7 Things To Do

“Every day, once a day, give yourself a present.”

Would you like to buy this print? There are ten 5x7” prints available (THEY’VE GROWN!), and that’s it, forever. (These make a good gift.)

A note for you, if you’re having a bad day.

Hello Friend!

I love my planner. I am one of those. I use the Passion Planner (which was developed by Angelia Trinidad, who turns out to be a really nice person on top of building a business around an object that I would go out of my way to save in a fire), and I tried over a dozen planners before landing on this one.¹

I learned in a professional development session, that was otherwise bad and featured a lot of memes from “The Office,” that in order to use a planner well, you need to set aside at least a solid hour a week just for planning in your planner. The person leading the seminar called this “going to the mountain.” I don’t remember why. But I liked the massiveness of “mountain,” so I still call it that. “I need two hours to go to the mountain,” I say to no one.

On the first Monday of January, I gave myself a whole DAY to go to the mountain, and I took the entire day. I know that this is a time luxury most people don’t have. I had it because of winter break plus daycare. And I’m not here to tell you that you need to spend a whole day with your paper planner, mapping out your desires and expectations and hopes and ideas. I’m here to tell you about two related lessons I’ve learned by painstakingly prioritizing trips to the mountain, which are: (1) it’s hard to get things done when you’re using the word “maybe”²; and (2) the thing that Dale Cooper said on “Twin Peaks” about how you should “every day, once a day, give yourself a present” is good advice. But it helps to regulate it. 

MAYBE.

The word “maybe” is tricky. It SEEMS like it would be a good word. It acts like it’s filled with imagination. MAYBE you’ll join a band! MAYBE you’ll learn to make pots! Your life is a blank canvas! What a glorious thing, to be ensconced in the possibility of possibility. “Maybe” turns up in my morning journal pages often. I will write the definite plan for the morning, and then I’ll write some maybes. “Maybe I’ll go for a run” is a big one that I write fairly often. Ten years of morning pages later, I am here to tell you that for the roughly 391 times I’ve written, “maybe I’ll go for a run,” the number of times I have ever actually gone for a run on those days is ZERO.

“Maybe” leaves the door open for too long. It lets in a draft. “Maybe” is hoping someone else will come to the party, so you never really listen to the people who are already there. It’s fun to have a wild imagination; it’s NOT fun to reach the end of the workday and realize that you spent it all daydreaming (unless daydreaming was the thing you’d decided you wanted to do). Having a plan is so grounding for me. Straying from the plan is always allowed, and often encouraged. Looking down at a list and having an idea about what I might be doing during each hour of the day helps me end the day feeling less disappointed and often proud and satisfied. 

I am truly not a Type A person! But I AM a chronic dreamer, and I always imagine the day being more boundless than its 24 hours. Or, I have it in my head that I can use all 24 of those hours for Big Somethings, like sewing pants or writing poems or talking on the phone, and none of them will be required for sleeping or zoning out or eating beans. Really, you should³ spend eight hours of your day sleeping, at least three hours winding down to sleep or easing into waking up, six hours cooking or eating, at least an hour moving around, and at least three hours resting. That really only leaves five hours to be productive.⁴ Which means, as I have written before, that you can realistically do five things every day. And even that’s a stretch. Which is all to say that it never feels like a good use of my day to dawdle back and forth about what I am going to do next. I like to already know. That’s why I go to the mountain. You needn’t go to the mountain, but nevertheless, be wary of maybes.

PRESENTS.

My parents used to order my sister and me a Pizza Hut pan pizza to share every Friday night, and we got to eat it in front of the TV and watch TGIF. Because I had one thing to look forward to every week, I thought (as many people do) that Friday was the best day of the week. But it wasn’t because it led into the weekend; I didn’t care that much about the weekend. It was about the pizza and the TV. In adulthood, I realized you could ritualize every day of the week like that. My friend Bethany gets coffee at a coffee shop before work every Wednesday. Maybe you already have something. I suggest you adopt SEVEN THINGS. One for every day.

And don’t worry, I have suggestions.

On Monday, light a candle. Maybe you don’t have a candle, so this Monday, you can BUY a candle instead of lighting it. It should be a nice-smelling candle that you can really cozy up to. Maybe you’re an incense person. This is a smell-based joy, and you’ll see that I think it’s important to vary the senses you’re nurturing day-by-day, so you have a chance to *miss* a thing like a nice smell. Monday is a good day to have a little extra light in your life, too. You can light the candle and work, or play, or watch TV, or whatever; so long as you at least once stop to smell the air and think, “Mmmm. Nice.”

On Tuesday, mindfully listen to a song. Just one! To mindfully listen to a song, you might have to turn off the lights, or at least close your eyes. If you’re like me, you’ll need to lie on the floor. You’ll want a good speaker, if possible. You are going to listen to the song in the dark, and you’re going to think about the song while you listen to it. You’re going to let the song fill you all the way up. You’re going to let the song get into the places you don’t even let your closest friends go. This might make you cry, and that’s part of the joy.

