The way you do what you do

I was stopped in my tracks when I heard the phrase “The way you do anything is the way you do everything.”

I don’t know about you but this really rang true for me.

I’m in a rush. I have been for a while. I have a lot to do and be before I’m done with this lifetime. I distinctly recall the night before I started Grade 3, lying in my bed and looking at my brand new school uniform and hoping I didn’t die before I got to wear it. At 7 I was afraid I’d die before I got to be 8. I wasn’t sick but apparently, I was an Existentialist.

How do I do everything? Case in point – how I clean the house (which I hate doing, by the way). I plug in my earphones and careen from room to room, podcast teaching me important things, doing jobs in a slightly haphazard and (more than) slightly manic fashion. There’s a saying that writers hate writing but love having written. I actually love writing; sitting at the computer, tapping away or sitting in a cafe with pen and paper. It flows, I love it. But that saying does sum up how I feel about cleaning. I love the feeling of a clean house, but God help my family if they so much as sit on the couch and mess up the cushions. Such a thankless task.

I really need to swallow my pride and just get a cleaner. I really wanted to earn, from my writing, enough money to pay a cleaner. Oh dear, we all had a good laugh at that one…

So that’s how I do everything. Haphazard and slightly manic. But I do get a lot done!

My current list of things I want to achieve is fairly short, but the stakes feel high. The things I want to do most now are writing related and I need to rein myself in and try to go against type. I need to slow down and do things properly rather than jumping from project to project. Finish the paperback when it’s done, don’t rush. Release the novellas in February, not December. Maybe April next year. Who knows?

Meditation has really helped me to prioritise. I took to heart the idea that if you don’t have time to meditate for ten minutes a day, you need to do 20. So I do 30 minutes each morning and I do find I am more settled. I am calmer and I feel more creative. But I still hate cleaning!