I’ve seen calendars chock full in friends’ homes, in client offices, in my teachers’ agendas, and I wonder why we do it to ourselves?

We can’t go as fast as we can constantly. We need the down time. Why don’t we include this in our to-do list?

I am going to make a proclamation.

Everyone must schedule some down time every day. Other than sleep, other than meditating or praying or studying, and other than aimless television viewing.

“What? But that’s my down time!” I can hear the arguments.

Actually, you’re still doing something. But when do you just stop? When do you pour yourself a glass of lemonade and sit and watch clouds? When do you lay in the grass and allow yourself to be covered by ladybugs?

“Lovely idea, Trish. Can you get back to reality now?”

Sure. Here’s some reality: If you don’t stop, or refuse to slow down, your body and brain will do it for you.

How many reading this blog are tired, struggle with worry or fear, wrestle insecurities every minute, and wonder if they will ever be good enough?

Are we crazy? Why do we insist on flying through life without stopping to give ourselves the rest we crave and need?

I’ve talked a lot on this blog about how I need time to read stupid novels and watch reruns. I’m reconfiguring that as of yesterday. I sat outside on my back porch yesterday afternoon to watch the squirrels and birds and cats (and our resident Rocky Raccoon) interact yesterday. Oh the chaos. When I turned off the music, turned off the phone, turned off the writing conference and marketing conference mp3s I’ve been listening to endlessly, the animals were putting on a show. And it was hilarious.

I laughed so hard at the squirrel who had his hand inside the birdhouse, making sure he hadn’t missed the birds who flew the coop days ago. Then the birds who left sat on the railing cawing at him (their babies must be nearby) and suddenly a new cat (the one that has adopted our backyard) strolled around the corner of the house and startled the squirrel and the birds and it just made me laugh. All that drama.

Notice the bird and the cat and the squirrel don’t sit around and wonder if they’re going to be okay, if they’ve done enough, if they’re being mean or nice enough. And if they’re tired, they sleep.

I may have been sick for almost three weeks, but I’ve learned something. It is only us humans who add way too much to our days and thus come down with every cold, flu, and cough around. And it is only us who psyche ourselves out trying to keep up with the Keeping Up With the Joneses race that in reality doesn’t even exist.

Schedule some breathing room for yourself. Smell the flowers, stare at the clouds, take a nap in the sunshine. The world is a good place. You’re going to be just fine.

We saw a lot of For Sale signs up north. But we also admired many beautiful homes all lit up like beacons. The prices for water-view lots were pretty good (compared to what we expected; I think now is the time to buy a vacation home), but it would take a massive life shift to do it.

We talked about it a few times, reminding each other that to live on an island, our schedule would alter dramatically (racing to catch the ferryboat in order to get to the mainland). It would take some sacrifice in order to live with a water view. We’re not sure how or when, but it is something we would like to do at some point. The logistics of it will have to work out providentially in order for it to happen, and it definitely is not now (no matter how good the prices are), due to some financial goals we’re still working on.

So our conversation turned to our choices–things we’ve chosen in the past five-plus years, choices we intend to make this year and into the next few years. This is where the hard stuff is.

The day-to-day of the choices we make is real life. We can decide on one way and then find out what we feared all along: that way is hard. Or we’ll have no idea and then find out the way we’ve chosen is the hard way.

Either way, the slogging through will bring to mind why we made these choices in the first place. And that’s where I am today. Just reviewing some choices, making sure I really do want to keep to this path, thinking through the reasons I chose this way, and so on.

Nothing too drastic, everything I’ve mentioned on this blog is still in place, just a minor task I took on has proved to be a bit more daunting than I originally thought.

I think I’ll survive. But if I can get back on track with this minor task, there’s soon to be a slew of new choices on the horizon.

From War of Art, Steven Pressfield writes,

Because when we sit down day after day and keep [going], something mysterious starts to happen. A process is set into motion by which, inevitably and infallibly, heaven comes to our aid. Unseen forces enlist in our cause; serendipity reinforces our purpose.

This is the other real secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don’t. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. When we sit down and work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come. Insights accrete.

Go write today!

The biggest issue I have on a daily basis is using my brain for the right tasks. Sure, it’s one thing to set aside time to write and work, but often, don’t you find that your brain goes just a bit on auto-pilot? The thoughts that come when I least expect them to. “You’re a failure, you can’t do this, look how you failed the first time.”

Oh good grief.

1. Keep your brain busy enough on some project everyday. Thinking about a project is much more enjoyable to me than thinking about how I’ve failed in the past. I work very hard each morning to start off my day with some time to read things I WANT to think about (usually for me the Psalms) and then I put up a post-it on my monitor with a question my subconscious mind is working through on a project. Sometimes, it’s work-related: “Do the Cochrane refs in Best Health need the year included?” and sometimes it’s me-related: “So if I make these characters cousins, does that change my story too much? or “Do I need to include the stimulus plan data on COBRA health plans in X’s blog post?”

2. Recognize when you’re headed into the dark territory. Stop yourself. There’s no reason to rehash bad mistakes. We’ve all made them. We were mean to someone, someone was mean to us, we gossiped about someone, someone gossiped about us, we criticized someone, someone criticized us. LET IT GO already. Move on. No need to rehash. If you have to take it to your higher power, do so. There’s no reason to be pressed down by things that make us human.

3. Recognize your patterns. If you haven’t been able to read much all day, find 15 minutes to fill your mind with something good. If you find yourself not doing well because of what you’re reading, read something else. It’s all about you knowing what your brain needs to stay clear and ready to function well.

