Overwhelmed

As Advent comes to a close, I’m still working on my Advent Resolution of preparing for 2016. In fact, last Friday, in the post-Star Wars euphoria, I took a day off and sat down to put in writing all the ideas and plans that I’d been working on. 

I quickly became completely overwhelmed.

I started by grouping my goals into four categories… fitness, family, professional and household. And then started trying to figure out how to make all these things happen. But the list of things I want to change are long and two things happened:

1. I got discouraged: How am I ever going to do all these things next year?
2. I got depressed: I have to change all these things to feel like I’ve accomplished anything.

And planning and preparation came to an abrupt halt. Friday night though, I came to a conclusion: I really love my life and I don’t have to change anything. But I want to be healthier, more organized and more connected to my family. I can’t make all these things happen at one time. They have to happen gradually as part of a lifestyle change.

I tackled my list with renewed energy. I tried to prioritize items as I grouped and I noticed a pattern: Every category had a foundation. 

For the fitness and health, the foundation goal is walking at lunch. When I walk at lunch, I eat better and feel better, and I’m more likely to work out more and log my food in Lose It. All my other goals start to fall in line if I make time to walk around downtown Columbia at lunch. 

For my family, it’s eating dinner at home as a family around the dinner table. With our busy schedules, it’s too easy to eat out. Things just run better when we eat at home and get all five of us around the dinner table.

For professional improvement, it’s the blog. When I’m posting regularly, I’m more creative and energetic. Writing about design and creativity typically sparks ideas and projects. 

And for household, it’s sitting down with my wife to plan the week, figuring out meals and schedules for the week ahead. Life’s a lot easier when we are on the same page.

As I started to structure my goals, it became clear that if I do those four things, lots of good things tend to follow. I’m going to add a few more things like using my phone less and some specific long term fitness goals. But I’m starting with my four foundation goals.

And I’ll build from there.

Speeding along

Advent is speeding by and my preparations for the new year are moving forward. But I feel like I'm running out of time to prepare for 2016.

I tried this week to limit my phone use and honestly really struggled. I made a couple of simple changes that I hope will help. I turned off virtually all notifications to limit the “pull” of the phone. And I reordered my apps so that only the necessary apps — like banking, calendar and to-do list — are on the home page. Social media apps like Twitter and Facebook are now on page two so hopefully I won’t get sucked into other apps on my phone when I just need to check and appointment time.

This week, I’m going to think about health and fitness. My biggest challenge is our crazy family schedule. We eat out too much and don’t always make time to work out. I’ve got some ideas for how to plan a little better and work out more consistently. I’m hoping to hammer out details this week.

I bought a Fitbit Charge recently and I’m tracking my activity. I’m going to start using Lose It for food tracking again. Personally, I find that having those data points help me be healthier. 

Stars on the beach: A moment of focus

My wife and I took a trip to Hilton Head a few weeks ago. We got to the resort late, but decided to take a stroll around and check it out anyway. We walked out to the beach. 

It was pitch black. 

A clear and moonless night. We could barely find our way down the path. (Hilton Head significantly restricts night lighting to protect sea turtles.) We stumbled down the path with our pitifully inadequate iPhone "flashlights."

We reached the beach and turned our flashlights off. Looking out over the Atlantic Ocean, the stars were brighter than I've ever seen in my life. Stunningly beautiful. It was remarkable how much more vibrant the stars were without the distraction of the light from the ground or moonlight.

But as beautiful as the stars were, you couldn’t do anything else but enjoy the night sky. You could hear the waves, but couldn’t see the water. It would have been very challenging to find our way back to the resort without our iPhone flashlights. We almost fell a couple of times looking for the path back.

Focus.

As I reflect on my Advent Resolution, “focus” keeps coming up. How do I focus on the important things and cut back on the distractions? But it’s not as easy as that.

Just like on the beach. When you hit that moment of maximum focus… When you are completely locked in on the stars in front of you… You can’t easily do the other things in life that you need to do. 

So while I have goals and objectives for 2016, I’ve got to figure out how to focus without losing sight of the other important things in my life.

I need to figure out how to focus, while still maintaining balance. I think one of the easiest ways to find focus is to minimize the main cause of distraction in my life: My iPhone.

