colors and precious moments

When I was living in the US I was impressed by the way most Americans seem to be able to talk about their strengths and talents without seeming arrogant or obnoxious. In Europe, I think, and in particular in the northern part, this isn't acceptable. The highest virtue is modesty, to the extend that you should never claim or believe that you are really good at anything.

So, breaking the rules of my upbringing, I want to tell you that I am really good with colors:) Like some people are with numbers. (Actually since I've started, I am not so bad with numbers either). I have always been interested in and fascinated by colors, and when I was a kid words and names had colors in my head. When I took a painting class a few years ago, the teacher constantly commented on my talent with colors. (And I scored perfectly on this test;)).

So, as someone who loves colors, I am really enjoying filling out the weekly planner in various ones. (The template for my weekly planner comes from the Positivity Project) ...Now I see my time in colors! In my schedule I have different colors for work time and family time, yellow represents appointments, and now bright aqua blue (perhaps I am not so good with the names of the colors...?) represents my precious, precious moments. In these hours I have planned things that will undoubtedly give me some really happy and meaningful moments in my week. Who says you can't plan and schedule your happiness...?

First: I just got home from a weekend getaway with a very good friend of mine. Whole 3 days of walking around the beautiful streets of Amsterdam with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Just chat,wine,chesse,coffee,food,museum,little bit of shopping...it was absolutely perfect.

Secondly: I finally scheduled massage/spa treatment using a gift card that I received more than a year ago. I think it is crazy that it has taken me more than a year to squeeze this into my schedule. But finally I did. And I am really really looking forward to it.

Lastly: I have scheduled "a cozy night" with my children. En hyggeaften as we say here in Denmark. The plan is to make pizza together and then watch Winnie the Pooh. Not very original or extravagant. But the key here is just to be present, and to enjoy the company of my wonderful children.

So much happiness in one week:):):) Life is good.

weekly planner

Experts agree that one of they keys to success when it comes to reaching your goals is accountability.

I have been thinking about how to make myself more accountable, and just came across this idea. Christine from the Positivity Project has made her own weekly planner, including all her goals and commitments, and updates it live.

I think her template for the weekly planner is awesome, and it incorporates most of the things that I would want to have in my weekly overview. And by making your plan public you get an extra incentive to keep your commitments...which is exactly what I need!

So I've filled out my weekly planner for this week, and will be updating it daily:) I am looking forward to the week ahead. Cheers, Di.

Creating a Safety Net

To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don't need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself. - Thich Nhat Hanh

The first step in the The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play, is to create a safety net. The goal is to learn how to lessen your fear of failure and to bounce back from your mistakes by creating an inner self-worth that does not depend on how well you'll do at the task at hand.

The following thought experiment is from the book. The task in your life is to walk a board. Consider how you would feel about the task in each of the following situations:

Situation A: The task before you is to walk a solid board that is thirty feet long, four inches thick, and one foot wide. You have all the physical, mental, and emotional abilities necessary to perform this task.

Situation B: ...the task is just the same...only now the board is suspended between two buildings 100 feet above the pavement.

Situation C: ...you are still on the board suspended between two buildings, 100 feet above the ground...While thinking about what to do, you suddenly feel heat behind you and can hear the crackling noise of fire. The building supporting your end of the board is on fire!

Situation D: You're back on the board again, 100 feet above the ground...But there is no fire this time, only a strong, supportive net, just three feet beneath the board.

How would you feel about the task in Situation A? What about Situation B?

When we over identify who we are, our worth as a person, with the outcome of our work, we move our task from Situation A to Situation B. When a failure or a mistake makes us feel worthless fear can make it impossible to start our project. Perfectionism raises the board 100 feet from the ground.

In Situation C we can choose between possible death (walking the board between the buildings) or certain death (waiting for the fire). Most of us would take the chance and walk the board. When we procrastinate we are setting that fire, we are moving from Situation B to Situation C. If we think that our performance reflects our inner worth, procrastination gives us a buffer...we do not have time to do our best, thus our work is not revealing our real ability.

