“April is a reminder that life is a beautiful, ever-renewing cycle.”
— E.E. Cummings
I missed the spring of sleepy bumble bees, blooming flowers, and rapid forming rainstorms. Every year its different and beautiful. I’ve been watching the dogwood’s and red bud’s explode into bloom, leaving the still somewhat bare forests filled with fireworks of color. Observing the slow growth of the strawberries as they work their way out of hibernation and what’s left of the straw we couldn’t clear from their tangled clumps of dead leaves. It’s been a near perfect spring so far and with it comes the busyness of people, pets, and the chaos of spring cleaning.
My main focus has been attempting to get my digital life organized. Moving inboxes, shifting software programs, and learning new ones. It’s been chaotic but in a good way. It’s made me realize that, my life is a mess, but in a way that can be easily fixed with new habits. I’ve started time-blocking, securing my passwords, moving thousands of pages of notes to Logseq, I’m even building out a client portal for my future herbal practice.
When chronic illness hits you are never prepared for the fallout. You lose friends, maybe even family, hobbies, whole parts of yourself are gone in an instant and it’s traumatizing. But what we don’t tend to realize is that life will continue in some form or fashion and if you don’t stay on top of being organized, it creates a slow moving train wreck that beings to interfere with everything. And if you’re like me, you don’t recognize it until every single thing you’ve tried to accomplish fails and a decade has past you by without even introducing itself before smashing things on its way.
Being chronically ill means you’re going to miss days. You may need to schedule chunks in your day for resting. There may be only one things on your to do list and that’s fine. It may take you more time to complete things. Again fine. The goal of productivity or getting organized isn’t to turn you into some super productivity wizard. It’s to keep you on track, whatever that means for you. Prioritize your rest and prioritize your joy, everything else comes in second.
Links:
- Carl Linnaeus’s Note-Taking Innovations
- Why you (kinda) speak like a Viking
- How to unburden yourself: a guide to escaping overstimulation
- Botanizing: The best hobby you’ve never heard of
- Thoughts on the importance of Neuro-Decolonization
Reads:
- ‘Thomas Merton, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and the Protection of All Beings’ by Bill Morgan
- ‘Feel-Good Productivity’ by Ali Abdaal
