftly picked up the video game console and threw it at his brand new, flat-screen tv. Then, he stormed out of the room using language only a sailor would use.”

I just wanted to take a moment to appreciate how easily this transfers over to real life. First we must make clear that in this life, we, as in ourselves, are the only characters that we get to create. We cannot write someone else’s story for them. There’s far too many variables. But what we can do, is create our own character within our own story. Now to the part I appreciate.

We can, as our own creators, instead of telling the world that we are compassionate, show the world that we care about the well-being of those around us. I love this. A lot of us do this already. I just wanted to take a moment to appreciate it.

“The smallest act of kindness is worth more than the greatest intention.”

Kahlil Gibran

Good Morning Life

I’m a night person that’s reached a point where I’m able to get up in the morning. In the past, it was very hard for me to get up in the mornings. It was that way for a very long time. I’m not sure exactly when mornings became easier for me. But for the sake of blogging, I’m going to credit both liking what I do as a job and my routine.

My morning routine includes having a hot beverage, my clothes already picked out, and having three healthy meals a day. I skipped a lot of meals for too long, so my energy was always super low. Destroyed my digestion. Destroyed my moods. It wasn’t healthy. Point being, a lot goes into having that good morning life. So now that I eat regularly, appreciate my hot drinks, and prepare ahead mornings are not such a torture anymore. (yay!)

A dream is what makes people love life even when it is painful.

Theodore Zeldin

Something about a hot beverage in the morning feels so right.

What’s your morning look like? Something hot part of your routine?

Artistic Research

Today I listened to an interesting lecture by Adrian Piper titled What, exactly, is the Idea of Artistic Research? She brought up a lot of interesting points. one point that I found interesting was how classes can be so rigid it doesn’t allow artists to truly dig into their art in the same way great artists did in the past. If an art class doesn’t allow enough space for the artist to expand outside of expectation, the artist will miss out on their own artistic investigation. I think using credible research in our exploration process is important as well as implementing some rigidity. On the contrary, these are not so important that an artist should lose their voice in the process. Sometimes the best option is to push the boundaries to be heard or even push them to reach some semblance of satisfaction with the project.

I feel we can take this with us anywhere we go. We should always allow enough space within our disciplines to explore, experiment, and wander in ways that may look aimless to others.