If we are in Situation C we need to find a way to turn it into Situation D. We need a way to let ourselves know that failing does not mean the end of the world. We need a sense of inner worth that does not depend on our success, our performance, etc. We need to know and remember that we have a spirit, an inner self, that is perfect, and will always be perfect.

procrastination

In his book, Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-free Play, Neil Fiore advises people to keep a procrastination log. The idea is to record when you procrastinate, what you procrastinate on, your thoughts, your feelings, your justification, and how you deal with it. (Of course how you deal with it, is a little bit affected by the fact that you are monitoring your procrastination). Here is my log from the last couple of days:

Work, morning 26/11. A co-worker asks me to take over her project. I really do not want to, but I also sympathize with her situation, and end up agreeing to it. It involves giving a lecture in front of 200 people within a few days. I still haven't started preparing. Feel a bit like a victim for having taken on this task. Feel overwhelmed, and stressed about not having enough time to prepare, about doing a bad job, about being unable to answer questions etc. I procrastinate even thinking about this and still haven't started the preparation.

Work, morning 27/11. Working on a simple project. As I am working I realize the project is more complicated and time consuming then I originally thought. I feel overwhelmed and frustrated. As some kind of reflex, I open up my email and facebook. I procrastinated for about 10-15 minutes, but then forced myself to get back to the task.

Work, afternoon 27/11. I finally get back to my important project that has been neglected for a while. There is no fixed deadline, but I feel like this project should have been finished months ago. It involves finishing up a research project and sending it out for publication. I am really reluctant to finish this up, as I am afraid that it has mistakes, or that it will not be perceived well. At the same time I am irritated at my self that I haven't gotten this project out of the way sooner. As to justification, I feel like I never have time to work on the project and finish it up, but I am still very much aware of that lack of time is not the main problem here.

Home, evening 27/11. I look at the boxes in my living room. Simplifying the children's room a few weeks ago left me with 4 boxes full of toys that I am not sure what to do with. It feels wasteful to throw them out, I want to give them away but I don't know who would take toys for charity. Then I feel overwhelmed about the task of figuring that out, and about getting the boxes somewhere else. I am also concerned that my kids will actually miss some of the toys, and I will have to explain to them that I gave them away. I should probably involve them in the process....but that too is overwhelming. I am frustrated at myself, my indecisivness and my tendency to drag project like these on forever.

Work, morning 28/11. Need to start on a task that I expect to be both boring and time-consuming. For a moment I get caught in the victim role, I think about what I "have to do" and what I "should be doing." I check email and fb for 10-15 minutes. Then I shake it off, and think to myself "I choose to start on this now, and get it over with as soon as possible," and I make a commitment to myself to work on it for at least 30 minutes. The task ends up being less boring and less time consuming than I expected it to be.

the last minute

I may have mentioned this one or two times before, but I have a problem with finishing tasks in time. While I meet deadlines and usually show up for appointments on time, there is often a lot of last minute stress involved. I've tried to avoid these situations but unfortunately been rather unsuccessful.

Some people claim they are more efficient when working last minute, or that they are more creative when working under pressure. I refuse to believe this. It may be true that there is some correlation between being creative and being an unorganized procrastinator, but I don't think that is a causal relationship. I sincerely believe that those creative people would be even more creative if they managed to overcome this bad habit. It is exhausting, it is stressful, and recently, I've really started to see how this stress affects my temper and how I sometimes take it out on the people around me.

When people repeatedly get themselves into these last minute situation it usually means they have a bad sense of time. But it is also very psychological. I don't think it is laziness. It is perfectionism, insecurity, indecision and sometimes a lack of ability to focus.

When deadlines approach project becomes better defined in my mind. The time-limit becomes more tangible and what I can and cannot do is more evident. But I also become stressed. There is no room for assessing, being creative, revising and refining. There is also no room for unexpected things, like computers crashing, children getting sick, etc.

So how do I deal with this???

• The practical side involves stuff like making plans, using my calender, being better organized, putting a buffer in my work plans, dividing big projects into smaller ones, etc. I've done all of this to some extent. It helps. But still I often end up with the last minute situation...
• What is probably more important is to work on the psychological side: the insecurity, the indecision, the perfectionism. I somehow need to shift my thinking...my paradigms.
• Finally I think it takes practice. It is a bit like a muscle that needs exercise. I need to find situations where I can start practicing with smaller projects, and then go on to bigger projects.

