The Puttering Basket

The latest installment in an occasional series: how I unplugged over the weekend.

Wow. I haven’t been here for a month. And I kinda left everyone hanging in that last post about me and my unraveling sweater. What have I been up to? Well, knitting that new sweater. Which really means I’ve been doing lots and lots of thinking and planning and organizing about the coming year. And myohmy am I excited about what I’m cooking up (more to be revealed very soon).

My inspiration showed up in an urgent and compelling form. You know, when it’s almost like you aren’t choosing to work so hard to get it all down on paper, but that drive is coming from someplace else?

I’m deeply grateful for the inspiration, but making it real has been a lot of work – satisfying but exhausting (and apparently blogging-prohibitive) work. And by last Friday I was pooped. Pooped I tell you. I didn’t even bother to complete my what-do-I-need-to-finish-to-feel-good-about-this-week list. It felt better to just stop.

And I was so glad I gave myself permission to do so – then committed to doing absolutely nothing related to work for two whole days.

Basically, the past weekend was made up of lazy mornings and domestic chores and falling asleep watching movies like Young Frankenstein on TV. There’s nothing remarkable to report about it except the very experimental pear-grape crisp actually turned out to be pretty tasty – the grapes are like little plums. Oh, and we only had two trick-or-treaters, but they were the cutest little ninja and pirate you ever saw.

And what made it easier to not default to work-related tasks and keep my commitment was my growing Puttering Basket.

One of the trickiest things about unplugging is being so rusty at it. We are so much more practiced at doing our jobs. So, even when we give ourselves time to play and refill our professional wells, we don’t always know what to do with that time. And in the absence of something else compelling, we can find ourselves drifting back to work. Because it’s familiar and comfortable. Because this being-not-doing thing is awkward and weird. Which doesn’t make sense considering how much we crave it – which makes it that much more weird. Better just to go back to work where we know what we’re doing.

Except that’s hardly satisfying or sustainable.

So, in the spirit of creating a flotation device for myself that would support me in those awkward moments of not knowing what to do besides work, I made myself a Puttering Basket. Basically, my weekend rule is this: in a transitional moment when I’m not sure what I want to do next and I’m tempted to turn on the computer (which is off-limits), I have to go to the basket. I can do anything I like, so long as it’s in the basket. (Maybe that sounds confining and counter-intuitive, but having endless options is overwhelming and not helpful.)

So, obviously, it matters what’s in the basket. For the most part, it’s a toy box filled with fun stuff to do. So far, it holds:

• magazines, crosswords, playing cards and coloring books
• books to be read solely for pleasure and books for my soul
• the latest knitting project (or other crafty goodness)
• an iPod loaded with favorite music and podcasts (pairs nicely with the knitting), plus Leonie’s Dreaming Meditation in case a nap is what’s called for
• cards and stationery for sending notes to people I love
• blank paper for capturing random ideas

And here’s the most important thing I’ve learned: the puttering basket has to be stocked before the weekend. You can’t go looking for this stuff in that awkward moment of transition. You’ll just end up at your computer working. Or watching Very Bad TV. Trust me. You’re rusty, remember?

So part of my Friday closing-the-week ritual is stocking my Puttering Basket with all the fun little things I didn’t have time for during the week. The stuff I want to do, but never seem to get to.

In the end, my Puttering Basket is a good example of two of the basic organizing principles I live by:

• everything is easier if you start with a container
• everything needs two containers: storage + space on your calendar

Many of the fun little things that allow me to relax and refill my well now have a place to belong – in the basket and in my weekend. Which makes them much, much more likely to happen – and happen with ease.

What would you put in your Puttering Basket?

• • • • •

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fond

Another installment in what is apparently an occasional series: how I unplugged over the weekend.

Occasional because I worked some portion of every day from September 7 to September 26. That’s 20 days in a row. That’s 20 days of me not being in alignment with my commitment to unplug on a regular basis. Which left me with nothing to report in the way of unplugging except that I wasn’t doing it.

At least I didn’t see it as normal. I recognized it as a choice. I made sure it was a temporary anomaly. But that didn’t really do much to make it less exhausting.

However, it did make yesterday’s play seem that much sweeter. A little time in the fresh air of the mountains with my sweetheart and my poochaloo. A little time to garden while the weather is still pleasant. Ahh. Was it all that I wanted? No. But it was really good.

