Report Card

Report Card Day

When my counselor appointment was canceled yesterday I was quite frustrated by the fact that it would be another three weeks before I'd get more help with my tangled priorities list which is so long and so snarled I it makes me profoundly weary to try to think about it without help.

I expressed this to Ed in our vid chat today and asked him to resume the role I'd invited him to take last spring as my coach on the areas where he has expertise and/or a proven track record.

His focus with me will be primarily on time management and self-management.  The first step was to make the list of priorities.  When he thinks 'priorities' he starts with self-management whereas I start with the long list of projects.  His point (as is my counselor's) is that self-management has to be in place to support the project productivity.

Since I've made such a mess of things doing it my way and I've begun to see for myself how he's right as I observed cause and effect over the last year, I've agreed to submit to doing it his way.  So he contributed the first seven items in the list below for which he is going to help me establish daily habits that will eventually go on autopilot.  I added all the rest after our vid chat was over.

We also graded my performance over the last three months for the top seven together using the A-F but I've decided to use the pass/fail system and use the +/- instead of the P/F as it is as yet too hard to not take the word FAIL personally and thus translate 'I failed to perform satisfactorily in this area' into 'I'm a failure.'

Besides I'm going into the self project with the understanding that I've just been through a rough patch which was a temporary state and I'm now trying to speed up the usual crawl out of the muck created by the deep dive of my mood.  By speeding it up my hope is that I can reach a point on the path where enough good habits are established I may be able to sail through the next mood storm holding steady on course.

It is even possible that creating enough successes will also give enough boost to my mood levels that the next dive won't be as deep or may even be preempted.  Especially since I've long suspected that some of those dives are triggered by the chaos I create when my self-discipline devolves from mediocre to abysmal.

The following is a benchmark not a judgment.  I needed to acknowledge where I stood before I could see the necessary path forward and submit to the necessary discipline which includes allowing many of my high priority projects  to go on the back burner for a time as I prepare myself to take them on again.

SELF-DISCIPLINE REPORT CARD FOR DECEMBER 20 2013 -- MARCH 20 2014

MANAGING SELF

- TIME MANAGEMENT 

- SLEEP 

- MEDS

- HYGIENE 

+ NUTRITION 

+ EXERCISE 

- COMMUNICATION 

+ ____ PERSONAL COMMUNICATION 

- ____ BUSINESSES COMMUNICATION 

-       RECREATION AND RELAXATION (STRESS MANAGEMENT)

- SPIRITUAL PATH

+ ____ MEDITATION/PRAYER

- ____ CONTEMPLATIVE READING OF SPIRITUAL TEXTS

- ____ APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES AKA WALKING THE TALK

MANAGING PROJECTS

- BUSINESS PROJECTS

- MONEY MANAGEMENT

- CRAFTING

- MANAGING STUFF

- ____ SORTING

- ____ ORGANIZING

- ____ PUT AWAY

- ____ THROW AWAY

- WRITING

- READING/STUDY/RESEARCH

+ ____ READING FICTION

+ ____ READING NON-FICTION

- ____ READING BLOGS

- ____ STUDYING WRITING CRAFT

- ____ AWAI COPYWRITING COURSE 

- ____ AWAI MARKETING COURSE 

- ____ ROSETTA RUSSIAN COURSE

- ____ MASTERING APPLICATIONS 

- ____ RESEARCH  FOR FICTION WIP

- ____ RESEARCH FOR BUSINESS 

+ ____ RESEARCH FOR HEALTH AND FITNESS 

- ____ RESEARCH FOR INDEPENDENT LIVING 

+ ____ RESEARCH FOR WRITING AND TALKING ABOUT LITERATURE