I would really like to start living a slower life. I loved listening to Carl Honore talk about his new book In Praise of Slow which is all part of the Slow Movement. Carl talks about living the good life instead of living the fast life.Slowing down doesn’t necessarily mean not doing things, but taking more time to do them and finding more satisfaction in doing them. This idea really appeals to me so I’m going to make the time to read about it more and put what I can in to practice. I have just found the Slow Down Now blog which I plan to slowly work through as well as a post on Zen Habits called How To Slow Down Now.There really is no need for life to be so fast and furious. It’s time to slow down. I am going to try slowing down by paying attention to the following things:
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- being organised - I’m usually pretty good at this as I find being unorganised very stressful, but I think I could still improve a bit, mainly in the area of procrastinating and leaving some things to the last minute! One thing I’ve done is change over to an electronic teachers chronicle this year so I don’t have to lug a big folder around anymore. I think it’s a great program and I’m hoping it will help me keep track of a few things more effectively.
- regularly decluttering things in my life. I’ve been reading Zen Habits a lot over the past week or so and a lot of the things written about there really appeal to me. Like decluttering. I love cleaning out things that I no longer need so that there is more room on the shelf or more space on my hard drive, so I am resolving to do more of it this year and go for as much of a minimalist approach as my circumstances allow. One thing I’ve done today to start off the decluttering process is to clear my computer desktop completely of all icons except the Recycle Bin. I have a lovely pic of a pink petal with waterdrops on it and I find it very relaxing. I’m also going to take on the task of cleaning out my My Docs folder and avoid being a Digital Packrat this year.
- to say ‘No’ a bit more often so I am not over-burdened with so many commitments that I can’t fulfill any of them to any great level. I have to get better at realising that I can’t do everything and that I’m better off doing a few selected things really well rather than doing everything fairly ordinarily! Also, saying no will mean there is a little more time to spend on doing things that will make me healthier.
So, in a nutshell, I want to slow down by staying organised, decluttering, and saying no. Hopefully if I can manage that lots of other things will fall in to place. I’d love to write more on my blogs, so more with ICT in my classroom, read more, go to bed earlier, get up earlier, exercise more, lose weight, cook more as well as maintain and improve my networks. However, I am reluctant to make too many lists with too many items on them as I have done that many times and the amount of things on the list becomes quite large and it consequently turns into something I ignore rather than revisit regularly. So, keeping it simple and slow, I will just keep the above points in mind (and read more about the Slow Movement for inspiration) and see how I go in the year that is 2008.
For more on some resolutions, slowing down and eating cake check out these posts: My 2008 ICT/Web 2.0 Resolutions, Yesterday I Ate Cake and Information Overload and Your Inner Bookshelf.
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