Tag Archives: focus

Back on my bull(et)shit

Yes, I know that my penmanship hasn’t improved since middle school. Thanks for reminding me.

I bought a new paper notebook.

I’ve tried bullet journaling on the iPad, and it’s fine. But I wasn’t consistent with it.

I’ve tried going fully digital, or using 3×5 cards for a daily to-do list.

I’ve tried a lot of things, okay?

While it doesn’t always stick around forever, I tend to find a better headspace when I start a fresh notebook for keeping track of things.

I need to tell myself it’s okay not to have the best long-term answer if I at least find a good answer for now.

I wrote before about craving simple solutions. I didn’t see how simple things could be.

I need two lists:

  • The things I can do
  • The things I am doing

One is for remembering hard due dates or where my progress is at with a larger project. This one’s digital.

The other is to make sure I know where my time goes, and to remind me that I have more time than I think, but not enough time for everything. That’s the notebook.

Every part of it reminds me that there’s only so much time. A page is only so long. A notebook has only so many pages.

And every page I use can’t be taken back.

It’s always sitting there, asking the question: What’s next?

Button doesn’t care how often Mario dies

We tested Button for COVID this week (thankfully, it turned up negative), but two-and-a-half year olds don’t like sitting still to get their drippy nostrils swabbed.

I suggested we let him play some Super Mario Bros. while I collected the test sample. He watched me play the other day, so I let him try pressing buttons for a few minutes. He wanted another chance to try.

He doesn’t understand the mechanics of the game, but he loves watching Mario jump and move. He’s in control.

In the time between getting him ready to test and waiting for the result, Button let Mario die around 40-50 times. Every time, he wanted to start again.

He’s not worried about getting to the end of the level, or saving the princess. The narrative and the game itself don’t mean anything to him.

He doesn’t feel the need to be good at it, because he doesn’t have a conception of what being good at it even is.

He sees a little guy in overalls who runs and jumps. He bumps blocks and sometimes lands on Goombas. Mostly he runs into things and falls off the screen.

Button just wants to play with a toy.

If he keeps wanting to play games as he gets older, he’ll probably get a little better and want to do more of what the game asks of him. He’ll feel more of the tug-of-war between skill and desire.

For now, it’s a nice reminder that games don’t have to be about 100% completion, speed runs, or tournament play.

Many things can be fun in the moment, taken on their own terms. Finding joy in the doing, not the striving or the achieving.

Reasons I like running

  • The endorphins help my brain work the way I want it to
  • When I focus on how my body moves, it pushes more abstract and/or irrational concerns aside
  • Being able to loosen up my body so that when I’m done, I can stretch in just the right way to pop that part of my lower back that gets sore by the end of the day
  • It reminds me to feel gratitude to my body for allowing me to move as freely as I do
  • It reminds me of the importance to make time to take care of this body to demonstrate that gratitude
  • It’s a time to disconnect from The Twitch of jumping from input to input
  • It creates a natural division; a nightly reset to clear the mental cache
  • It lets me believe that a little regular exercise might further delay the inevitable moment when I can no longer pick up my kids

I wanted to write these down as a reminder that these are reasons without numbers attached. Success isn’t about hitting some specific metric, but just staying in motion.

Being kind to myself can be enough of a goal.

The In-Between Moments

I needed something to do while waiting for my coffee to finish brewing. A fresh pot makes a good dividing line between tasks.

I chose to weed my reading list of saved articles. There was plenty I saved months and years ago that I never came back to.

I saw a block of articles I saved for a story or script idea I never took past the idea stage. They seemed oddly relevant to a completely different story I’m working on right now—one I was just about to start working on as soon as my coffee was ready.

I’m glad I took the moment to tidy up my digital life instead of searching and scrolling. I’m also glad I have a system, even an imperfect one, for keeping track of things that spark ideas.

Those moments between to-dos have the potential to be a rest stop, a detour, or an on-ramp.

It feels like a lot of the writing and writing-based work I do lately is all about collecting shiny things, trusting I can forget them for a while, and then pulling them back out when needed.

Morning Coffee

I pick the mug up by the body. The radiant heat scalds my fingers and palm.

Gently, to avoid spilling, I set it down.

I pick it back up by the handle and take a sip.

The coffee feels comforting, helping me shake off the memory of blankets and the desire to crawl back under them.

It lost little, if any, heat between those moments.

I slow down to receive the gift in the proper way and show my gratitude.