Meditating Things Done

[elfs]

I like accomplishing housework, but I often have trouble convincing myself to start. There are too many distractions, too many pleasures, too many things I'd rather be doing. 43 Folders has an excellent article on dealing with these distractions called Run A Dash, in which the idea is to set a very short time limit in which to get something done, some absolutely minimal first action towards accomplishing a goal. With it being that small any complaints about how much you dislike it are simply not valid. Dashes require limits: either ends-based or time-based, and often the best solution is both: either when I finish this task, or ten minutes, whichever comes first. For these, one needs a timer.

I've been doing dashes for a long time, and I have long searched for the perfect timer, and have long ago given up. There is no one perfect timer for every need. But I have found two that I like. Because of the need for intrusive interruptions I still carry a Palm M500 which will chirrup as needed, but the Palm scheduler timers just don't work for dashes. Here are two programs for the Palm that do.

BigClock is an excellent timer that many people like for this purpose, but I've found that a better choice, for me at least, is Pocket Doan, a "meditation timer" that allows you to do such things as segment your dashes into periods, provides both a 2-minute warning and an end-of-dash note, and can be made to pause or cycle through sessions at will.

While I understand the original purpose of PocketDoan and its use in zazen, I find dashes to be particularly meditative in and of themselves, especially when they're of non-geek stuff like housework. Housework is an affirmation that I care about myself and my family, but as I said it's frequently hard to convince myself to start. Choosing "clean kitchen" or "weed backyard" from the list of "meditations" in PocketDoan encourages me to get started, sets a definite limit after which I can go back to geeking (a reward!), and provides a subtle affirmation that what I'm doing is valuable and desireable. It's up to me to add the well-articulated part by putting the action into the database in the first place.

As an added benefit, BigClock and PocketDoan are both freeware. BigClock is even distributed under the GNU Public License.

Comments

[woggie.livejournal.com]

Thank you for the links. I've been looking for a timer for quite some time, and while it's nice for someone to tell me to use BigClock, it's even nicer to be able to have a link. :)

[bldrnrpdx.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the link also. I found a couple of other fun things there as well.

[fallenpegasus]

FlyLady also uses the "dash" technique to break the temptation to not starting. It also adds the spice of having a "buddy", to coordinate by phone or IM, to start the dashes together, and race each other to see how much more you can get done than the other.