WTS Day XXXVI

You would think I was used to the heat by now but it is officially baking today. I didn't do any exercise today or yesterday. This is partly tomorrow logic as I am booked in for a gym class tomorrow. I know that gym classes aren't enough though, and I need to be doing some at home as well. That is a thing to watch. 

My first day of Habit No 2. is going well, as in it's actually going. I got up this morning and wrote at the laptop. Nothing too startling or anything. It's also twenty to five now and I already have my five o'clock writing done. I'm not sure if bringing it forward is a good idea or not, but couldn't think of an advantage of waiting until five o'clock. I'm working on an essay. I doubt this essay will ever be published but the best writing advice (have heard this from Kevin Barry and elsewhere from Neil Gaiman) is to be a finisher. To finish things and not leave scraps lying around the place. The computer makes this kind of thing even more dangerous. I would like to be writing fiction rather than essays, but feel not writing on the basis that I can't think of something fictional would be a case of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. I read as well this morning that Joseph O'Neill gets an idea for a novel only once every ten years. This makes my one-short-story-a-year output seem less pathetic. 

In other news I am going out tonight, just to language-exchange, but that is something. I have become something of a hermit. But that is outside circumstances, to an extent. Things will pick up again. Have been doing a lot of reading and finally finished "The War that Ended Peace". I love reading, really reading. What do we mean when we say "reading for pleasure"? Why do we assume reading for pleasure means reading easy books, or frothy books that don't challenge us to think about issues? For me that is half the pleasure of reading. I hate the phrase "reading for pleasure", and I'm not the only one, although I know I'm in a minority. For most English teacher, this is heresy and unspeakable on forums like TESEO. 

If I had to sum up in one word my current status, I'd say it is "bored". Not that there is anything wrong with that. There are so many days. I wish we were going back early, the way some schools do, so as to get days off during the term. How welcome those days would be! I didn't vote, but think anyway there was little point in voting. In the words of Joseph Stalin: "It's not those who cast the votes who have the power, it's those who count the votes." 

WTS Day XXXV

Kicking myself this morning for not going out last night, but trying to remind myself of how tired I really did feel. This was, I think, from lack of planning and also from the unseasonably warm weather. There was no-one at the MeetUp that I wanted to see in particular. I didn't cancel, just didn't show up, which strikes me as mean-spirited and I resolve not to do so again, even if it is just drinks. 

It is #26habits day again today. My last habit was to stay out of TKMaxx. How did I do? I went there twice, once this day last week, and the second time yesterday. I bought one item: a foot cream. Once a week might seem plenty and not like I have succeeded, but what is important is that quite a few times I went into town or to the shopping centre and didn't go in there. This is the test, it had become an automatic thing that if I were in town for any reason I would "check" TKMaxx, in a hunter-gatherer kind of way. That is hopefully a thing of the past, and I will endeavour to keep out of there as much as possible for the rest of the summer. (What am I saying? It's quite possible for me never to darken their doors again. Better to say I will keep my visits to withing reasonable limits and not buy things of which I have several already). 

Time now for Habit No 2. I have toyed with a few over the past fortnight. A serious contender was to stay away from Youtube, but I am postponing this to the next time because I don't want this to be some kind of Lenten omnibus of giving up this and giving up that. I have decided that every second habit, at the least, will be adding an activity rather than taking it away. The frontrunner than became to develop an evening routine...a kind of bookend to Elrod's SAVERS. This I have come up with in the form of FLOAT. I did think first of JOLT. Journal-Organise-List-Tidy, but that sounded too much like a morning routine. The letters of FLOAT stand for 

-Five-minute journal.

-List

-Organise

-and

-Tidy

I am good at filling out the morning section of the FMJ, which I do as the A component of SAVERS, but lots of the pages are either blank at the bottom or have the headings but nothing filled in under them. I just forget, but making this part of a definite routine helps. The list is the right-hand side of my Moleskine diary, which functions as a bullet-journal to-do list (yes, I did try full-on bullet journaling and while I can see it is very clever, it just didn't work for me). In the evening I check off what I've done with an X through the box, and add in items that have arisen during the day so I have some kind of window into the future and this also minimises having to get out of bed because I've forgotten something. Then I organise anything I need for the morning/pack if I'm going anywhere. This isn't usually necessary this time of year, but will be a crucial step in September. Then T is for setting a ten-minute timer on my phone and tidying up, mostly in the kitchen. 

