Bike ‘n blog; trusting my feelings
I’m reviving a fun thing I used to do with a former blog: I ride my bike to a new-to-me coffee shop, order a drink, and write a post.
I rarely have time to do this, as I am blessed to have a life jam-packed with family and job stuff. (Though I’ll admit, it doesn’t always feel like a blessing. 😉) But today, I’m taking a personal day. No job, my kids are in school, and my wife’s off doing her stuff.
The coffee shop
So! Here I am at Carnelian Coffee, which I found through Portland Monthly’s coffee shop guide.
It doesn’t look like much from the outside. Here’s the storefront with some locked bikes, including mine.
But it’s got a cool vibe inside. It’s a rock/gemstone-themed shop. Apparently geologist geeks congregate here. (We have everything in Portland. 😆) There are shelves with cool rocks lining both sides of the main room.
On first glance, the shop seems small. But wander toward the back, and there’s a hallway with some more tucked-away seating, as well as some outdoor seating. I’m sitting inside, closest to the front window. I brought my iPad mini rig, which isn’t much more convenient than bringing my MacBook Air, but makes for a fun and somewhat-more-distraction-free writing experience.
(There’s a Logitech K380 wireless keyboard on my lap.)
Today’s topic
Today I’m following up on my last post, Unburying myself from self-imposed process, where I talked about how I’ve very much overdone it with lists and process in my attempt to accomplish everything I want to at work.
I watched Star Wars: Episode IV with my kids last Friday. I realized this was necessary after my 11 year-old son argued adamantly that “Chewie is not a Wookiee, dad.” (He was confusing Ewoks and Wookiees.) A New Hope thusly shot to the top of my family movie night list.
Anyone who watched that movie a few times surely remembers the scene toward the end, where Luke is flying through the Death Star corridor in a last-ditch effort to destroy the deadly space station. If Luke fails, the rebellion is obliterated and the bad guys win big.
Luke is relying on his targeting computer, as any sane pilot would in order to hit the tiny target with proton torpedoes while flying at speed. But then he hears Obi-Wan’s voice: “Luke, trust your feelings.” In other words, turn off the computer and go with your gut.
This feels like an apt analogy for the reset I’m trying to accomplish at the moment. Instead of a targeting computer, I’ve been relying on structure and checklists. And instead of Obi-Wan, I’ve got Oliver Burkeman. 😉
Among all the professional self-help stuff I’ve read and listened to over the years, I find Oliver’s guidance most impactful for actually staying sane amidst all the modern pressures, many of which turn out to be self-imposed. Some of Oliver’s pieces of wisdom that I find most relevant, heavily paraphrased, include:
- As a finite human, you simply can’t do everything (or even a large fraction) of all the things you want to do.
- None of the productivity systems and apps flying about will ever let you feel like you’re fully in control of your tasks and life.
- A lot of the stuff we worry so much about doesn’t actually matter.
- Trying to capture all useful information in a notes app or Zettelkasten or whatever will not lead to greater insight. Rather, it will just lead to more labor and noise, and even to avoiding reading good books and articles because you’re not in the mood or context to take good notes on them.
- Treat your task list as you would a restaurant menu: something from which to pick a couple exciting things to do right now. You wouldn’t worry about eating everything on the menu. Similarly, don’t worry about doing everything on your list. Because most of the time that’s impossible anyway.
- Once you embrace your limitations, you can start treating your life as an adventure to be explored, full of spontaneity and whim, rather than an endless list of obligations to grind through.
There’s a lot more, and Oliver is much more eloquent than I will ever be. I highly recommend his stuff.
But it seems to me that Obi-Wan and Oliver are onto something similar. Yes, Luke has to destroy the Death Star. He can’t just do whatever he wants, ignoring or procrastinating on that critical task.
But he can pursue that outcome in very different ways. He can stare frantically into his targeting computer, letting the digital device dictate his mood and action in each moment. Or he can shut off that digital dictator, take some deep breaths, and trust that his feelings and instincts will lead him to a good place. (Yeah it’s a sloppy analogy, but hey, I’m an amateur.)
In my case, just last week, I had increasingly large morning checklist that I’d require myself to get through each morning. I’d paste it into my daily note in Obsidian, start working through it, and often get lost or sidetracked before completing it. In those cases, not only had I wasted 30 or more minutes of peak Sal time (I’m a morning person these days), but I’d do that only to feel bad because I’d failed to check all the boxes!
So I’m scrapping that completely. I’m giving myself permission to trust my feelings and launch into whatever effort feels right in the morning. I do try to identify a “highlight” the day before, but it’s not a requirement. If nothing stands out, I’ll leave the slate clean for the next morning.
As Oliver promises, with this approach I was still able to be productive and do the important things each day. But I had let myself off leash. I had “unclenched,” as he puts it. It felt so much better. The walls no longer felt like they were closing in.
I’m not saying I’ve “figured it out.” Part of the point here is knowing that I never will! But this has felt like a good, freeing experiment that I can learn something from. And when life starts to feel like a grind again, which I know it will, I’ll try something else.
Out of time! I’ll come back and edit this later. Or maybe I won’t. Cheers. 👋