Becoming My Own Taskmaster (in a good way)

I really miss Rebecca's task sheets (see earlier posts about The Experiment)!

So today, I decided to make my own task sheet, using a technique I remembered from a creativity seminar. I wrote out the page using my non-dominant (left) hand - it brings out the child in me when I do it this way (though I'm sure a young child could do a better job of it. Note to self - never try to draw a mandala with your non-dominant hand. It ends up looking like a crumpled wad of paper!) It's no substitute for Rebecca's über-cool task sheets, but it's better than nothing!

The first task I gave myself was a 7-hour Facebook fast. Today, at least, it wasn't difficult to resist the nervous, twitchy desire to catch up on the endless scroll of activity there.

I completed the second task (25 minutes of meditation), albeit a little later than I would have liked. When I wait until 2pm or later, I get a little dozey midway through, and today was no exception. Fortunately, I was able to keep the nodding to a minimum with concerted, deeper breaths.

The third task was to tackle an activity on my "extra curricular" list. Yesterday, when the angst gremlin was trying to get me, I decided to make a list of to-do items for idle times. Just the action of making this list was enough to tame that gremlin yesterday.

One of the tasks on the "extra-curricular" list is to set up my Cafe Press store and start populating it with products. I had struggled with the basic store design a few weeks ago. I had arrived at a great name for the store and created the masthead design and was in the process of hashing out the HTML, only to find out someone else had already taken the name. I got discouraged and abandoned the project temporarily.

Yesterday, I had a flash of inspiration, and came up with the name "GeeGaw", which rekindled my enthusiasm. I did a search, and could not find another Cafe Press store with that name - huzzah! Today, I figured out how to implement an all-graphic masthead and got the basic shell of the store ready. This weekend, I will add products. It feels good to be past that hurdle.

As I put the store together, I couldn't help but notice the exercise in futility occurring in the neighbor's yard. A young guy was feverishly running a leaf blower - on a day when the wind was blowing 20-30 knots and the sky was filled with leaves. It's bad enough to endure the incessant whinny of a leaf blower, but to hear one on a day when the wind negates its every attempt seemed to intensify its shrill wail. In response, I came up with this seasonal bumper sticker design for those of you who feel the same way I do about leaf blowers. You can get one of these stickers at my online store, Gee-Gaw.

Maybe after 30 days, I'll adopt creating tasks as my own habit? Even if I do, I'll still look forward to the creation of Rebecca's task cards!