To people who are night owls either by nature or circumstance, getting up to do a productive morning routine can seem impossible. But it's possible to claim this quiet and uninterrupted time for yourself. I am biologically wired to do better at night. I catch a second wind at about 9 pm, and then I am off to the races, mentally alert and ready to flex my creative muscles. If I give in to it, I will work until 1 or 2 am, at which point I force myself to go to bed because I know the consequences rather than because I'm tired. I don't allow this to happen often. After all, I am employed outside the home, and I…
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Our 30 day challenge this month is to rise early. But rising before the dawn doesn't net you anything if you don't put that uninterrupted time to use. And even if you aren't doing the challenge, you can still craft a productive morning routine that helps set the tone for the day. I've worked on and off with early rising and morning routines for years. But as a night owl, it is hard for me to function in the morning. Even as I write this, I am fighting the impulse to go back to bed and get another hour's sleep. But I know that if I do cave, I will miss the satisfaction of getting important things done before I…
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Welcome to the second of the 30 day challenges. By doing 30 day challenges, I explore a topic that I feel will make my life more deliberate and productive. This month I will be looking at rising earlier. My schedule is such that I feel busy all the time. I don't feel like have uninterrupted time. I get up, go to work, and then when I get home I am bombarded with household tasks, exercising, and various evening commitments, not least of which is time with my family. I felt like I never had time to work on projects that were important to me. Non-fiction reading, fiction writing, blogging and crafting are wedged into the odd fifteen minutes I can…
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Crisis can happen in the blink of an eye. One minute life is normal, and then everything is different. It could be anything that rocks your stability: death, divorce, accident, layoff, shutdown. But crisis comes to us all, and it's important to know what to do. My own personal experience with crisis was major - eleven years ago my husband fell twenty feet off of a ladder and spent two days in neuro ICU. But I learned some lessons about what to do before and during a crisis, and how to support others in their own.
