GTD for the Music Studio Teacher, Step 4: Reflect and Review

This article discusses step 4 of the GTD ("Getting Things Done") methodology and how it applies to the music studio teacher.

This next step is a crucial one because the system stands or falls with it. My first article in the GTD series for music studio teachers began with a brief look at the GTD Methodology. Up to this point we gathered and collected all the loose ends around us that have cluttered up our physical and mental spaces in step one.

Then we clarified what we had collected in step two. What does all of it mean to us in terms of what needs to be done?

In step three we organized what we gathered and clarified into various systems or holding places and we gave some thought to the tools and resources we would use for this purpose.

In step four, we now come to what I consider one of the most important steps: reflect and review. We review what we have, and we do that on a regular basis. At the same time we reflect on what we have, where we have been, and where we want to go. This step keeps us from going stale or getting stalled, and it prevents us from slipping and sliding back down the mountain into the old habits of cluttering our physical and mental spaces.

How Often?

GTD methodology tells us that the best review happens weekly, preferably the same time each week. How long the review lasts will vary from person to person. Review is not engagement, meaning that we do not act on the items that we review other than to make notes that clarify or clean up. We make sure that our list items are current and clear.

If I have any loose notes somewhere, I need to be sure that my system has gathered and collected those notes. If I have anything lying in my inbox (or electronically too), I need to clean that out and gather it, clarify it, and organize it appropriately. I will "engage" or act on these things later once I put them on my "next actions" list. For now, I note these items, clarify what they are and what needs to be done in order to be done with them, and I put them in the proper "containers."

How to do a Weekly Review?

So how to do a weekly review? First, I find it helpful to take a look around me to be sure that I have not forgotten to include something in my system. Is there something lying around that needs me to gather or capture it, clarify it, or organize it? I search around my physical locations and inside my head. I look for loose ends or things that I forgot to record or collect. I thumb through my weekly planner for the past week, maybe the week before that (just in case), and the coming week. Sometimes this act will spark a memory of something that I wanted to remember or accomplish, and I then include that item in my GTD lists.

One reason I like the Omnifocus 2 for Mac program, aside from it being available on my iPhone and my MacBook Pro, is that it includes a "review" feature. It reminds me weekly to do the weekly review. I open up the app, look through every item on the lists, and mark them "reviewed" when I finish. Simple! Quick!

If you are using lists on paper, sit down with your favorite beverage and start looking through your lists. Cross off tasks that you completed, add new items to your lists, and rewrite your lists if it helps you to gain a better footing on what you need to accomplish in the next days, week, or month.

Bullet Journal and GTD Weekly Review

My bullet journal serves a lot of my GTD purposes right now, and I find that I look through that journal much more often than once a week, although I think it is a terrific idea to set aside a specific time for this special weekly review. I think by setting aside a special time that we create a better focus. I thumb through many pages within my journal, not only to enjoy what I have written there -- the splashes of color, the notes I included, the new collection sets I created -- but because I look to complete items on the various pages so that I can "close out" the page as being finished.

As of this moment, I use my bullet journal as the "brain dump" area. As I begin a new month, I leave a page (or 3) open to allow me to collect any ideas, thoughts, reminders, or notes throughout the month. When I begin a new month, I add a new set of pages for this brain dump to continue in the next month. Meanwhile, during the previous month, I systematically check off things that I accomplish. At some point, I will reach the "almost done" point, and I will then decide to migrate any tasks that I still deem relevant to the next month's brain dump list, or I will cross off tasks as irrelevant, unnecessary, or no longer something I want to do. Then when the items on the page are dealt with, that means I can "close out" the page. It is done and never needs to be revisited again unless I want to reminisce about to do lists from the past. I put a star at the top of the page, and I can make that page a thing of the past.

Weekly Review for Music Studio

What are some things that we need to be sure to review in the music studio? Here is a list of things that I like to review each week:

Tuition Payments -- Are they current? Do I need to send a reminder to anyone? Have I deposited checks in the bank? Have I brought my studio's financial records up to date?

Physical Environment -- How clean is my teaching space? Do I need to put things away, run the vacuum cleaner, or organize the bookshelf? Does my space look clean, energized, and exciting for learning, or does it look tired, dull, and messy? Are there things lying around that remind me of things to include on my lists of things to do?