And it was good without guilt or worry because I had hung on to a few new practices for the duration: I did my morning meditation, I got outside for walks with the dog, I closed the week on Fridays even though I wasn’t “finished” – and while I worked daily, I didn’t work crazy long hours each day. I put some things on hold, but I didn’t go to that panicked, driven place where I would have put everything on hold. I did little things to ground and pace myself along the way. Were they enough? No. But did they prevent disaster? Yes.

None of that would have happened six months ago. So, call it a lapse if you want, but I call it progress.

Coloring Books & Cartoons

It’s Monday – time to share how I unplugged over the weekend (because I’m still not tired of this subject – and goodness knows I haven’t mastered it).

Probably the most interesting thing about my weekend happened Thursday night. Sitting on the couch, just hanging out watching tv together after dinner, my husband turned to me and asked,

Anything special you want to do this weekend? Do you need to work?”

It was a very casual, straight-forward question – no tone, no hidden meanings or insinuations. But it made me realize just how much I’ve trained my beloved to expect that I might need to work during the weekend. That’s weeks and months of saying, “Sorry, I can’t. I have to work.” I explained again my commitment to confining work to my workweek. It hadn’t occurred to me until that moment that it might take as many weeks and months to really undo this thing and create a reliably different expectation – for him or for me.

That nice but unfamiliar feeling came around again Friday evening when we realized we were free – and had the energy – to go out to eat again if we wanted to and celebrate the week. Because we had done what needed doing and finished what needed finishing – and it was a week worth celebrating. So we did. We went to a favorite neighborhood Italian place that reminds me of the rival restaurant in Big Night – maybe not so authentic, but completely satisfying.

And afterwards, because I was restless, I indulged in a bit of recreational shopping disguised as buying groceries. I love hunting for a good bargain – and I found it in fifty-cent red & yellow peppers and mocha bars at Grocery Outlet. Score.

Saturday morning Max woke us very early for the ritual trip to the river beach. Where it was windy! and the light and the color reminded us so much of the San Juan Islands – one of my most favorite places on earth. I should just make a point of vacationing there at least once a year.

This was followed by breakfast and a bit of laundry – which somehow led to purging my clothes closet. Not because it was in a horrible state or anything, but it had reached the threshold of annoying. As in: hard to put things away because it was getting a little too crowded in there. So I quickly filled three grocery bags with the obvious discards (I could have done more, but that would have required too much emotional work). There. Annoying to tidy. Because I had space to act (instead of putting it on my to-do list and making a should out of it) it was No Big Deal. Yay. Onward.

To the refrigerator full of CSA farm produce. And getting lost in hours of chopping chopping chopping to make fresh salsa (incredible! we’ve been eating it by the bowlful). And my favorite summer corn salad. And hummus from fresh garbanzos (I had no idea how they grew until they arrived in our weekly box). And apple pie. This was all deliciously rewarding for obvious reasons, but being on my feet all day was unexpectedly exhausting (especially after being awoken so very early by you-know-who). I was so tired I found myself watching High School Musical just to see what the fuss was about (still don’t get it) before letting myself go to bed. (That’s too tired.)

Sunday morning Max woke us very early again, but once fed was happy to get in bed with us for another hour, so we all sort of slept in. Well, kinda. And after a lazy morning of coffee/newspaper/brunch, my husband and I headed out to play a round of golf – which we haven’t done since the spring when my repetitive stress injury showed up. (Yes, I golf. Never, ever thought I would say that, but I do. And I like it. I’m terrible. But I like it.)  Long story short: it doesn’t hurt (yay), but I’m still too weak to play more than 5-6 short holes (boo). We were glad we got out anyway. It was a lovely day. And at least we can say we tried.

My body now insisting on rest, I’m almost embarrassed to admit I spent the rest of the day on the couch watching yet more movies targeted at a youth audience – Eragorn (so-so) to Scooby Doo and the Samurai Sword (really terrible) – while I colored. Yes, I got out my markers and my Images coloring book and colored. I’ll share more about this in a future post because it made me think a lot about patterns. Right now, it only matters that I stayed off the laptop and colored instead of playing computer games (which was still not the greatest thing for my ouchie hand, but it was a step in the right direction). By following impulse, I ended up spending the rest of the day like a kid. I colored and watched cartoons. Couldn’t have planned that if I tried. And it was just the thing.

Yet I still woke tired this morning to weekend messes that need cleaning up and a to-do list of the usual too-long length. And interestingly, it’s okay. If nothing else, the benefit of unplugging is stepping away from the constant urgency of it all just far enough that I can see that if today isn’t the doing sort of Monday I want it to be, that’s okay. It’s possible even for me to enjoy it. To essentially have a three-day weekend because that’s what my body needs.