If anyone has good advise on this I'd love to hear it!

/Di

November: back to basics

November is the sixth month of my impeccable project. I feel like now is the time to sit down, take a breath and evaluate the progress I've made so far. I want to use this month to reestablish and reinforce some of my earlier resolutions. Moreover, I want to take time to finish some unfinished projects...making space for new, more exciting ones:)

For the last couple of months I also feel like my resolution charts have grown out of control, and I have been slacking on some of my more important habits, such as my meditation practice, my gratitude journal and I've also found it difficult to find the time to sit down and write posts for this blog. However, these resolutions are the foundation to my project. The feeling of balance and happiness that comes with meditating and focusing on gratitude is truly amazing. And this blog has been so valuable to me. Writing the posts helps to keep me on track, but more importantly it has given me the opportunity to interact with and get inspiration from other bloggers on a similar journey. So...

Resolutions that I want to reiterate this month:

• meditate
• write in my gratitude jorunal
• blog at least 2x a week
• be present
• bring lunch to work (healthier and saves money)
• be proactive: focus on voice, posture, and excuses

Tasks that I want to finish in November:

• empty my email inboxes (there are currently 3756 emails that need to be processed)
• finish the blanket I'm knitting
• Christmas presents (part of my impeccable time/stop doing things last minute resolution;))

Looking back:

• June *Mind and Positivity*: In June I started meditating, writing in my gratitude journal, exercising on regular basis, and I also started this blog. I focused on happiness, and read several books on the topic. This month really was a success, and a great way to start the project. I think of this as the basis for everything, and want to continue focusing as much as I can on positivity and happiness. In the last couple of months I have been slacking in this area, and it is very important to me to get back on track...
• July *Home*: In July I focused on my home, both the apartment we live in, but also on getting to know Copenhagen a little bit better. I bought flowers, lit candles, made the bed every day, decluttered...and walked a lot arount the city. Many of the habits from this month have really stuck. I wish I was better at keeping the clutter away...but there is definitely an improvement. After some delays, I painted my children's room, and gave away four or five boxes of toys. That room looks so much better now, and the children are actually much better at playing in their room now when they have fewer toys:)
• August *Family*: This month was really important to me, as I worked on my relationship with my children. To lighten up, be more patient, be better at talking and listening. This was super successful, and our communications have really transformed. This alone has made the project worthwhile:)
• September *Work*: I wanted to use September to decrease stress, and to become more organized at work. This was not a very successful month. But hopefully some of the work I did that month will prove to be useful for progressing in the future.
• October *Time and Money*: Unfortunately I did not address my money issues at all that month. I did continue working on my relationship with time, and made some improvements. But apparently this is not an easy task for me...so this will continue to be on my agenda. In October, I also started reading the 7 habits of highly effective people. The first habit is to be more proactive, and I have been working on that with some success. That alone makes me feel like I achieved something of imporatance in October:)

Looking forward:

I've rearranged the rest of my project a bit and now the calander looks like this:
• December: Impeccable Fun and Friendship - be there, reach out, lighten up and have fun
• January: Impeccable Health and Beauty - find ways to treat myself and my body better and with more respect
• February: Impeccable Love and Marriage - be kind, have fun, love infinitely and unconditionally
• March: Impeccable Passion and Meaning - Find my passion, work on independence, and "being me", make time time for what is important
• April: Environment and Nature - find ways to enjoy nature and be kinder to the environment
• May: Bootcamp Impeccable

luv, Di.

October: wrap up

In October I wanted to deal with money and time. I did make some improvements with regards to time, but was less successful in dealing with money...

