Holy changes. David Bowie was onto something. I’m having a very introverted day today and it feels good to shut the blinds, turn off the stimulation, make soup, and chill the F out.
I’ve got a giant TODO task list for the weekend and most of it I’ve been avoiding for weeks. Stuff like…open the giant mail pile, call insurance, digital cleaning, put away seasonal clothes (snore). No wonder I’ve been avoiding it.
I started a new job last month (yay!) and I’m settling in now. I’m doing visual design for mobile and tablet apps. It’s a whole new world for me and I love getting into it. Already in the short time I’ve been there it’s changed my experience for how I view other apps when I’m on my iPad, and thinking about all the design decisions people make: colors, alignment, margins, drop-downs, swipes, toggles, and all that good UX stuff. :)
I’ve been doing a lot of weekend travel lately, for weddings and to see friends and family. Perspective is always nice but I’m happy to be home this weekend with zero plans for a change. Next week I will be heading to Florida for Thanksgiving and will be meeting my family at Harry Potter World. I’m most excited to get lost, be immersed, and of course have some butter beer. :)
One of the things I’d like to work on going forward is discipline and focus. My side projects have been slowly slowly chugging along but I’ve been struggling. A lot of times I want to distract myself so I don’t have to sit down and do the work. Any little phone call, text, or happy hour will seem so much more enticing and I’ve been choosing social hangouts over personal development lately. But I’d like to reel it in a bit.
I recently listened to this awesome podcast on personal discipline (you can find it here). If you are resistant to discipline for any reason this might be helpful for you. It helps reframe the idea in a way that discipline can actually give you MORE freedom, which was a good release point for me. If I think of it like buckling down of course I’m going to resist it. But if I look at discipline in terms of freedom, I think I can jive with that.
One great thing about the new job is that I have more commute time for books. So my reading goals are still on point. Also, I take a new train station that allows me to stop in the bookstore on the way to work and get a coffee there. The smell of the books + morning coffee has been a real treat. But also a stark reminder that I want to be doing more and writing more, and not just stopping BY the bookstore, but writing books to put IN the bookstore.
Between the job transition and feeling a bit unorganized, not to mention a bit uncertain about how I need to reprioritize my goals so that I feel more focused, I’d say I’m doing OK right now. And I’m learning, OK is an ok place to be. I once read that you shouldn’t blog during extremes, when you are extremely happy or extremely down. But it’s also dishonest to me to post overly cheerful posts all the time, when in reality I’m often feeling introverted and reflective. So there ya go. :)
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