Update: I’m finally posting this midway through the month, and I am doing better than usual, but I’m no saint. I’ll try to push through with this until I head to Portland at the end of October.
My plan is to spend the month of September spending as little money as possible.
This will likely lead to a lot of time at home, which I will try to spend simplifying my life, ideally:
- Getting rid of things I don’t need
- Finishing projects that remain incomplete
- Cooking and eating healthy
- Give extra attention to those who mean most…that’s a lot of people, so a few at random every month
- Digitize 30 years of notes, sketches and scraps of paper. I have a lot of scraps of paper
- Hydrate!
- Respond to concerns as they arise, immediately and in the moment
- Generally don’t procrastinate on anything
- Pick three projects, one personal, one professional and one creative and attack them like a hungry piranha
- Deep breaths while commuting… unless the train smells bad, which is often
- Do one thing at a time
- bias toward action!
- Organize, compartmentalize and itemize (label)
- Read the several months of backed up papers and magazines. Don’t renew subscriptions… except NYT
- Unsubscribe, unsubscribe, unsubscribe (I’m on a lot of email lists that I delete without reading)
- Don’t make so many damned lists
If you have any advice or words of encouragement, feel free to share, and if you feel like buying me a drink, call me in September.
you can do it! i went through a TON of paperwork last night, mostly old bills and financial documents. working on organizing my life a bit too.
take photos of progress… there are people that would love to see it! (motivation?)
i’d buy you a drink but is that weird for a former student to do that?
No Clarizeyale, at this point, I think we’re far enough out that it is allowable.
#4 is by far the most important — no guilt — no alterior motive except your heart
Thanks, Mom! Glad I left “spend all the money I save on hookers and blow” off the list!
BEHAVE YOURSELF