I’m going to experiment with a couple of different things this week:

1. Changing how and when I use my phone. I’m going to try to minimize my phone use during the day in attempt to focus on the task at hand. That means that I’ll be on social media a lot less, which I also think is a good thing.
2. Set time to handle emails and administrative tasks. I’m going to try and block some time in the morning, after lunch and at the end of the day for email. And ignore it for the rest of the day. My hope is that I’ll be more focused and effective at the task at hand. We’ll see how it goes. All notifications are off.
3. No phone use when the kids are around. I want to have time to focus on spending time with them. No Twitter, no Facebook, no random games, no surfing. The only exceptions I’ll make is for things like entering food items into Lose It, taking a picture or adding something to the shopping list. I tried this the other night and it worked well, but I can’t tell you how many times I reached for the phone.

My hope is that these things will allow me to focus on the task in front of me and enjoy the moment of focus. I’ll try it this week and see if it's something I want to adopt for 2016.

I'm writing about my Advent Resolution. Read the background here.

Earlier this week, I failed.

At the very end of October, I decided to participate in NaNoWriMo, an “event” where you commit to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. I started an account. I joined the local Facebook group. I was excited. I had an idea. I was ready to write.

In fact, I was going to write here about the experience of writing a novel.

As I started to read the advice from others, I realized that they had been planning for months. Working on outlines. Character concepts. They had a plan. I only had an idea. I was not ready to write.

No worries, I thought. I’ll rough together an outline quickly. Make some decisions about characters and I’ll catch up.

I never did.

This week marks the end of NaNoWriMo and I have virtually nothing written. My first attempt at NaNoWriMo* was a complete and total failure, although I have a sweet outline and a couple of (very bad) chapters. 

But this failure was one of the driving concepts behind The Advent Resolution. If you aren’t prepared to tackle big goals, they won’t happen. And if you never set aside time to prepare, you’ll never be comfortable setting those ambitious goals.

I’ve got a lot of goals and ideas for the next year. I'm too often guilty of trying to tackle them all at the same time. Right now, I’m trying to work out which projects I will tackle and which ones will stay on the shelf. 

So I’m committing this first week of Advent to thinking about focus. Wondering how to tackle these goals while still being a great dad and a husband. I’m reflecting on the influences in my life that strengthen and sustain me. I'm trying to remember how to focus in a multitasking world.

We’ll see where it leads me.

The Advent Resolution is simple: Prayerfully prepare for the coming year.

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* I plan to try again. Next time, though, I'll actually be prepared.

The Advent Resolution

I’m a big fan of the season of Advent — the time in the church year where we wait and prepare for Christ to come. I remember opening Advent calendars when I was young, counting down the days to Christmas. Advent is also the beginning of the church year – the liturgical New Year’s Day.

Last year, I got this idea to make my New Year’s resolutions at the beginning of Advent.* It’s the beginning of the church year so I figured I’d make some appropriate resolutions for the “new” year and get a jump on 2015. But my “Advent Resolution” didn’t seem right. Advent’s about preparing and waiting. Starting my “New Year’s Resolutions” on the first Sunday in Advent was just taking action a month earlier. I never got around to making any “Advent Resolutions” last year.

This year, Advent starts on November 29. And I’ve got a plan. I’m going to use the start of the church new year to prepare for the calendar new year. 

The Advent Resolution is simply this: Prayerfully prepare for the coming year.

I resolve to thoughtfully and prayerfully consider how to change the things I want to change in 2016. Then, take action on New Year’s Day.**

I’m not limiting this time of reflection to spiritual or religious changes. Everything is on the table. Diet, exercise, personal growth… pretty much anything. I’ll research and pray and think and write and plan. And when 2016 rolls around, I’ll be ready to act.

I’m excited to start my Advent journey. I’ll be writing about it and will post thoughts and reflections here. If you join me in making the Advent Resolution, let me know on Twitter at @sketchbookb.

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* A quick Google search indicates that using Advent as “New Year” for religious resolutions has been done before…

** Advent ends on Christmas Day. So I suppose that I should start my New Year’s Resolutions on December 25. For various reasons, that would be difficult, so I’m starting January 1.