Philip Martin Illustration
Boy Writing
Welcome to 2019! I'm not big on New Year's resolutions, but I also find that I'm enthusiastic and hopeful at the start of every year. The key is to turn those thoughts into action. These two recommendations may help.
Morning Pages. This is a form of journaling made popular for artists and creatives by Julia Cameron. It's very simple. Do three pages longhand, stream of consciousness writing, first thing in the morning. Whatever comes out is fine. My own experience is that it helps me think through ideas, as well as things that are on my mind (both positive and negative). I feel more calm and prepared for the day. I will say that I made my own adjustments. I don't do it first thing in the morning. That's my prayer time. But morning pages comes immediately after. Also, I now only do one page of freehand writing. I've been doing this for nearly two years and I did three pages a day for the first year. At some point, I decided it was taking too much time and I dialed back to one page. I still find it valuable.
Past Year Review. I heard about this from Tim Ferris, whom I mentioned last time. He is a big proponent of the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80-20 rule, where, in general, 80% of your results come from 20% of your actions. In this case, Ferris is applying the principle to people, activities and commitments, to help you determine what is most valuable to you. I did this for the first time, and it affirmed several things for me. I was also surprised by a couple things, and I am now processing how I might put more time into them in 2019. Finally, I identified one commitment I need to shed.
This is the process, directly quoted from an email I received last week.
- Grab a notepad and create two columns: POSITIVE and NEGATIVE.
- Go through your calendar from the last year, looking at every week.
- For each week, jot down on the pad any people or activities or commitments that triggered peak positive or negative emotions for that month. Put them in their respective columns.
- Once you’ve gone through the past year, look at your notepad list and ask, “What 20% of each column produced the most reliable or powerful peaks?”
- Based on the answers, take your “positive” leaders and schedule more of them in the new year. Get them on the calendar now! Book things with friends and prepay for activities/events/commitments that you know work. It’s not real until it’s in the calendar. That’s step one. Step two is to take your “negative” leaders, put “NOT-TO-DO LIST” at the top, and put them somewhere you can see them each morning for the first few weeks of 2019. These are the people and things you *know* make you miserable, so don’t put them on your calendar out of obligation, guilt, FOMO, or other nonsense.
May you be blessed to bless others in 2019 and beyond.
The Rev. Jack Shitama serves as executive director of Pecometh Camp & Retreat Ministries in Maryland. This post is republished with permission from Jack Shitama's "Two for Tuesday" newsletter.