Life-enhancing as this routine is, it hasn't made the cut for this fortnight's habit because as soon I as conceived it, it's been extremely easy to stick to. Maybe when the enthusiasm wears off and I need a re-boot it could become one of the 26 habits at that stage. When it came to picking the habit, I decided to think about my priorities. Going out more is one of them. Another is writing, and this is where I finally settled. Drumroll....

Habit No. 2 of the #26habits is to use Dorothea Brande's two strategies to get more writing one. The first strategy is to write first thing in the morning. The second is to commit to another specific time of day to write. I plan to follow this five days a week. Five is enough, and I will pick the time five o'clock, or as close to five o'clock as I can manage. We will see how this will go. 

WTS Day XXX

Win the Summer is 30 days old today and to celebrate, we are opening a Twitter account and attempting to get some views.
I realise now that I should have started a whole new blog for Win the Summer. I didn't think I'd really write every day. Well, I didn't. If you're reading this and you recognise me, can you please inform me? I have been writing this blog in the supposition of anonymity, as there is little point otherwise. I am careful, but only up to a point.
What is Win the Summer?
Win the Summer is a personal project. I am a teacher who is off work for the holidays and realises that she did not make the most of previous summers. I am determined that this summer will be different. The main difference is that I am going about things intentionally, rather than drifting. Another difference is that I am following, as best I can, Hal Elrod's "Miracle Morning" routine. Had I picked up this book in my local Waterstone's (it's there), I would have dismissed it as just another self-help book that promised the world but is hard to stick to and ephemeral in its benefits. However, I downloaded it onto my Kindle Fire having heard it recommended on Twitter by people I hold to be sensible. The book itself is quite skimmable and there's a good summary of it here by Philosophers Notes. (Brian Johnson does good summaries and his blackboard presentations are much easier to take in than the usual animated book summaries that proliferate on YouTube).
So far, I can recommend it, as it works very well for some-one who is temporarily without much structure and who doesn't have to be in a particular place in the mornings. Would I recommend sacrificing sleep and getting up at half-five to do it? Totally not. I plan, when I go back to work, to get up a little earlier and incorporate elements like five-minutes meditation in my morning, but that's about it. Not that I am planning too much for work at this point. The summer is still young.
That is, relatively young. There are around seven weeks left of my mini-sabbatical. A mini-sabbatical is how I see it. For ten years I did not take this break, but instead earned extra income by correcting exams. What a mistake that was, but I can't go back now and change things.
Along with the Miracle Morning (can I stop capitalising that?), I have a couple of other projects on the go. Right now, I am attempting Less Plastic July. I have also started a #26habits ....what? "Practice" sounds absurd, but maybe that's the closest. This is inspired by Emma Gunavardhana's excellent podcast on the-pool.  I am still on the first one...Staying out of TKMaxx, and am due to start another one next Monday.
The other main thing, in fact the main thing, is that I am taking time this summer To Do Some Serious Writing. I know I am building this up to be too big a thing. How is this going? On the one hand I am writing every day. On the other, this is on various desultory, embryonic scraps of wittering rather than anything substantial or even fictional. And I am not spending enough time on it. Still, I must not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I am doing a bit. There is progress. Still, progress doesn't get you there, just on to the next section of road that's indistinguishable from the other. To put this in perspective, I style myself as a fiction writer, but my current output averages out at one short story a year. In seven years' time ( I currently have three I consider presentable) I'll have enough for an anthology.
I feel there is more I could be doing. This feeling is in itself a sign of progress. How have I lost other summers? Through half-heartedness and not pushing through. Through not taking up opportunities, through going to events but not speaking to people and going home early, through failing to prioritise, through attempting to live some-one else's life and doing things merely because they were expected of me.
This year is different. Even so far, it is different.

