IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO BE SUPERSTU!!!
One of my big crises is that i waste huge blocks of time-- hours, weeks, months, years, and make no net gains in many of the tasks i set for myself. i just dunno how to do it!
someone help me figure out how to plot out a summer schedule that is packed with action and growth, leaving no room for indolence, boredom, isolation, weight gain or chain smoking.....
I want to find a way to do all of the following:
pray
eat
take care of some spiritual tasks that i do each day
work in the garden for pay (as close to full-time as possible)
learn Torah
write short stories
blog
contact you
read fiction
exercise
not go crazy
there are 24 hours a day, 6 usable days per week.
the best mathematician wins a prize
(like an e-hug from me or your name on a plaque some day)
ready...set...go!
(and anyone whose urge is to write me-- "don't bite off more than you can chew," or "you're great the way you are, don't pressure yourself..."
There. I wrote it for you. Thanks.
You only have the right to say that if you are willing to hire me at a reasonable salary for the next five years, and my therapy bills.)
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8 comments:
Let's combine and condense: working in the garden, close to full time, IS excersize; blogging IS "contact you", and perhaps also IS an allowable substitute for "write short stories". Not go crazy is an outcome, however unlikely, not a task. "Eat" is matter-of-fact: bread, chumus, an apple and a carrot for lunch; a yogurt, bread, a tomato and some melon for breakfast, a combination plus a surprise (tuna?) for dinner. No cooking, no muss, no fuss, and each meal is over in 15 minutes. Read fiction on the can. Be "kovea itim" for Torah, don't be concerned about how long; pray short and intense, or, hey, here's an original idea: go to minyan. There you go, you've got all of those items packed into a small volume of time, with plenty to spare. By the way, at home, I'm in charge of putting the food back in the fridge after Shabbat dinner when there is apparantly no space - ah, but "there's always more room on the other side" - that's as true for one's life examined as it is for dumpsters (the squat green metal entities which inspired that quotable quote.
So, there you go, cross them seven rivers...
a good start to an exciting game. a few points.clarifications:
- i didn't even work in time to go to the toilet..
-my new "chew 37 times" regiment lengthens meals to at least 22 minutes each
-minyan is a good idea.. see you there?
-if i only learn for short spurts, how to become a "Big Kahuna"?
-are you saying i should stuff half of me in the dumpster, or go to your house after Shabbes to eat leftovers?
-never forget who's waiting across those 7 rivers... you really want me over there?
i like rav yehoshua's idea of combining activities that serve multi-purposes. it also allows one to look at those activities in another way (e.g. gardening and exercising).
in any case, here would be my preliminary schedule for your "summer of action and growth":
7am (or earlier as you see fit) morning jog/long walk--45min.--if possible may include some meditation exercises during this time. e.g. try to not think of anything while running, or have a sort of blessing to recite over and over again, or repeat the shema, or just take in the beauty of the hills...
8am-8:15am (after a quick stretch or a few good yoga asanas you are ready for a shower. don't dilly-dally in there, just take care of your business and out--hell, you don't even need to shave)
8:15am ready for minyan/morning prayer or for a nutritious breakfast (depending on when minyan happens).
10am-12pm onto your gardening activities before the heat of mid afternoon...
12pm-12:15pm some quiet time with a cool glass of lemonade or your favorite beverage. no cigarettes!
12:15pm lunch time--should be something quick to prepare, nutritious--e.g. beans, salad, whole wheat bread, glass of water.
now this is the hard part. your body will be very tired after the morning exercise and gardening work plus your now post-prandial state: BUT DO NOT TAKE A NAP!! this is not the time for an italian siesta!
find a buddy and learn some torah. focus on a difficult talmud discussion, get a study partner, go to the rav's house, something. but do not take a nap!
2pm now make sure you applied lots of sunscrean, put on that big rimmed hat, and back out to the garden to finish your work until sunset or dinner (whichever comes first).
7pm or thereabouts: prepare dinner, eat (chew as long as you want), evening prayers/benching.
9pm-11pm stu time. blog on alternating nights or when the inspiration is not there to finish your next beautiful short story.
11pm-7am sleep your head off and do it all over again the next day. and then thank god you are able to.
hope this helps.
i really wanted to say not to take on so much all at once.. and then offer to hire your therapy bills.. but instead, i will reveal my secrets and apply them to your schedule:
1. to be productive it really helps to wake up early. (When you've accomplished 3 of your daily goals by 9am, it gives you energy to move forward with your day)
2. you can't wake up early unless you go to sleep early (or at least a reasonable hour)
3. daven netz every day. it's a great natural deadline which means A. if you get up late you can skip in order to catch it. B. you can't lounge in bed unless you start to wake up @ like 4am. C. the first conscious thing you do with your day is pray, which is great because all of the worries/concerns in the world don't yet exist, it's just you and G-d and it's a special relationship.
