I've been playing with this mind/body/soul thing for a couple of days now and it has yielded some interesting insights and results.
Two days ago, Wednesday, I kept track of just about everything I did that took more than 15 minutes or so. I gave everything a point value. This included taking a shower (2 body points, higher than I probably normally would because it was the first shower since surgery), taking my dog Sam on a walk (2 body points plus 2 soul points), and paying bills (4 unavoidable other points).
At the end of the day, I added everything up. I had about 32 body/mind/soul points and 8 other points. This worked down to a ratio of 20% body, 35% mind, 25% soul, and 20% other. There were no unavoidable other points.
Tracking these things led to some interesting choices as I went through the day. For starters, I did not check my email obsessively every 20 minutes. Checking once every four hours or so could be considered an "unavoidable other" activity or even lead to something nutritious. Checking every 20 minutes would have to be counted as an "avoidable other" activity -- so I didn't.
Then, later that evening, my son was in his room on his computer (as usual) and I was in my room reading or looking at my phone (as usual). I looked at my values and realized I'd done plenty of brain work, enough body work, but I was low on the soul points. I could sit and continue reading (which would have been fine), but actually making some popcorn and watching a good movie would be even more soul enhancing. Because I don't do it very much, cooking is very soulful for me, especially now when the act is a little bit of a challenge and therefore a little more satisfying. So I decided to do that. I made the popcorn, invited Taylor out to join me, we flipped on the telly randomly, found a delightful little coming of age movie, and ended up watching the whole thing together while munching on popcorn. Bingo! Huge soul points, and a perfect ending to the day.
It was a good day. I felt good at the end of it, there was a rough balance between the various parts. I did not prod myself into doing more editing work, as I could very well have. I made sure to give the dog at least one walk, as I could have easily avoided. The act of tracking these things worked pretty well.
Yesterday was not so good a day. As the day went on, it just didn't feel like I had that much to track. I did an errand with Roger, I ate lunch out in the real world, I got my hair washed, I even treated myself and my friend Jane to a manicure at the local salon (where I got a cute little pedi.) It was a day of pretty high activity (for me these days), and a lot of conversation, and I got stuff done. But when I came back and wrote everything down I realized that my total points were about 14 points, breaking down to be 48% body, 40% soul, about 1% mind, and 1% unavoidable other.
And I felt crappy. My pain is wearing me down, I felt listless, my brain was going down paths I really didn't want it to go down. I hadn't written anything, I hadn't done any billable (or even non-billable work). I just felt blah. Once I wrote everything down I realized that even though I had been enjoyably busy all day it ended up being kind of an iceberg day, rather than a spinach day. Both days tasted like salad, but the overall point value was higher the day before. Additionally, there was a distinct drop in the mind points, which I found interesting. Usually the brain work is the stuff that overwhelms everything else. But yesterday there was none, and I felt the disparity.
Interesting.
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