People -- I like to consider this category to help me remember to contact people that I need to connect with. I run through my student list to see if I recall anything. Was I going to send an email to a parent? Schedule a special parent-teacher conference? Suggest something helpful to a parent for a home practice? Contact another teacher about doing a joint performance? The people category can also refer to people I need to connect with, such as my accountant or bookkeeper, someone in charge of a venue where I want my students to perform, or someone associated with my local Suzuki community.

Calendar -- I like to look ahead by the month or two in case there is a holiday or special occasion opportunity. Since I have not been as good at this in the past, I have resolved to make notes about these sorts of opportunities and events for the coming year. As I note these things this year, I am also making a note of them for next year as well. When I look at the calendar, I also recall future plans I might need to add some next steps to take care of.

Other Reviews

There are other regular reviews that might be helpful, such as monthly reviews, quarterly reviews, semiannual/biannual (6-month) reviews, and end-of-year reviews. Just about any time frame you want to use would be appropriate for some sort of review process. I have not discussed goal-setting in the context of GTD, but goal-setting is certainly the sort of topic that would apply here.

Daily Review Focus

A friend of mine also follows an interesting review plan on a daily basis, which I find intriguing. She suggests that there be a particular focus on each day of the week. You are permitted to do other things besides that particular focus, but when you have a focus on a particular day of the week, you will visit that topic definitely once a week. Some suggested focus ideas might be to take the above topics and assign them to particular days. On those days, you will first and foremost give attention to that particular area.

You might also find a "weekly review" easier to accomplish if you do it in bits and pieces. I often do this, and the Omnifocus 2 for Mac allows me to review whenever I can. Anything I mark as reviewed is then set aside until a week later.

Make Review Your Own Creation

How you do your weekly review can be your own creation. There is no right way to do this. In fact, many people adjust things to suit their own personalities and needs. Everyone's review may look different from everyone else's review. The purpose of the review is to stay in touch with the things that you have gathered and collected and to make sure that you keep focused on what next actions to take to make forward progress.

The most important reason for doing a weekly review is to keep your system operating properly. If you neglect this aspect of GTD, then you begin to distrust the reliability of your system. You begin to hold things in your head again or leave them piled up in an inbox or on a corner of the desk. When I forget to do my weekly reviews, I find that my counter tops get covered up again with stuff.

So make a weekly appointment with yourself to review your stuff. With my bullet journal lists, I enjoy looking through things regularly. I have begun to highlight certain areas of my life with certain colors (personal is pink, writing/creating is blue, university/symphony/gig is orange, and studio is green). I also use splashes of color and sometimes some cute stickers here and there to make the pages more pleasing to the eye. My color pens really help me do this. I pick the color that suits me for the day, and because these pens are erasable, mistakes are a thing of the past.

At the moment I concentrate my thoughts on how I can turn the bullet journal into even more of a GTD masterpiece. For now, things work fine. This tool has really helped me stay focused, and it helps me to gather all my stray thoughts. I turn my thoughts into projects and special pages once I have captured the thoughts initially. All good. I hope to write a specific post in the future that is related to the bullet journal because it has really helped me.

Here are some links to the items I talked about in my articles. If you wish to explore further, click on the picture or link:

bullet journals

color erasable pens

This page references affiliate links, which will help to support the time it takes me to write articles for the blog, research information, and write and produce the Teach Suzuki podcasts. You are never under any obligation to buy anything or to use these particular links. If you are in the market for any of the items I have listed, please consider supporting my work with the affiliate links I have provided. There is no additional cost to you, but I will receive a small benefit if you do use the links.

Until next time,

Happy Practicing! (or GTD'ing)

----- Paula -----

© 2016 by Paula E. Bird

Monday Morning Check In: A Rock in a Sea of Confusion

It’s Monday Morning, and I want to discuss the importance of what we do as teachers and the gift we give to others. I want to share some powerful photographs with you throughout my discussion.