4. learn something right after you finish praying, while you're still in your tefillin. If you ever forget it and start to put away your tefillin, take them back out, put em back on, and sit and learn. Never let anything--anything--get in the way of this learning time. It can even be just 5 minutes daily, but it's better if it's not tied to time, but rather a fixed amount of learning. Find a sefer with small chapters or pages, learn a chapter or a page or a paragraph each day. Something you can learn and get something out of. In the event that you don't get anything out of it, don't worry about it, R' Nachman has a sicha where he says it's important to hear the words of tzaddikim even if you don't understand them, because your neshama understands them--which I apply to learning as well. Even if you didn't understand it and don't have time to delve into it one day, keep going. You will get to it the next time you go through the sefer. And you WILL go through the sefer again with a strategy like this. [I used to learn a chapter of tanya every morning, and now i learn it according to the daily learning schedule, in the past 4 years i've been through it more than six times.] if you keep it up, you will see results, you just can't let anything stop this learning time. Every time i go through it, i pick up on things i breezed through last year. I don't think i ever spent/spend more than 10 minutes on it a day. If you ever miss a day, make it up when you get a chance, but don't let it get you down or give you an excuse to stop. don't ever break this routine, protect it as if your life depended on it. [there have been many days when the only thing between me and crushing depression were these 10 minutes]
By Now you've been awake for an hour and a half, 2 hours max, and it's still early morning (by anyone else's reckoning) but you've built yourself a lifeline for the rest of the day, no matter what else you do, you're already building and growing. If you do nothing else with your day, just this routine over a single year will transform your life entirely. This is your insurance. Now, the rest of your day you focus on your goals and what you want to achieve.
5. eat something light.(the gemara says it's really important to eat bread in the morning, i've tried, but it's hard to always have bread on hand at that hour)
6. Go work in the garden. It's great time to reflect on what you did in prayer today, what you just learned in your morning 10-15 minutes. It's also early in the day so the heat is still tolerable. Work till (maybe half past) 11am
7. eat, shower, rest for a (half an?) hour. read a book if you aren't exhausted.
7.5 this would be a good time to pray mincha
8. now that you're rested and your mind is sharp, put in a good 1-2 hours learning something heavy, something that requires breaking your head a little or a lot.
[Be very aware of the fact that you are spending your most rested quality hours, your strength, on learning and praying. you are sending a clear message to yourself and to HaShem what your priorities are. There's something special about firsts, it's like bikkurim, first fruits, they're holy and you are being makdish your first energies to HaShem.]
9. Now spend just a half hour learning (the same order every day) from 3 or 4 different light sefarim (_not_ a half hour *each*, rather learn from all three or four of them within a single half hour) that you enjoy, or the kind of things you are curious what's in there, or you feel it might be good to know but you just don't have the time to engage it more seriously. Just learn a little from each, again it's good to limit yourself based on natural features of the books, a chapter, a fixed number of passukim, an amount of halachot, whatever it may be. The goal is a little breadth of knowledge. over the course of the summer you will make significant headway in all of them.
10. go work in the garden for a few more hours.
11. if you haven't said minha yet, make sure you say it sometime soon. Minha is especially nice when you know you're interrupting your normal day and taking time out for what is really important. You and HaShem get to catch up, now that you're in the middle of your day, you remember all the things you need the most and now's the best time to ask for them. (eliyahu haNavi's prayers were only answered at minha time.)
12.now you have a day choc-full of accomplishment and thought-inspiring things to write/blog/talk about. Speak to the rest of the world. Your hunger will make you keep this time limited,
13. go have some dinner.
14. say maariv.
15. read some light story-line related torah, or something kabbalistic/hasidic and trippy. or maybe some tehillim.
16. say shema and go to sleep, it's not yet 11pm and you're utterly exhausted.
*bonus: on friday write a short dvar torah to share with people via email or on shabbath. emphasis on short. the most meaningful, most easily contained idea. by the end of the summer you will have 8-10 well-written concise pieces of original torah you are proud of.
it sounds like a consistent daily schedule is the thing to do.
i find doing the thing that i least like in the morning is best so that i can't put it off and the day seems to go more pleasantly.
post the schedule in many places to be seen until it becaomes habit, starting on the bathroom mirror.
i attribute my success in teaching to my consistent schedule which the children thrive on. i've tried without and it was disastrous and i was exhausted at the end of the day. when i keep my schedule the same daily even after school i have much more energy and get more done. so true when i use to go to the gym and walk 2 miles daily after work. (i should do that again).
eating 5-6 small healthy meals is also better, and stopping 2-3 hours before bed, easier on the digeston too ( not the junk i sent you, oops).
a great old old saying is true "early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy wealthy and wise".
push yourself to do something like read, pray, email etc to get past those down times when you get lazy and/or tired and you'll get over that feeling and feel rejuvenated.
to sum it up write out a schedule, stick to it everyday and it will soon become a part of your life that doesn't take any thought so more energy can go into productivity.
(i previously wrote and somehow it got lost so i hope this says it all again).
good luck
well stu it sounds like a lot of good advice. the best that i can say is do what i did. i got me a beutiful, attractive, very intelligent woman. it works. look at craig. before keren he was a mess. hanging out with crazy guys at B.U. he was all over the map. now he's, well he's back in boston.
so everything sounds easier than it is oh, and wendy corrected my spelling too. take care of something really good and spread the love.
love lukas ja sherzer
so who wins the prize? or does it depend on the outcome of this summer's activity?
stu... find a few minutes to call me on my cell and we can go over a schedule. god bless.
xoxo troy
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