Oddities – the 2014 version

Here are a few oddities:

• I have been rushed off my feet with work since before Christmas, yet I have been taking stock.
• I love my sleep, yet I have not had very much of it – unless you count the last four nights.
• I have many plans, but no concrete plan in place for 2014. Now that you feel all good about yourself for having a plan, and shocked that one as disciplined as I in the normal course of events does not, consider the full impact of my first statement. Viewed differently (in translator terms), I have overshot the end of year deadline by a mere 22 days.
• Twenty-two days is not a lot of time when I consider that I shall turn 50 in less than three weeks’ time.
• Forget that previous poor attempt of mine at adopting a philosophical stance; it is nothing more than an ill-conceived justification for my not getting my act together sooner.
• Instead of beating myself up – which I am quite good at  – I decided it was time to go back to basics. Basic timetabling. 
• I made the basic investment of €1 in a pad of A3 drawing paper. I now have a multi-coloured thought map. To me, it revealed a few things. The first is that this map is remarkably similar to one I drew when I was about 15, before the term “thought map” had been invented, I think. This tells me I still conceive my ideas and order my world in much the same way. So much for having a mind open to new ways of thinking! The second important thing to emerge from this sofa-driven activity is that I want to work more, earn more and be more efficient at both. I also want to play more, and relax more while doing so. I am working privately on the details.
• To engage myself fully in the “more” aspect of things, I had to concede that I needed to organise myself better. I shall admit to lapses in organisational skills over the last three months. I have gone really basic now. Straight back to that wonderful drawing board (which I have not had for two full years): the week-to-view paper diary. It doubles up as a daily to-do list and a have-done list. It is what I know works best for me. Low-tech. Some things need to be slow, meditative, purposeful. If you have taken the time, you will have noticed that the centre pole on a roundabout does not move. I am altogether happy with the return to my old method. One thing puzzles me: In a diary (printed in the USA) which lists the names of the months and days of the week in Portuguese, Spanish, French and English, why do I  have a full 16 pages of atlas in English – except for the map of Portugal which is (ha!) all in Portuguese -at the back? A few blank pages for incidental thought maps would have been nice instead.
• For the roundabout part of the picture, I joined Twitter yesterday: @wrightbutton where I do not intend to say too much until just before the aforementioned milestone birthday. The intended announcement then (all very exciting when things are secret, isn’t it?) might go a small way towards proving that I actually can plan the odd thing on the odd occasion.
• I have put the twit-feed on my blog sidebar. This does not make me feel organised.

Allison