WTS Day XXVII

I hope I'm still doing the Roman numerals correctly. Last night I made a list of my top nine self-help books. I had intended to go for ten but couldn't think of a tenth. I'd say I will, and then post I was surprised that's as far as I could go. I think it was partly because I allowed only one book per author. 

My copy of Dorothea Brande's "Becoming a Writer" came yesterday. Tomorrow I will start the writing as soon as I wake up. I did do one exercise and was very pleased with what came out of it. I think I will do it again. 

So far, her programme involves two parts:

1. Writing on waking. This conflicts with "The Miracle Morning". I see however, that there a "Miracle Morning for Writers" book, that I could consult. On the other hand, if I stick to writing in a bedside notebook, then there is no reason why I couldn't slot this in before Silence. 

2. Writing by appointment. As well as first thing in the morning, Brande recommends a definite time to write. I have been sticking to my twenty-minute a day minmum, but suspect this would also be a good idea. When though? The morning is the obvious time. We will say 9 am, from Monday, and start with 20 minutes, increasing every week by five minutes. This will allow for finishing the miracle morning. 

Shouldn't I prioritise writing over the miracle morning? I mean I could be doing real writing right now instead of this this typing. I don't know. I think of this as a kind of mental house-keeping. Perhaps the five-minute journal would suffice. I have started in a different notebook as my yellow still has not arrived from the hotel and I suspect it won't at this stage. 

This weekend is tough as there is nothing on. There was a lot I could have done last weekend but I was away at the Christening, or recovering on the Sunday. This is how things happen. You pick yourself up and you move on. I could have signed up to a Meetup or something. There is always something, and if there isn't you can arrange something or just go off into the country somewhere. 

I am going to go into town once this is written. I have a couple of things to pick up. Just a couple, mind you. Staying our of You Know Where. There is very little I need food-wise (onions, bread). There is a hair-care product I want to buy in Boots (Bumble and Bumble stuff that means you don't have to blow-dry your hair, will buy the travel size to experiment).

I am thinking about going back to ordering books. There is a book I want and it is much cheaper on the bookdepository. If I didn't know the book depository are owned by Amazon then I would have bought it there already. It is more expensive to order books in a bookshop, and compared to Amazon they take longer to come. They're more predictable than bookdepository though. 

My scruples were there already but have been strengthened by reading this review from Quillette. It'd be wrong altogether to order "The War on Normal People" online wouldn't it? It echoes what I've thought for a while: our obsession with e-commerce and automation is a form of economic cannibalism. I already rarely use the self-service checkouts in the supermarket and deplore their introduction to our libraries. I say "rarely" but I do use them. 

WTS Day XXVI

One aspect of WTS I am struggling with is avoiding the sun. I came back from holidays determined to really avoid it this week, yet every day I have been out in it. Monday I went shopping, Tuesday I can't remember but there was something, Wednesday I walked over to some-one's house for lunch, yesterday I went out in the garden with my nephew. This is all less exposure than if I didn't think about it, but is still probably more than the average office-worker gets. I must become more disciplined where this is concerned. UV rays are at an all-time, crazy high. It was 29 degrees yesterday and set to go over 30 today. I feel guilty now about my four flights, with two more coming up in September. I know lots of people don't worry about flights, thinking the key to tackling global warming lies with governments. That is true, but in the age of Trump, we must all do what we can do. 

My own life is not eco-friendly in the slightest. I live alone, in a house I could have done more to insulate. I don't have solar panels, even though I love the idea of them.It is true that I retro-fitted an old house rather than building a new one. That is something. And it is much more energy-efficient than when I bought it. If back again I would insulate under the floor-boards and put in triple-glazed windows. I drive to work, in a B rated, diesel car. I am also guilty that I could have car-pooled twice as much as I did last year, but never got around to changing my supervision. It is quite probable that car-pooling will be out of the question next year and it definitely will the year after. But who knows after that. I could take the bus into town a lot more. Not that my driving into town is a huge source of CO2: it's only around a mile and a half. Maybe two miles. 

On the other hand I'm mostly vegetarian. I don't take a whole load of flights. I buy bar soap and butter not in tubs. I am delighted with Thinx: they are practical and have led to a real reduction in the amount of sanpro I am discarding. That is one small win. 