My October Resolutions

• Wake up 6:20: I set my alarm clock every weekday, but it was sort of irrelevant as my children woke up before that time almost every day. It did give me a sense of having more control over my mornings though. I am undecided whether I should try setting the alarm clock 10-15 minutes earlier. On the one hand I would love to have a little bit of time for myself in the mornings before the crew wakes up, on the other hand I feel like I desperately need all the sleep I can get...
• Be present: I definitely made the effort here:)
• Monitor/log every penny: this did not happen.
• Take a few days where I log my time, minute from minute: I did this for two days and was not surpriced to find out that too much of my time is divided between Category I (urgent and important, such as workstuff that has imminent deadlines) and Category IV (non-urgent and non-important, such as spending too much time on facebooking, internet browsing, watching tv). My goal is to increase time in Category II - i.e. spend more time on things that are important but non-urgent.
• Be proactive: I definitely exercised this muscle a bit.
• Make weekly plans: I did and it really helped me get an overview of my schedule, goals, projects, deadlines, etc. I think this can be very helpful when trying to move my time more into Category II.
• No non-essential spending: Unfortunately I was not very good at this.
• Bring lunch to work: I did this for the first week and than I gave up. I will try again.
• Say positive affirmations about abundance (in terms of both time and money): did this a few times, but not nearly every day.
• Do not stress about time or money: Not really successful here.

Other related things that I did this month was to start reading The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People...and in order to minimize stress and urgent tasks in the next couple of months I took up this challenge and have started preparing the holidays:)
Have a wonderful weekend!

/Di

Important Tasks, Urgent Tasks and Nagging Tasks

I've been struggling a bit with my project this month. Work caught up with me again, and I've been way too busy, hardly being able to keep head above water. But one of the main goals for this month was to improve my relationship with time and learn how to avoid these situations.

I think that perhaps the most important thing I've learned since starting the happiness project is to be more patient and persistent, as important changes usually take time. I've realized that things rarely happen as fast as I would like, but if instead of giving up, I move on, accepting my failures and learning from my mistakes, eventually amazing things happen. When I look back to my situation when I started this project, I definitely know that I do not want to give up.

So even though my relationship with time is not quite there yet, I want to focus on what has improved. This month I've been planning my time on weekly basis. Each Friday I look at the week ahead and list my deadlines and urgent projects. I also list a couple of important tasks that I want to accomplish. I don't try to schedule every minute of the week. It never works anyway. But I try to get an idea how much can be done during that week considering appointments, meetings, deadlines etc. Each morning I look at my weekly plan and goals and plan the day ahead. This has definitely helped, and I feel like I have more control over things...I am less reactive to outside demands. But the problem is that I still have too many urgent tasks on my to do list. I want to make more space for things that are important to me, but are repeatedly postponed because they are not really urgent.

When I think of urgent tasks these are tasks with clear deadlines that have to be completed now...or never. They can be important, or they can be not so important. Many tasks are not really urgent when they come up, but because I start working on them too late they become urgent. And when they become urgent, I loose control over my time, and I become more reactive than proactive.

I also have nagging tasks on my to-do list. These tend to be semi-important tasks that are not exactly urgent, but because they have been on my to do list for way too long, they make me feel guilty and hence take up way too much energy.

My goal is to eliminate as many urgent and nagging tasks from my to-do list as possible. This means either doing them or dropping them. And then I need to work on my habits to prevent new urgent/nagging tasks on my to do list.

October is already coming to an end. For the next few days I want to log my time in 15 minutes intervals, to get a better sense of where all that time is going...

October: Impeccable Time and Money

Taking responsibility

Time is money.
-Benjamin Franklin

Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. Once you've lost it you can never get it back.
-Harvey MacKay

I decided to tackle time and money in the same month, as I have a very similar relationship to both. I often become stressed and anxious about the lack of time or the lack of money. I do not feel in control over my schedule or my finances. Time and money seem to disappear, and I don't know where it's going. I never have a buffer. I spend out the first days after I get paid, and by the end of the month I usually have zero money, or worse...negative money. In a similar way, I do not have a time-buffer. When I have deadlines, I am working until last minute.

Moreover, there is of course a very close relationship between time and money. We exchange one for the other. We give our time to our employers, instead we get money to buy food, clothes and other stuff. And some of that stuff, when you come to think about it may really not be worth your time...

My October Resolutions

• Wake up 6:20
• Be present
• Monitor/log every penny
• Take a few days where I log my time, minute from minute
• Be proactive
• Make weekly plans
• No non-essential spending
• Bring lunch to work
• Say positive affirmations about abundance (in terms of both time and money)
• Do not stress about time or money

My October Goals

• Read: Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence: Revised and Updated for the 21st Century and the first two chapters in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
• Finish my tasks at least a day before their deadline
• Have at least 300 dkk (approx. 50 usd) in my bank account at the end of the month