Before I forget about it:
when I decided on my Sabbath-honoring writing schedule, I didn’t pause to think about y’all’s likely reading-schedule experience. Since I’m causing my posts to appear in the evenings + many of you use the morning’s email to steer you over here, you usually read this the day after I write it. Which means if I’m not writing on Sunday, you’re not-reading on Monday. That doesn’t appeal to my aesthetics…seems wobbly, somehow. So I’ve decided: the writing I do Saturdays will show up Sunday evening. Just wanted to point this out before I do my timing trick next weekend.

Onward—

Observing task-rhythm and energy-tempo has certainly made for a kinder-to-Kimbol day today. Whatever reliable practice I finally come up with (and I understand that I may not end up with a “finally”), today is NOT likely to show up as its model. During my 5pm shower (see what I mean?), I sifted through what had happened thus far…a common shower meditation. And I realized I was evaluating the day based on a rubric I drew up in August.

Do you remember the self/business improvement digital course-pack I bought in, I think, June? No? Doesn’t matter. You know I buy them all the time. At the end of July I even went back in and cracked open one of the studies…”Figure Out What Fits,” from the team at Happen To Your Career. I don’t remember now why career exploration seemed like the wise choice, and right now I’m not discussing “What Fits;” I’m discussing a book called The Passion Test, which Scott (HTYC’s principal) recommended as an aside one of his “What Fits” lessons.

The book itself has too much “magic” á la The Secret for my taste, but their method for winnowing the things you want in/for your life down to those things that matter to you? Excellent. (And, to be fair, that process is what Scott was pointing to.) At the time, I went through the exercise mostly as a parlor game—why am I dabbling in career development activities when right now I’m already doing my next right thing?—but I not only completed the whole process, I even popped my six “goals” onto cute cards and left them on our big desk and my vanity. What would it hurt, after all?

So yeah. Flash-forward to this afternoon. How am I assessing the effectiveness of my day, my day that bears only passing resemblance to my sketched plans? According to these:

1. I will be …surrounded by my close family—spouse, parents, siblings, kids, kid-spouses, grandkids
2. …grounded in God and God’s purpose for me
3. …sharing my writing with people who are touched by it
4. …learning things I didn’t know
5. …traveling to new places
6. …relaxing in my beautiful home

In addition to working out and getting my car back and forth to its Takata inflator replacement,
I hung out with my parents, read more of The Psychology of Writing by Ronald Thomas Kellogg, took a nap, started reading Quiet: the Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain (because Psychology of Writing’s gonna need to be paced). And wrote.

Four, maybe five, out of six. That, in fact, looks like a day well spent!