The US Coast Guard photos you see in this blog post depict Tillamook Rock Lighthouse ("Terrible Tilly"). I travel to Oregon every summer and have done so since 1984. I have visited the town of Tillamook and the cheese factory of the same name every year and most of the Oregon lighthouses, but I have never seen this lighthouse. I know it only by photos I have seen in books or on the Internet. When I look at these photos, I experience a lot of fear. This is not a place that I would seek to visit or live. This is a dangerous place. I would eagerly vote for hazard pay for anyone who was assigned to this post. This lighthouse serves a valuable purpose. It alerts others to the presence of danger and serves as a warning. It is a rock in a sea of confusion.

This is a great pictorial representation of what we can become as teachers to those around us whom we may influence. As teachers we are highly respected. I learned about this over a decade ago when I still practiced law (music was my first career, and I added a law degree along the way). Everyone loved to hate lawyers. When my life’s circumstances pushed me back into teaching music full time during my mother’s failing health circumstances, I quickly learned that everyone loves teachers. Teachers are respected, revered, and adored. Lawyers are not. I am reminded of the Nathaniel Hawthorne quote when asked by his mother about his choice of profession as a writer: “I do not want to be a doctor and live by men's diseases, nor a minister to live by their sins, nor a lawyer and live by their quarrels. So, I don't see that there is anything left for me but to be an author.”

As a lawyer, I had already experienced the disapprobation of our times; I say again that people love to hate lawyers, except when a lawyer is needed, usually in the middle of the night to help a parent handle a child’s transgression against society. The days of the respected and trusted Atticus Finch (ˆTo Kill a Mockingbird by Lee Harper) are gone. The picture of Perry Mason as the idealized attorney representing the innocent client who is a victim of police power corruption does not represent our current time.

Instead our children are presented with events such as 9/11 or the Columbine school shooting. I have survived both events and been touched by each of them. (Atticus Finch: "There's a lot of ugly things in this world, son. I wish I could keep 'em all away from you. That's never possible.)

On September 11, 2001, a Tuesday, I was teaching an early day, about 8 am. As I finished up the lesson, my husband called to inform me that someone had flown a plane into the World Trade Center. Huh? Since my father is a pilot, I knew that there were restricted air spaces in that area. Someone must have been incredibly stupid, I thought, to have violated this restriction.

I kept the news station on the radio while I cleaned the studio and waited for the next students to arrive. During that time, I learned about the tragic events in New York. Stunned, I spent a good portion of my day sitting at my desk and thinking (and writing, which is how I glean the most comfort). As the day unfolded, I realized that the businesses near to me were closed or had shut down and it was eerily quiet outside (due to the US flight restrictions).

I wanted to go home and sit and contemplate the momentous import of what had happened that day. But I could not. I was not sure who would come to the studio, and I was not sure how I could reach all of my students to find out their intentions. Instead, I just stayed where I was in the studio and kept cleaning and practicing and writing.

As the day progressed, my students arrived one by one. Their parents would tentatively open the studio door and poke their head around to peer at me: “Are you teaching today?” they would ask. “Yes!” I told them.

They would come into the room, the parents would exchange a tearful glance with me, and we would have our lesson. The students would be a little bit subdued: they knew something had happened but not what it was (and they would not understand the "hugeness" of the occasion at that moment anyway).

What I learned that day was that what we do as teachers is incredibly important. We can be the rock in a child’s life when everything around them is a sea of confusion. We are the stability that allows the child to handle difficulties or grief. We provide the child with the anchor they need so that they can go through the scary stuff. We are something that the child can hang onto when things are tough.

We do not have a 9/11 every day or every year. Still, children experience difficulties in enough measure that we teachers can be called upon to provide strength and support. Perhaps your student is suffering the effects and aftermath of a divorce in the family. Perhaps your student’s family is struggling to recover from a death or serious illness in the family. Whatever the type of event is in your student’s life, you the teacher can be the rock in the sea of confusion or despair.

What an awesome responsibility! What an honor to offer this kind of service!

This week, think about how you give the gift of yourself to your students. You may be the one bright spot in your students' week. 

