personal practice: my shadow calendar - what am i learning?

16 Jun 2017

what am i learning from my shadow calendar practice?

lesson 1: it’s really freaking helpful

it’s so nice to have a framework for what i want to do with my time each week. it makes it very clear when to say yes and when to say no.

some days i’ll get invited to like three different events but i say no because it’s project night or because it’s one of my bi-weekly hangouts with a close friend/woe (ht adrienne maree brown for the term woe (friends who are working on excellence) - which was borrowed from drake which was borrowed from canadian rapper, devontée)!. or maybe i have a free night later during the week that i can switch project night to and go to something i’ve been invited to. or maybe someone wants to go on a weekend trip but it’s a weekend i’m supposed to be seeing jayden; easy no.

any which way it goes, it’s great to know that i’m still going to have time to keep moving forward the things i want to.

lesson 2: it’s easier to to do when my schedule is more stable

for the past couple of years, i’ve been trying to live more seasonally. it started with my diet and i think that (and the world and seasons) has influenced my activity levels. so i’m noticing that my ability to stick to my regular set of activities is much harder when i’m traveling a lot. it’s also hard because my friends and community travels a lot during the summer months as well. things overall just get harder to line up.

lesson 3: i haven’t figured out what to do as my woes shift/move

it’s unbelievably helpful to have regular hangouts scheduled with my woes. and yet, sometimes they move and our previous schedule doesn’t work. i haven’t yet figured out how to adjust my schedule when that happens. sometimes it means someone comes off the regular hangout list. sometimes it means we move our meeting to virtual. hm.

lesson 4: maybe i should hold a group retreat for this?

a few people have mentioned that they really like this idea. one person said they’d love to go in a group to do this. i love renting houses with friends so i had the idea of prototyping a group annual retreat in a house somewhere outside of boston this winter. it’s helpful to have accountability and getting away can be pricey without multiple people to share the cost. this is just an idea for now, but maybe it’ll happen.

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