Some interesting observations I had in May

One thing I've been doing since I took the 7 Habits class is, after the kids have gone to bed and I have fed the cats and generally cleaned up the house is that I take my day planner, sit down on the couch, and, in addition to planning the next day (or week), I write down whatever is on my mind. It might be little observations. It might be a "shitty first draft" of something I need to write up. Call it a brain flush, but I just want to get the thoughts down in case they are useful later.

Once a month, it's a good idea to go through the notes from the previous month and see what ideas bear revisiting.

"The happiest part of my week is going out with my son to teeball." Not necessarily because it's time with my son, but I have so much fun with all of the kids out there.

"I like noodling with music. Few people. if any, know about that." My wife told me a while ago that she couldn't figure out how I was able to walk up to a piano and "work out" the notes to a song. That got me thinking back into my past. I did take piano lessons when I was about eight, and so I have some rudimentary skills in playing the piano. I can remember always having a fondness for the piano, even if I never followed through with the lessons. I got to explore my musical ideas with Garage Band recently, which I found quite interesting. I used it as the basis for one of the podcasts I submitted to T.W.A.T. recently.

"I want a MacBook for my birthday." I don't think this needs any explanation. :)

"I want to improve my marriage." I know I've had this thought before.

"If I knew I couldn't fail, what would I do? 1. Get down to 195 pounds. 2. Getting paid to blog for my employer. 3. Make an insanely great podcast. All of these are going to require planning.

"My body wants more sleep." Lately, I haven't been staying up as long as usual, choosing to go to bed at an earlier hour. This evening, I am at my more usual 2am or so. :)

"I've been spending less time online." I've actually been enjoying not sitting on the computer, which is what I do during that "planning" time and why I am keeping a paper day planner instead of using Outlook, et. al.

"Im finding the space between stimulus and response." At least more often, though I know I have a ways to go in this area.

"I need a quick meditation technique." When I was doing some research on the net about meditation, I ran across a technique that would require only a couple of minutes of meditation, but it would give your mind a quick refresh. I need to find that again any try it.

"Compass, not clock." The direction you are going is generally more important than how long it takes you to get there.

"Leo Laporte said on a podcast recently that you should do what you love and the rest will take care of itself." How true.

That covers about 10 days worth--I didn't actually start doing the brain dumps until a couple of weeks after I started with the day planner. We'll see what I come up with next month.