On Wednesday, lotion. I have written a whole post about lotion. You’ll need to read the lotion post if you want to know more about my (and soon-to-be your) obsession with lotion.

On Thursday, walk to see a plant. The big thing here is that you have to walk. You have go outside even when it’s very cold, and you’ll understand how big the sky is, and I promise you that whatever is bad in your life will feel just a little tiny bit not-as-bad. This is The Law of Walks. Today, my friend Jill took me to see the oldest tree in Chicago. I think it would be good to have a tree to visit for when you take your Thursday walk. You might vary the plant, or maybe it’s the same one every day. All that matters is that you walk, and that you observe a plant, so you remember that we aren’t here all alone on this planet. We share it with PLANTS. (And also birds, which you may see on your walk, too. Miraculous.)

On Friday, eat something special.  Inspired by my childhood pizza Fridays, I hereby invoke a ritual meal for YOU on Friday. Maybe you start the day with a doughnut every Friday. Maybe you make your favorite salad for dinner. Maybe you order in Thai. Or, may I recommend a pan pizza from Pizza Hut? I no longer eat those, but I remember them being AMAZING. Food does some Big Chemical Stuff to your brain, and that’s good to tap into on a Friday, right? 

On Saturday, read. You’ll have to decide how long you’ll read, when you’ll read, and where you’ll read, because reading is a commitment. That’s why we often end up not doing it; we’re unused to activities that can’t be multitasked. But that’s exactly the central joy of reading. If you’re not a book person, try a magazine, or a comic. Sitting in a chair and looking at a non-electronic page and sinking in for a little while is one of the tremendous and unique gifts of being human. Do not go one more week of your life without cashing in. 

On Sunday, make. I’ve left this fairly open-ended, because all creative practices are so different from each other. Maybe you’ll draw, sculpt, paint, or build. Maybe you’ll write. Maybe you’ll bake. Pick the thing that makes you happiest, and decide that you’re going to use creative energy to do that thing every single Sunday.

The trick to your weekly rituals is to set alarms in your phone for at least the first month of practicing them. Think about your schedule and decide when you’re going to fit in the candle lighting or the lotion smearing. The reason Bethany’s Wednesday coffee thing works is because it happens alongside something she already does — which is drive to school. It’s easier to build habits when you bundle them with other habits. (This is social science.) I have an alarm that goes off on my phone every Wednesday at 3:41 p.m. that says “UNUSUAL BIRD INTERRUPTION.” At that time, whatever I’m doing, I have to stop and watch a video of a bird. Luckily, this happens to be a time I am usually teaching a class, so we usually get to stop learning about whatever boring, sleep-inducing thing we are learning about, and LOOK AT BIRDS. This brings me so much joy that I do it even when I’m not around anyone else. I love to remember that we share the earth with birds. And my phone alarm loves to help me.

It could be that seven is too many. You should decide how many you can commit to, and commit to them. Don’t say, “Maybe I’ll get ice cream on Friday, if I think of it.” There’s no better way to guarantee that you will not get ice cream on Friday than to decide that you will maybe get ice cream on Friday. At least, that has been my experience. 

This week, I wish you many small joys. I hope they’ll cascade out and show up for you for the rest of the week, the month, and the year.

Thank you for sharing the internet with me.

Love,

Sophie

Parenting Paragraph

I spent my first weekend solo parenting, with Luke out of town. I want to know if anyone has experienced solo parenting as being more lonely than just being alone in the world. When I am alone on a train, I feel basically content. When I am alone in the living room with my daughter, who is playing with blocks, and whose delicate life is 100 percent dependent upon my ability to adult, I feel content at a core level — but every other part of my body feels so lonely. Lonely in my shoulders, lonely in the pit of my stomach… is this a real phenomenon, or was I just going through a menstrual cycle thing that happened to coincide with Luke’s trip to see his dad?

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1. My gf Kat also uses the Passion Planner. I really like the reflection questions at the end of each month, and the prioritization tools. The planner has some big goal-mapping activities, that I use to help me write books and stay committed to newsletters; others might like that it gives you a spot for every hour of every day. Who are we kidding? I like that too. It also has, like, quotes in it. You know? Like, it’s uplifting. You get it.

2. I’ve used the word “maybe” in this post 25 times. So. It’s a word that GETS USED. Just not when planning one’s day.

3. There is no should. Should is a lie. Don’t let anyone should you.

4. Different strokes for different folks. You may say, “Sophie, that’s too many hours to spend on food.” But it takes a long time to cook, and I think being present while eating is a good goal. And then there’s cleaning, and then three meals a day and there you are. It’s not like everyone TAKES this much time to do food things. But given that we are animals, I think it would make sense to spend this amount of time on it.