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This is the last Monday of the month. Time to check in and finish up what we have not done so far to keep our studio running smoothly. Review your checklists from the previous weeks and attend to any items that you have not yet taken care of. Because we are at the end of the month, look ahead to these items:

• Time to set up your bill paying program. Arrange to pay your next month's bills.
• Your students should have all paid their tuition by now. If they have not, make sure that you send an email reminder that the tuition is due (plus the coming month), and set a reminder in your calendar to check in with the student's parents at the next lesson.
• Set up your monthly record keeping system for the coming month.
• Clean up the studio. I was fortunate this past weekend to have my studio toilet overflow for some reason. The event caused me to mop the floor, but do not wait until a catastrophic event to get around to cleaning your teaching area. You do not need a large amount of time to clean your studio:
• Set a timer for 10 minutes and run the vacuum until the timer goes off.
• Swab a mop around the common areas for 10 minutes.
• Grab a sponge and some cleaner and attack the bathroom with vigor for another 10 minutes (be sure to clean the mirror).
• Run a dust rag or feather duster around the room for another 10 minutes. Then straighten up the place and throw away magazines or other trash.
• Take another 10 minutes to put things away that need putting away or filing. There! You have spent an hour (or less) and the place looks terrific.

It is the beginning of tax season. If you have not yet taken care of these items, time to get cracking!

• Gather your tax documents for the previous year and put them in a folder for processing later when you do your tax preparation.
• Set up your studio record keeping system so that you can begin capturing your next year's tax records.
• Make sure to file any tax record documents you may have generated in this current month.

Is there anything you can clear out of your studio space? I like to subscribe to the periodic suggestion from http://flylady.net to do a 27-fling boogie. This activity requires you to have a receptacle or large plastic bag and run around a designated area and collect 27 items that need to be removed from the area. What you do with the items is your choice. When I do a 27-fling boogie, I aim to collect items to be given to a charitable organization. I could also designate two boxes: one box for giving away and another box for putting away. Still, I think it is more productive to get rid of clutter rather than file it away somewhere else in an already overcrowded environment.

My catastrophic studio toilet experience this weekend reminded me that I need to organize my files better. I had two boxes of music on the floor, and they needed to be filed away (fortunately, the boxes were unaffected by the extra water, but it was a close one!). I plan to set aside 10 minutes at least every week to attend to any piles of music or supplies that are sitting around the studio and need a permanent home.

Happy teaching week!

Monday Morning Check In: How to Handle Grief

This will be a different kind of Monday Morning post, because this is a different Monday for many of us in the Austin Symphony Orchestra. On December 27, 2011, the symphony’s members lost a valuable colleague when Jennifer Bourianoff died in the hospital from a viral pneumonia infection that seemed to spring up overnight. Although our colleague had been in poor health in the past year, she continued to fulfill her symphony responsibilities as best she could while she battled her health issues.

This past weekend the symphony honored Jennifer, a valuable member of the first violin section and Assistant Concertmaster, by dedicating the subscription series concerts to her memory. As the symphony members and conductor Peter Bay prepared for the weekend’s performances, we wrestled with how to handle our individual emotions and feelings about the situation. Rehearsals were subdued. Many musicians expressed themselves through conversations, story-telling, and recalled memories. Others were more introspective and quiet.

Almost everyone found something to “grinch” about in a small way, a phenomenon I refer to as “kicking the dog.” Most of the musicians handled the rehearsals just fine, but there were pockets of time when folks seemed a mite more irritable about something trivial than the situation required. I thought this was one example of how people handled their grief. Things were not normal. Things would never be the same. We continued to play our instruments and make music together, but there was a rift in the fabric of who and what our symphony was. As hard as we all worked to make our final gift to Jennifer and her family as beautiful and flawless as we could, we still struggled ourselves with having to work around the hole in our hearts and in our membership.

As I watched these small occurrences of kicking the dog, I thought about what would be a good way to handle grief and mourning. The answer will be different for everyone, but I made some observations of the types of things that people found helpful in our situation.

Dissociation

Basically, dissociation is a defense mechanism. We have probably all used this technique at some point when we “zone out” or daydream while performing an activity. Many of us can probably recall a time or two when we drove somewhere and have no recollection of the drive because we were on autopilot. I have used this technique to focus or “tunnel in” on something I am doing, such as writing a lengthy paper, running a marathon, or surviving a difficult recital performance.

I have also used this dissociation technique when I am faced with grief in great proportions. As a performing musician, I learnt from an early age that “the show must go on.” This old saw refers to the fact that musicians cannot really afford to take a night off. We have to dig deep on those days when we do not quite feel up to snuff. When faced with deep grief, I hypnotize myself to tune out those thoughts while I get the task done. I get into my “work mode.” And so I used this technique to survive this past week, as I sat behind Jennifer’s empty chair, which had been draped with white satin and decorated with a large bouquet of flowers.

