seeking: new habits

[dirtylibrarian]

This weekend, I made few plans, I had been sick all week. And now everyone I made plans with is sick. I am feeling really nicely free. Puttering around the house. Washing the mountain of accumulated dishes (I knew I should have tackled those before I went to Portland last week). Cleaning out inboxes. Catching up on book reviews. Making a big effort to seriously reduce the number of books/cds/dvds I have checked out. Too much has piled up, and finally finally finally I am feeling the urges to do some spring cleaning. I actually took down the rack my pans hang from and washed it free of dust, cobwebs, and grease! Having a nice balance of housework and house rest. Feeling glad for my recovered health, nicely recovering shoulder, my lovely house, my nice cat, and life in general.

Feeling like if I can just whittle down the accumulated projects and stuff from around the house, I can put more energy into doing things I dream about doing, but am far too good about making excuses not to. Writing. Making music. Getting fit.

I've been missing LJ, but enjoying twitter so much I didn't care too much. But while it is a fun exercise it isn't a place I ponder and think.

Something stuck in my head this week is the idea that you can form a new habit in 20 days. So I am thinking I am going to try and do 3x10x20. 10 minutes of writing. 10 minutes of making music. 10 minutes towards getting fit. 30 minutes a day, in the home. More = good (still plan to swim/run/gym), but I just want to get to a point where instead of thinking about these things all the time, I just do a little everyday as a happy habit (not a chore) and then can move on to the rest of everything, or more of each/some. I'm going to try and write here about what I have done of each for the next 20 days, to try and make it more likely to happen.

How are you? What do you want to be doing more of? Wanna join me on a 3x10x20?

Comments

[contrary-wise.livejournal.com]

I'm in the midst of a similar project with my dissertation. I'm working on 15 minutes a day of work. That's a minimum of course, It's mostly a way to get started. I have exercised 6 days out of 7 for the last month on a similar principle. Nothing is so unpleasant that you can't handle it for 15 minutes. So, yeah, I'll join in keeping up with these new habits of ours!

[dirtylibrarian.livejournal.com]

I was thinking 15 minutes, but I figured 10 was more realistic to get me going...and insure that I didn't try starting anything when I actually had no time ;)

What is your dissertation on?

[contrary-wise.livejournal.com]

I picked 15 cos there's a book called Writing Your Dissertation in 15 Minutes a Day. Plus 1/4 of an hour is a nice easily comprehensible chunk. Ten is good too.

My dissertation is on SuicideGirls, the alt-porn website. I'm looking at ideas around labor and representation and selfhood and how that all plays out in new media porn. The topic is a fun and exciting one, but the grind of having to make myself write has taken a lot of the joy out of the process. I'm hoping that regular daily writing will get me more invested in the project again.

How is your daily 10 going?

[dirtylibrarian.livejournal.com]

Well, so far 2/3 good. This weekend I did some writing exercises from a book on procrastination and wrote a bunch of letters, and did some exercise and a yoga/meditation DVD. But I still haven't been able to motivate myself to get back on the drums yet. I've been a bit nervous to test out my shoulder, but I think I need to at least give it a try.