4. Try to avoid television or radio that makes life seem futile. There are some days listening to NPR that I just can’t take anymore. I flip the switch and turn it off. Or the evening news (I will not watch it, unless the President is speaking to me) or daytime television, or evening comedy sitcoms (futility at its best!), movies from Netflix (only a rare few are worth the time they require), or even the evening crime shows. I think most media subverts my creativity, so I ignore it. Now, LOST is another story (but you knew that already).

5. Back away from negative people. I have friends who are like on/off buttons. One minute, they are delighted with life and then the next thing you hear, life just sucks. I keep those folks at arm’s length. It takes too much of my glass half-full energy stores to pump them up, plus, as my hubby always tells me, I need those energy stores for myself, my marriage, and people in my life who really are struggling and need me. I’m not saying to cut anyone off, but if they can’t give me any effort when I’m trying to give them energy, well, we both need some space.

Tactics like this are no brainers to some of you, but I only recently learned these in the past five years. It took a drastic life change, change of scenery, change of friendships, change of life role, change of jobs, even change of climate to show me that I had been in a rut. I’m sure I’m now in another rut, but this is my rut and I’m supposed to be here.

In his treatise, The War of Art, Steven Pressfield writes,

“If you find yourself criticizing other people, you’re probably doing it out of Resistance. When we see others beginning to live their authentic selves, it drives us crazy if we have not lived out our own.

Individuals who are realized in their own lives almost never criticize others. If they speak at all, it is to offer encouragement. Watch yourself. Of all the manifestations of Resistance, most only harm ourselves. Criticism and cruelty harm others as well.”

From Steven Pressfield’s invaluable book,

I’m not talking about craft; that goes without saying. The professional is prepared at a deeper level. He is prepared, each day, to confront his own self-sabotage. The professional understands that Resistance is fertile and ingenious. It will throw stuff at him that he’s never seen before. The professional prepares mentally to absorb blows and to deliver them. His aim is to take what the day gives him. He is prepared to be prudent and prepared to be reckless, to take a beating when he has to, and to go for the throat when he can. He understands that the field alters every day. His goal is not victory (successwill come by itself when it wants to) but to handle himself, his insides, as sturdily and steadily as he can.

Are you prepared today? Let’s do it!

So yesterday one of my writing teachers said she rediscovered the art of kaizen while throwing out most of her stuff in order to remodel her house. For you who don’t know, kaizen is the “Japanese technique of achieving great and lasting success through small, steady steps.”

Of course, I LOVE these kinds of things. Even the most tiny bit of change or step forward can be used to accomplish greater things.

I immediately turned my heavy gaze onto the “slush pile” sitting on my office floor. I attacked it. Got through a big file box full of vision board stuff (pictures I tore out of magazines and such) and it felt great. I threw out most of it (I can always find more vision board supplies in the magazines I still have) and then figured out that I was not utilizing my space well. A friend is moving her family of six (almost seven; she’s expecting while she does this) children into a new home that her husband is fixing up for them. She has an incredible sense of style and simplicity and the amazing skill of utilizing everything she finds into something of beauty. I did not inherit that gift (I feel like I have to spend money, even if I buy everything on sale, to fix up my home), but I did remember a very beautiful wood project box that I bought (see!) years ago from Levenger that I had sent upstairs to hubby’s office. I had him haul it back down last night and it fit perfectly underneath a wood desk (Alyssa stores a lot of stuff under things, so I was channeling her expertise). Now, I have a great place to store multiple copies of magazines (for the vision board) or writing or reading projects. Plus it looks nice and hubby even mentioned how clean and uncluttered it looked. I’m learning!

Of course, this helps clear my mind to work on the writing and I got some great insights last night working through several lectures from the mythology course and another shorter course on improving sentences. I went to bed feeling quite accomplished all from little tasks. Kaizen!

A few ideas on implementing Kaizen into your daily writing life:

1. Don’t try to do it all in one day. Just do a small portion today and by small, I mean a paragraph, five minutes, one lecture, that sort of thing. Move one pile of papers and file them. Dust one bookshelf.

2. Give yourself tiny token rewards. If you dust that one bookshelf, you get to read what you want, you get to eat a cookie (I want a cookie!), or you get to finish a tv program you have been waiting for. I get the mail, paint my toenails, or look at shopping blogs.

3. Solve small problems. Need a clean surface to sort through the papers? Clear off a space. Throw out old chinese food containers, take empty dishes to the kitchen, anything to clear your space and thus your train of thought.

4. Look for the smaller spaces of time that beckon with delight. If you’re waiting in the car for your kids to finish basketball practice, read your favorite book rather than fret about dinner. If you’re making dinner and waiting for it to be done, instead of fussing about the rotting stuff in the veggie bin, throw it out and bleach the drawer. That small thing, instead of making you feel guilt, should give you joy. One less thing to worry about. Pretty soon you’ll be clearing out bigger and bigger blocks to your creativity.

5. Look for the good. No matter what kind of day you’ve been having, there is always something to smile about. You have money to pay your bills, you have heat, hot water, clothes to wear. Success doesn’t come when you’re always bellyaching about this or that or you just can’t ever be happy with what you’ve got.

All in all, kaizen is radically simple. Perhaps that’s what our overworked, overtaxed, overstimulated lives need right about now. No massive bailout, but a simple help forward. Try it. And have a good day.