Meta footnote be with you

(With a title like that - so sorry - be prepared for a super stream-of-consciousness post.)

Yeesh, lots of things going on in my mind these days and I am way behind on updates - Christmas, New Years, two birthday, etc.

I have been wavering* about setting up a so-called "editorial calendar" or posting schedule, but I think it could really help me approach my blog with less fear.

[*Lisa footnote: the other day I was journalling about how I am lacking structure in life but that the reason I wasn't putting it into place was because I was fearing that I was idolizing it. And yet because God made me this way, maybe that fear message was really from the Enemy. And then I realized one of the labels for my Enneagram type is "Devil's Advocate." (!) Talk about mind-blowing. And then today when I was reading Healing The Purpose of Your Life by the beloved Linns of Sleeping with Bread, they discussed how "one clue to our sealed orders will often be what we like least about ourselves" (65). I wrote in the margin, "my ability to see both sides in every situation, when taken to an extreme, leads me to paralysis / without a guiding center."**]

[**meta-footnote: this is what happens to me when I go a long time without externally processing. I go crazy!]

So. Where does this leave us? I see both sides to the situation:

1. Having a schedule allows me to write without having to think about what I'm going to write about; the topics will have already been decided.

2. Having a schedule may limit what I can write about, and might also prevent me from thinking creatively about other things beyond the plan. Also, it feels like doing what Everyone Else does.

Writing this out, I feel that the cons are somewhat lame: they are my excuse for not wanting to do this, they are what help me feel like I am taking a risk.

I think what I am discovering about myself is that what feels like no big deal to most people feels like A Very Big Deal to me.

***

One benefit of having a schedule will be less of the "random" posts where I lump 2349083284723 different types of information into one post. But until I get to this schedule, bear with me while I dump: (This is supposedly done for your benefit but also so I can close the 2349083284723 tabs open in my browser currently.)

• I loved this article on longing and limits. 
• An interesting, if not provocative, essay entitled "Is Parenthood the Enemy of Creative Work?"
• Currently making my first ever batch of kombucha!
• Okay, this is totally not me, but when I saw this my heart stopped for a second.
• Sometimes doing the most important thing on my list for the day first, even if it seems very minor and certainly not urgent (and thus it doesn't seem prioritized based on schedule optimization), can make a tremendous difference in the flow of my day.
• After listening to the Liturgists talk about meditation, I have been trying to incorporate some (you'd probably call it secular) meditation practice into my life lately. I've been doing it almost every day for over two weeks now and I think it is making a huge improvement in my stress, anxiety, and depression. I think it is also helping me have more patience with others and myself. Insert thumbs up emoji.
• Do you Bullet Journal? (Kendra has the best introduction if you need one.) I have avoided jumping on the bandwagon, despite its seeming similarities to the Moleskine hack for GTD that has worked for me so well for almost 10 years now, and which I keep going back to despite attempts at other planners/life management tools. I am wondering if it will help with my currently-very-scattered brain.
• Related: I finally bought a cheap notebook (ironic because you're probably supposed to use something cheap you have laying around the house that you don't care about, but I #konmari'd those) to do Morning Pages. I found Chris Winfield's article on it through Google today and it finally sold me on it. 
• Also related: when I read this article on the Pomodoro method of productivity on Lifehacker, I thought it was a joke / April Fools' hoax. That was last week. Then today, when clicking around on Chris Winfield's site after discovering him today, I was quite convinced of the benefit of the tool, even if it's just used as a nmemonic device, a way of reminding yourself to mono-task, and to do so for a certain amount of time. I don't have a traditional job, and I don't quite have the freedom to work in eight 25-minute shifts of work every day, but I have (usually) some moments of time to myself every day that are pretty regular (during naps, and independent playtime) that I can use to focus on specific tasks for a set amount of time. Today I made sure to not browse during naps (in general, I'm trying to not do anything while the kids are asleep that I can do while they are awake, such as cleaning, etc.). I got some reading, writing, and thinking done, AND I cleaned up the garage for 21 minutes (I set timers for 8, 7, then 6 minutes). I got a LOT done in less than one hour.
• (Back to the Bullet Journal, one final time. Because it's because I've used a makeshift BuJo for four days that I can even remember some of these randoms to tell you. The Bullet Journal centralizes things that we tend to think are more compartmentalizable. It messes with me and also jives with me. This must be related to the pendulum swing of my mind.)

Okay well I hope I didn't lose my small readership with all that cuh-RAziness! I hope to bring you some more order and structure, but that if I don't do that any time soon, please show me some grace. Thanks everyone!