Weekday Work Schedule

March is the month of being awesome, so I am trying to do a new thing every week in that vein. Last week I created my goals for the month and started in on all of them - with mixed success. But my overall effort pleased me (no burning out so far!) so I'm not going to detail the failures.

This week I am implementing a structured weekday work schedule. It's something I've tried in the past, but I always ended up taking a day where I said "fuck it" and spent the whole day watching TV and eating cereal straight from a box. Ugly, I know. But I think I've set myself up for a relatively painless segue into a structured workday this time because for the past month or so I've been good about working every day and - much more importantly - treating it like work.

("Work" has always motivated me. Ask any boss or teacher I've ever had; I was one of their best employees/students and they never had to wonder if I'd have something done on time or if they'd find me idly not working whenever they stopped by.)   

Here is the schedule I am striving to maintain, starting today:

Wake up at 0700 - doable since this is when the boy's alarm goes off.

0700 - 0800: Make breakfast (COFFEE) and read a book.

0800 - 0900: Blog stuff / social media stuff.

0900 - 1100: Work on Holyoak Five.

1100 - 1200: Pick something in the house to clean. (I use Unfuck Your Habitat for motivation and you should too.)

1200 - 1300: Make lunch and read some more of that book.

1300 - 1500: Work on current WIP novel. (For now, Grave of the Goddess.)

1500 until the boy gets home or until I'm done: Clean the kitchen.

Wish me luck! I'm confident in my abilities to focus, but I have the worst time forming habits. I have actually put an alarm into my phone for every single one of these time frames just to keep me on task. Or, you know, cause guilt if I'm backsliding.

How's everyone else in the Write Motivation community doing with their goals? This week I hope to start making the blog rounds during my social media hour in the morning to do some cheerleading. :)

He's in the best-selling show.

Okay.

Everyone knows I love David Bowie. And I do. Love him. I mean, he's still number one on my "celebs I'd do" list despite the age difference. It's more than just lust though. I think the man is a genius - even when he's denied it. He KNOWS music. He knows pop before it's pop. He has always had some weird prescient knowledge of what would describe a decade best during that decade.

So I naturally own nearly all of the music he's ever put out under his name. I have several books written about him. Photos of him and his wife and various cohorts over the ages take up a healthy portion of my harddrive.

(I feel the need to add that, no, I am not some addled fan who thinks The Bowie is the be-all end-all of my life. I just worship him for what he is. A brilliant pop-rock musician that figured in a great number of my formative years for figuring out my life.)

This evening, I decided to finally upload all of those wonderful albums to my laptop. (I know, how have I never done this?) In doing so, I was reminded of another great love of my life that I have not paid nearly enough attention to lately - letter-writing.

Believe me, these things are actually related.

When I was a teenager, we moved from Virginia to New York and I left behind a friend who at the time was a very good friend but who managed to become my very best friend. For whatever reason, we started writing letters to each other. Becoming closer and closer as those pieces of paper crawled up and down the east coast to each other. When I discovered David Bowie at fifteen, she was the first person I shared him with. It became a mutual infatuation and only served to strengthen our bond.

So the other thing I've been doing this evening if going through all those letters we used to send each other. And wishing with all my heart that we had never stopped writing them. (Our words petered out - not entirely but mostly - sometime while we were both in college.) And, honestly, is there anything more glorious than two teenagers pouring out their hearts to each other?

The written word has always been my choice way to communicate. (See my first relationship which was based almost entirely on IM conversations.) And letter writing is so personal. The ink and paper and waiting for the postal worker to come... It is glorious. And gloriously ignored these days. And perhaps destined to die entirely seeing as how underfunded the USPS is about to be! All I can say is, there is nothing quite like getting a letter in the mail. Try it and see. You'll make someone's day, if not week or month.

I have other things to report on, but this seems sufficient for now. I leave you with my favorite Bowie song.