To have unwound this much, to feel this sense of space, feels a small miracle. Whew. And I’m grateful for it.

Anticipation

It’s Monday morning – time to tell you how I unplugged over the weekend…

On the whole, it was good. Yes, I think I can honestly say I am getting better at this unplugging business…

Friday evening we tried a new (to us) neighborhood restaurant that turned out to be a tasty discovery. A successful experiment (with good drinks) was a great way to get the weekend off to a less than ordinary start. I’m glad we took a little risk. It set a nice tone for things to come.

Saturday began with my favorite – a trip to the river beach – followed by visiting neighborhood garage sales. No great finds, but always a curiosity and a great lazy Saturday thing to do. (Kudos to adult children who have to clean out their deceased parents’ homes, especially when those parents were savers – wow, do they have to cope with a lot of stuff.)

Then something possessed me to finish a framing project. One of those measure-twice-cut-once projects. Which turned out to be quite frustrating. And imperfect in its execution. But good enough. Good enough that I decided to tackle another measure-twice-cut-once project – finishing the roller blinds for the kitchen windows. Argh! Even less perfect. But probably also good enough once I get over myself. (I’ve since decided that a replenishing weekend does not include more than one of these sorts of things. All that measuring is a bit draining.)

Sunday began with coffee and the paper – which is how it should always start – followed by pancakes and bacon for breakfast. Later we got outside to enjoy the beautiful weather and walk off some of that bacon and ended up finding a trail we didn’t know existed – near the amusement park where we were reminded that we haven’t yet ridden the ferris wheel this summer. Which would be a good thing to do next weekend.

Which brings me back around to where I was this time last week.

This time last week I was making a little list of what I wanted from the coming weekend. I wanted my weekend to be:

• free from the sense that I owe anyone anything
• free from feeling sick of writing
• free from arm pain
• free from domestic chores
• free from exhaustion
• free from the ordinary

And I asserted that it was doable if I just focused on what I needed to do during the week to make all the free-from happen.

So – you may be wondering – how’d it go?

Free from the sense that I owe anyone anything…
Did I finish all I had said yes to? Not quite, but I did enter my weekend guilt-free. I did empty my inbox. I didn’t take on anything new. And, as anticipated, this required minimizing distractions throughout the week and a final focused push on Friday. It helped to have started the week with such a clear idea of what needed doing. Maintaining that clarity throughout the week was also crucial. Focus! Focus! Focus!

Free from feeling sick of writing…
Well, I didn’t experience waves of not another essay! so whatever clarity I established at the beginning of the week must have helped with this… although I didn’t address it directly. Maybe just chunking things down into manageable what-I-can-actually-do-this-week portions helped me not feel disgusted by my own overwhelm with words.

Free from arm pain…
Not quite. It’s lingering. I was reminded it really does take all evenings and two consecutive days off the computer (and no laptop time) to make things better. So I wasn’t free from arm pain on Friday, but I’m darn close to it this morning. Yay. Here’s to not regressing this week. [A favorite new element of my closing ritual: washing my wrist brace. Highly symbolic.]

Free from domestic chores…
This was a big success. I was easily able to sneak them in during the week. Grocery shopping happened one evening after dinner. Vacuuming was a midday de-stresser after completing a frustrating project. I tossed in a load of laundry while I ran a computer repair utility. I wiped down the bathroom while I ran another. Easy peasy. [Okay, true confessions: to be completely free I had to finish folding and ironing clothes Friday night, but that sure beat feeling pressured to do it last night.] This created almost more space than I knew what to do with. Which was an awesome problem to have.

Free from exhaustion…
Tired, but in a good way. A job-well-done way. Not a can’t-keep-my-eyes-open way. Not a too-many-times-around-on-the-hamster-wheel-of-my-mind way. Again, a result of the focus.

Free from the ordinary…
I’m loving thinking of my weekend as I would a vacation. But it’s trickier than it would seem at first glance. I’m still so focused on making a graceful exit from my week that adding this element still feels awkward. I’m assuming it’s just a matter of practice.

Because each week my opening and closing rituals become a little more refined. Each week I understand a little more about being intentional, creating space, feeling free, and knowing what is restorative. Each week I remember a little more about how to play. Each week I learn a few more of the elements essential to making a smooth transition from work to play.

Things have to be clean: empty inbox, no unanswered comments or tweets, no to-be-read-later tabs open in my browsers, tidied desktops real and virtual, a clutter-free house – even me showered.

Things have to be ready: clean covers most of this, but my daily sheets also need to be printed for the coming week and my to-do list reviewed and reordered. Clean and ready are the solutions to guilt and worry.