How is the Miracle Morning going? 

Silence: very well, doing this every morning, even when away.

Affirmations: was going well. My notebook still hasn't arrived and I think I'm going to have to start a new one. 

Visualisation: not doing this one. 

Exercise: a bit sporadic. Back in the gym again two days a week and most of the others doing a quick abs routine. Doing these in the morning does help, and sometimes I get into the shower amazed at how many things I've ticked off so early in the day. This actually saves on the willpower needed, while simultaneously fostering good habits and discipline. 

Reading: like silence, this is going really well. Every morning at home I set the alarm and read fiction for ten minutes. I don't bother with this while away because I'm good to read on trains and planes anyway. 

Scribing: This is what I have chosen to do for scribing. I am doing it every morning that I'm at home. When away I keep my paper diary. I wrote in the paper diary yesterday as well because I was afraid to discuss the big development here.

It is all a bit nuts, but it is helping. Helping what is the question. This sounds very self-helpy, but it's helping me live more intentionally and focus my attention. This in turn is making me less emotionally labile and better able to detach a bit from what certain other people think about me. 

WTS Day XXI

I have made it to Day 21, but my 5 Minute Journal hasn't. I think I left in the hotel in Dublin , where I stayed on Friday night. I have rung them but they haven't found it. There is a possibility that it'll turn up here, but I doubt it will. That is because there is only one place in the case where it would have been, and it's not there. I wrote in it yesterday morning, but must have missed it when it came to packing up. Maybe it is a good idea to bring my packing list with me for packing for home as well as packing for departure.
The reason I was looking for it was to make a list of the Lessons of the Day I have been learning since starting WTS. Because it has been so hard I feel like I need to at least have learnt some lessons from the experience.
I certainly didn't feel like I was winning the summer when sitting on the 102 bus in from Dublin Airport. The sun was beating in on me and I couldn't get comfortable as the bus lurched and stopped and my case was banging against my legs. I was so sick of that case, having spent the week minding it and watching it and bringing it everywhere with me. The flight had started badly with me spilling half a bottle of Diet Coke over Keith Duffy's immaculate runners. Then we were held on the plane for ages as they didn't have the sky-bridge ready. Then I didn't know where the 102 went from (though in fairness it didn't take me too long to find it). Then I was the only person who wanted to get off at the tennis club, but I didn't press the bell and the bus was on to the next stop before I got off. I was frazzled in the extreme, but the hotel was lovely and I slept almost as well as I would have at home.
I was also pre-menstrual the whole time. These things happen. But that is probably the biggest factor in how overwhelmed I felt. I was having a nervous breakdown on the bus, hyperventilating and moaning, with other passengers asking if I was okay. I just couldn't cope any more. And my ears had popped  during the quick landing.
I felt relief this morning that I have my travel over with for the summer. I know that when it beds down it will have done me good. I saw things I hadn't seen before. Even though I though Bordeaux would be my main holiday and was pissed off with myself for booking the London trip at all, it was the London trip I got more out of in the end. I think I appreciated it so much after the experience in France. I saw the Westfield shopping centre, and the V&A, and I went to the big Waterstones in Piccadilly(waste really) and went to the National Theatre and I  met two friends on consecutive nights. I love London and am hopping mad over Brexit. Like most thinking people. I felt like I could have spent more time there, and I'm looking forward to going back in September. I think I might change my flight to earlier in the day that Friday, to give myself more time. The one thing I really missed was having the laptop to write in and blog as well. I think I could invest in a portable laptop, definitely.
The Westfield shopping centre was the most interesting thing I saw and I could have gone back there to do some shopping on the second day. The sales were on and all the chain-stores are cheaper there anywhere even outside of the sales. It is Europe's largest shopping centre but there is no bookshop there. On the one hand, the choice is intoxicating, but on the other the empty consumerism is nauseating. I am conflicted between wanting to have nice things and live as elegant a lifestyle as I can, and feeling that none of those things matter and they are a false trap for my attention. Coming to a compromise here is something worth thinking about. I think scheduling and limiting the amount of time devoted to shopping is part of the solution.