This year has started off great, I have changed some things in my life that has allowed me to do more, but not over stress myself when I go to sleep at night. I am thrilled with where I am going and will see if possible I can push myself into the direction and place I want to be. Here are a couple of things I have been up to lately this past month and what I plan to do for the month of Feburary.
Books and more books…
I have read 2 books last month and started a 3rd one. I will be doing book reviews this month on those books. The Power of Less and Drown were very important to a fresh start into the new year. The Power of Less got me to think of what I was over burdening myself with and to restructure what I was doing wrong or not doing correctly with the business of performing the essentials in my life. In the past month I have de-clutter my apartment, changed my sleeping pattern totally (working towards waking up at 4 a.m. to workout and write for the morning before work), and refocus what is important to me and doing those passion and purpose items in my life everyday. I will go into more detail later in the coming weeks when I write the book review on the site. Drown, was a short story written by Junot Diaz, which depicted his childhood life as he saw it in fictional form. I liked Junot writing style and as I was reading understood the importance of using all 5 senses that we as humans use everyday. The book also gave me a good starting point of what I will be doing this year for my writing career. I will be writing in the second half of the year a series of short stories. I will first write a novel that is so in my head and badly want to get out on paper. I am now focused in what I want to do novel wise to help establish myself as an author.
Sleeping, the art of mind and body control.
Well over a month I have been rising at 4:30 in the morning and slowly pushing that time to 4 a.m. I have come to realize I am more productive during the morning because everyone is sleeping and is easier to get things done. I do weight-lifting workouts on monday and wednesday, which last about 35 minutes. During the work week I also write in the morning. I have noticed my days are more rewarding because the beginning of the day I have accomplished my big task items for the day and if I do something else during the day, then it is an extra bonus. I have also found out there are many things that seem to come up in the day I either have no control over or do and after doing whatever those activities I am drained for the rest of the day to either write or workout.
Writing…
I set a crazy goal this year of writing every single day for atleast 30 minutes. I have already establish this passion in my life the past month and look forward to writing every day. I keep tons of things in my head and I have come to realize it is easier for me to write them out to clear my head and help me focus on things of importance to me. I can write a couple of blog post, thought dumping essays, poems or literary saying or whatever I want in this time period. As time goes on I will increase the time to 2 hours per day towards the end of the year. I am getting to the point of writing without much thinking, and feel good the words are flowing from my mind and onto the paper, or in my case the computer screen. Day 39 and counting!
Internet usage
In the next day or 2 I will be off the internet for 2 weeks. This is a crazy mission I set for myself! The main reasons why I am doing this is to really see what is important to me. I will go into greater detail in the upcoming post, but it is time for me to see what I need to do for me. I still feel I am doing too much for others; reading about 10-15 blog post per day and listening to 3 hours of podcast per day, checking email atleast 12 times per day, and turning on the television from time to time. I will be going cold turkey and will have withdrawals, but have to do this for myself. So I will not be looking at the internet fof 2 weeks and will structure my time to writing my life business plan, getting a good start in my first novel, playing around with my SLR camera I bought myself for Christmas, finishing up, The Road, and an SEO ebook, and continue to working out.
In a nutshell
My blog post lately doesn’t show it, but I have been busy this whole month. I am still on this cutting phase and am going all out doing my passions and eliminating time wasting activities that will not result to anything in the seeable future. There is no reason for me to continue to list more things because I have come to realize that talk is cheap and it is easier to plan a couple of things, doing them, and continue the cycle of completing small task that go towards the goals and projects I have set for myself for the year and beyond.