Things have to be celebrated: there has be a moment for reflection and appreciation – on tasks completed, lessons learned, connections made, gratitude felt. This is not to be rushed.

Things have to be anticipated: part of the preparation needs to include planning how to make the weekend feel special, how to incorporate a few of the little “extras” that are so replenishing. Not only does this keep the weekend from falling back into the ordinary, it turns out to be an important part of what  pulls me forward on Friday. Which means I need to give it attention before Friday.

So, as I think about what I want to feel at the end of this week, I want to feel free from all the same things I did last week and I want to feel a sense of excitement – not just a sense of relief, of whew!, but of anticipation.

Let’s see what happens by adding this new layer of intent…

• • • • •

How do you want to end your week? How would you like to feel? What do you want for your weekend?

• • • • •

Free from…

It’s Monday morning – time to tell you how I unplugged over the weekend…

Last week was wackidoodle. I read something about eclipses messing us up. And then Twitter went haywire. But mainly it was because I inserted a big chunk of hospitality right in the middle of the week. So I kinda had my weekend in the middle of the week. Which meant the real weekend wasn’t so much.

Except I needed it to be. Because I was pooped by the end of the week. Couldn’t-keep-my-eyes-open pooped. Let’s-pretend-we’re-sick-and-lay-on-the-couch-eating-snacks-and-watching-stupid-tv pooped. I-wonder-if-I-could-get-my-mom-to-pamper-me-somehow? pooped.

I love playing hostess. I like it so much I often wonder why I don’t do it more often. Until I do host guests or a gathering and then I remember why. I totally enjoy it and it totally wears me out. Like new things, it’s so much fun I forget how much padding it takes – how long it takes my introvert-self to recover.

So I began celebrating my weekend Friday afternoon with a nap. A nap so long I slept through dinner and woke up only to move from the couch to the bed and go back to sleep.

Gosh did I feel better by Saturday morning. Not cured, but better.

And since my sweetheart had to work Saturday, I decided I would to. So I mixed up some domestic chores with some bookkeeping. Sunday included more R&R, but the fun stuff was still mixed in with much the same sort of chores and errands as Saturday, we just did them together. If I had been less tired, I think I would have given in to more work-work (thank goodness for being pooped).

Looking back, the weekend was more of a success in setting up this week than in unplugging from the last. I like the set-up part. I like the clean start. But I don’t like that I spent so much of the weekend doing it. Here at my desk Monday morning, I am wondering how much more of that set-up I can shift to Friday and my closing-the-week ritual.

And since I’m learning a successful weekend of unplugging starts with clear intent and preparation, I also made a little list this morning of what I want for the end of the week. I want my weekend to be:

• free from the sense that I owe anyone anything
• free from feeling sick of writing
• free from arm pain
• free from exhaustion
• free from domestic chores
• free from the ordinary

As I was jotting this down, noticing how it was all coming out as “free from” (hmmm…), I also noticed my Monday-morning anxiety is not about the actual work at hand as much about anticipating yet another week ending without feeling the way I would like to. I am already stressed about another failure. Before it has even happened. I’m just assuming. And that’s taking all the fun out of my job. Ew.

So this week is about shifting that assumption. Because this is doable if I just focus on what I need to do during the week to make all this free-from happen.

Free from the sense that I owe anyone anything…
Finish what you already have said yes to. Empty your inbox. Minimize distractions. And for heaven’s sake, don’t say yes to anything new!

Free from feeling sick of writing…
Writing is only gross when you have committed to more words than you can generate. So don’t commit (see previous).

Free from arm pain…
You know what you need to do: take breaks, do stretches, wear brace, and stay off the laptop.

Free from exhaustion…
Again, sweetie, you know what you need to do to maintain your energy: drink water, eat healthy, regular sleep and exercise – pace yourself.

Free from domestic chores…
So sneak these in during the week. Use them as breaks. Finish on Friday. Make it a game.

Free from the ordinary…
Plan this. Get ready for the weekend as you would for a vacation. Again, use Friday to finish and prepare the little extras that will make it special.

Yes, this is all doable. Just noticing and questioning my assumption that it’s not possible is bringing joy back into my Monday, lessening the sense of dread and resentment of all that is getting in the way of my time unplugged, liberating me from the sense of feeling trapped by my to-do list (which is what I suspect all those free-from’s are about).

Let the experiment in shifting begin…

• • • • •

How do you want to end your week? How would you like to feel? What do you want for your weekend?

• • • • •