Today was a much needed day of relaxation and rest, a day to meet my health and wellness needs. As someone with strong tendencies toward
over-scheduling, a day like today presents a real challenge. I still had a list for the day mind you, it just had items like yoga and sitting in the garden and meditating on it. I still did two important items I didn't complete yesterday, and did some fairly significant cleaning. But I was talking on the phone to a good friend while cleaning, so that was still relaxing. Do these "Doing" activities negate the time I spent on health and wellness today? Do they tarnish the relaxation I experienced overall today? Will I ever have a day with no lists at all? I do have occasional list-free days, but they usually involve me being in another country, at a retreat, or otherwise totally immersed in an experience outside of my regular life. And yet, I feel so content that I did so many "good for me" things today. And I know I would have done less of them without my list - probably filling in the time with watching videos or surfing the internet, which are definitely not healing or wellness activities for me. These are the times when I wonder how much to use my particular Type A tendencies to my advantage rather than trying to "evolve" beyond them. But perhaps this outlook will keep me stuck in a paradigm I no longer subscribe to where Productivity is the highest value. Maybe I will eventually view constant list-making as inherently flawed. There must be some Type A readers out there. What do you think? Are you able to harness your peculiar organization and planning obsessions for good, or do they just get in the way of you relaxing and going with the flow?
I am still a huge fan of lists. I find them helpful for getting shit done, and also for reducing stress. If I know that the important things are written down, I don't have to keep thinking about what needs to happen, I can just refer to my list as needed. And also, I can often go waaaay too far with my lists. I still would like to spend more days list-free, which continues to be very rare. And, it is significantly more days per year than when I wrote this post 10 years ago! So yay for me and the sloooow shifts toward more relaxation and less productivity.
ReplyDelete