Too much going on

There are too many things in my life right now. Podcast. Job. Start-up. Kids. Speaking gigs. 

The problem is I enjoy them all, and think they are all important things for me to be doing right now. It is the season for all of them.

There are consequences though. The first is my social life - I do not have the space or energy to invest in relationships like I want to. The second is creative energy - once again, I don't have the space and energy to reflect and draw my creativity out. The third is presence - as I am putting more into each day, my base level of stress seems to rise and I check my phone more, rush more from place to place.

What to do? Is this just a season in my life? Can I make the space and energy I need? I want to connect and create and be present.

As a start, here are some things to do that will create some more space and energy in my life:

1) Outsource: the editing of my podcast sucks out my energy and time. I can outsource this

2) Reduce living costs: I have some regular expenses in my life that I can reduce, which would also reduce my stress

3) Say no: there are somethings, some catchups that are not quite right for me. In saying no to them I say yes to space and energy for creativity, friendships, and presence.

Articulation

In having a break from writing this blog for a month, I have noticed a few of things.

The first is that I become less articulate about ideas, thoughts and feelings that I have. Writing about an idea each day helps me to understand it better, and to convey it better to others.

The second is about the reason I am writing it. I want to write about what it is like to be here now. About what I am feeling, experiencing, pondering, at this moment. I do this because I want to reflect on this; because I want others who might happen to read this to feel a bit better about their experience of being where they are in each moment; and I also do it because I want to one day go back and flick through some of these memories.

The third thing I have noticed is how much more difficult it is to be creative when working full-time. I started a full-time job about 2 months ago, and since then producing creative output has become much more of an effort. This is one of the reasons why I have taken a break from the blog, because I have put my creative efforts into continuing my podcast.

My intention is to build writing a blog post into my mourning ritual. It is beneficial to me, and I hope to others as well, and I want to keep doing it.

Favourite shape

When I was a kid my favourite shape was a circle. There was a TV show called Play School and during one segment they always started by picking one of three windows. If the circle was not chosen, tears on my behalf would ensue. 

Back working in the CBD and an office this week, it is apparent that the favourite shape of the workplace are the rectangle and square.

Desks, monitors, meeting rooms, offices, partitions, doors, streets, windows, corridors. So may rectangles and squares, everywhere I move and everywhere I look.

I have not done any research about this, but I reckon the shapes we surround ourself with influence the way we interact and out ability to create. Straight lines are easy to build and put together, but I think they limit our ability to think about the connectedness of things, the blurring together of spaces and ideas.

In our natural habitat there is barely a straight line to be seen, let alone a corner. Coast lines, paths winding through forests, tree limbs, even the outline of our own bodies.

I would like to see different shapes brought into the places we move through and pause in. Shapes inspired by the world around us and what is inspiring for us, rather than efficiencies of building and construction.

A simple way to start is to bring the complex and fluid shapes of plants into our indoor environments.