motivation – Page 3 – Deborah Makarios

July 3, 2015

How to Exercise and Like It

Or: one more reason to love your library.

You see, motivation is key. You can do very nearly anything if you have sufficient motivation. Since there hasn’t been anyone behind me with a lethal weapon for years now, motivation to move briskly has, I freely admit, been a problem.

Until now. I had an epiphany. All I needed to do was find something that I wanted enough to walk to it – something that was a reasonable distance away, i.e. not the cake tin.

For me, it was the library.
The Hutt City Libraries (may their book-budget never grow less) not only allow you to reserve books from other libraries within the city, they are also part of a scheme which allows you to reserve books from other libraries across the region. And (unless they are usually pay-for items), these reserves are free.

The libraries of the city I used to live in (which shall remain nameless), charged so much to reserve a book even from another library within the city that it was cheaper to get on a bus and go and get it yourself. Here, you just reserve the book online, and they let you know when it has been delivered to your library of choice.

Our local-est library is about 2.25 km away (1.4 miles, imperialists). It was but the work of a moment to decide to have my reserves sent in future to that library, and to walk there to collect them. Last week, I walked there and back twice, the first time for a reserve, the second to return books that were due. By my calculations, that’s 9km (5.6 miles) extra I walked, which isn’t too shabby for the first week.

The lure of the unread book draws me there, and the lure of the couch and cup of tea with book lures me home again. None of this forcing yourself to walk in circles for the sake of it. And if I eventually decide that a walk of 4.5km is a piece of cake, I can always move it up to 7km: to the central library in town and back. Or I could add weights – which is to say, borrow more books. (I’m only doing it for my health!)

That’s the other wonderful thing about the Hutt City Libraries: they don’t have a borrowing limit.

What’s worth walking for to you? And is your local library as good as mine?

February 27, 2015

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying

Hear me out: it’s the title of a book by Marie Kondo, a Japanese “expert declutterer and professional cleaner” – a book which I have recently read.

It’s quite different to the usual run of (Western) decluttering books. For a start, there’s her belief that a seven-tatami-mat room (3m/10ft by 4m/13ft) is ample living & storage space for a single person; her habit of greeting the house and thanking her belongings for their service; her almost religious devotion to folding clothes; and of course, the idea that decluttering your house is best done all in one go.

What? I hear you cry. All in one go? Does she not realize how much stuff I have?

On which note, it turns out that Japanese people are not entirely immune from hoarding, despite the overall population density and corresponding lack of space. Examples given include sixty toothbrushes, eighty rolls of toilet paper, and a hundred boxes of cotton buds – with 200 buds in each.

So rest assured, she doesn’t mean that you should sort out everything you own in one day. (Phew!) Six months is more her estimation, starting with easy things like clothes and working your way up to difficult things like photos and keepsakes.

The idea is to sort everything by type, and not put, say, your clothes away – any of them – until you have sorted out absolutely all of them. This makes sense, when you realize that there’s no point organizing how you’re going to store a certain class of object until you know how big that class is going to be.

And here’s the really surprising bit of her claim: she says that if you go through the process properly, imagining how you want your home to be and delving deep into your motivation before sorting it all out, you will never regress. It will be a once-in-a-lifetime purge. Because once you’ve got it the way you want it, you will have the motivation to keep it that way, one presumes.

The thing I really like about her system is the measure for deciding what to keep: does it bring me joy? If not, out it goes. Except tax papers and the like, which, alas, have to be kept regardless of the feelings they inspire.

What do you think? Could you commit to a season of purging the dross from your life – and never look back? What does your ideal feel like – and how does that look?

For myself, I’d like my living environment to be one of simplicity, spaciousness and peace; where both focus and relaxation are possible without the distraction of unfinished jobs, unnecessary items, and unimportant decisions.
As to whether I am prepared to spend the next six months ruthlessly purging all my belongings (my books!) – well, I know better than to sign up for the long term at short notice. But I am certainly considering it.

January 4, 2014

Look Both Ways Before You Cross

Looking forward to the new year, but also looking back over the year just passed. Coincidentally, it has been exactly a year since I started this blog.

During that time I have written all of eighty-eight posts (although about 25 are simple quote-and-picture posts). Over the course of the year I have gone through Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, reviewed various books on writing, and asked for advice on a myriad of subjects (moving house, staying sane…) which I mostly didn’t get.

I also set goals for myself (see here and here) which I mostly failed to meet, in that I did not finish my WIP by December 31st. But I did make some strides in taking myself more seriously as a writer and doing a bit of would-like-to-be-professional development. As with so many things, Work In Progress.

Among the questions which I have mulled over during the year are whether to keep using my nom de plume (my parents, by some oversight, failed to name me Sinistra at birth) and what precisely it is I am trying to achieve here.

This blog was originally intended as a form of accountability against procrastination, but since no-one is actually holding me accountable but me anyway, that purpose has taken a bit of a back seat.
Procrastination is apparently one of the mysteries of the human condition, as articulated by Paul back in the 50s AD: “I don’t really understand myself, for I want to do what is right, but I don’t do it.” (Romans 7:15, New Living Translation).

Motivation is perhaps key, but I struggle to find a motivation strong enough to overcome tiredness and self-doubt. Duty doesn’t cut it (unlike Frederic, I am not the Slave of Duty); ambition is by no means my strong suit – perhaps I just need to develop more character. Or a means of reminding myself of what it is I stand to lose.

In any case, over the coming year I hope to look more at subjects of interest to more than myself – that is to say, less of the writing, and more of the whatever-I-happen-to-be-obsessed-with-at-the-moment – steampunk, knitting, millinery, sustainability, odd bits of history, or any combination of the above.

Looking back, my most popular post by far (inasmuch as I can tell, since the majority of views are recorded as “homepage/archive”) is Great Wizards of Literature. I blush a little every time I see another hit on it, as it was originally titled Favourite Wizards of Literature, only some were more great than favourite. It wasn’t until after I had clicked ‘publish’ that I realised I had listed one of my own creations as a Great Wizard of Literature.

He isn’t great, really, but he’s doing his best. (If he’s very lucky, he may one day be published.) An excellent example of how not to blow your own trumpet.

The gong for Most Under-Appreciated Post (from my point of view, anyway) goes to Mid-Week Quote: Reading, for the play on word(s) if nothing else.

On an entirely unrelated tangent, if your New Year’s Resolution includes being more generous, giving to charity, doing something good for someone else or even (aim high!) saving someone’s life, consider this from Throwim Way Leg, one of the blogs I follow.
Getting an ultrasound machine really will make a life-or-death difference to people in Papua New Guinea. Imagine if your local hospital had no ultrasound, no x-ray, no lab for tests… you get the idea.
And do please feel free to pass the link on to anyone you think might be interested.

Thanking you all for your company in 2013, and looking forward to your company in 2014, I remain,
Sinistra Inksteyne