Today, however, there is no longer a need to use this technique, and the dissociation walls have crumbled. I am now turning to the second useful technique for handling grief.

Tears

I spoke with a therapist years ago about why therapists encourage the expression of grief through tears and crying. The therapist explained that tears were nature’s way to heal the body. Although we need spiritual and emotional healing, tears are a physical expression of that intangible healing. So rather than hold the tears back, the therapist suggested that it would be better to let the tears flow, and the more tears that flowed over time, the closer the person would come to achieving ultimate emotional healing. Today I am accepting the catharsis that comes from using this technique, as have many of Jennifer’s friends and colleagues as well as her family.

Writing

Years ago I lost a very important pet, my black lab mix Zubin (yes, named after Zubin Mehta as suggested by a conductor friend). This was my first dog as an adult, and I felt as if he was my best friend, my child, and my sweetheart, all rolled into one package. We took trips together. We played together. I taught him so many tricks. We had so many memories, so that when he passed away, I was “heart sick.” I came to the conclusion that I was hanging on to my memories with my grief because I was afraid that I would lose the fresh crispness of my memories; I feared that my stories and memories would fade with the healing of time. I could not bear the thought of forgetting all that my sweet fellow had been to me, and so my thoughts were making my heart sick.

I bought a pretty little journal and spent an evening writing in it until I could think of nothing more to tell about my darling boy. I wrote about all the tricks my dog performed, all the funny stories I could recall, and my feelings of loss now that my beloved pet was gone. I drank a lovely bottle of wine during my writing event, as I recall, and turned it into my small celebration of my love for my sweet dog.

After I finished, I closed the book and put it on the bookshelf. Every once in a while I would feel drawn to pull the little book off the shelf and read what I wrote that night. These feelings seemed to occur on or about the anniversary date of my pet’s death. (I find it interesting that our mind and spirit revisit these feelings on a cyclical basis). Once I finished writing my little book of memories, my grief subsided and I was able to move on past it, in spite of my loss. Because I had taken the time to write my way through my grief, I now had a permanent record of my beloved dog, and I no longer needed to fear that I would forget him. He would always be a permanent part of me through my writing. Jennifer has also been a big part of my daily morning pages entries in the past few weeks as I write my way through my memories.

Instead of sending a sympathy card, our symphony members opted to write in a small journal instead, as suggested by our musician’s committee chairman. Some members wrote personal letters to Jennifer. Others wrote stories and memories to share with Jennifer’s family. People glued pictures of Jennifer on the pages. We used the journal as a special place to pour out the words that best reflected everyone’s individual emotional needs. We remembered our Jennifer in unique ways, as each person who wrote in the book found their own special way to share our individual and collective connections with Jennifer on the journal pages. I am sure the book will be a treasure to Jennifer’s family in the future.

Celebration

Every person we meet makes a valuable contribution to our lives in some way and on some level. We should celebrate that connection, no matter how brief or momentary, how complicated or complex. As with all performing musicians, each of us connect and relate with each other on a sliding scale of intimacy depending on the type of performance collaboration we are called on to make together. No matter whether we were very close or just the briefest of acquaintances, we have made a connection together. That small connection — that thread in the fabric of life — ought to be acknowledged, respected, and honored.

The symphony celebrated our connections with our colleague of over twenty years through a series of performances. Other members celebrated through special dedicated performances in the community or as part of the funeral events. Other members bought flowers or sent cards to the family. Still others may visit the grave site or schedule an intimate gathering of friends to celebrate that Jennifer touched our lives in a special way.

I noted with interest that in these past two weeks, there were different combinations of people grouping together and making new connections or rebuilding former connections that had been lost. Death has the unique ability to tenderize the heart in a way that nothing else other than a deep religious faith can. Jennifer's death softened the hearts of many of our symphony members in a way that drew us closer to one another as we shared our mutual grief over this new entry in our organization's history.

All of these different expressions of celebration help us to individually honor the value and worth of the person whose memory we celebrate. Just as the ancients of the bible erected pillars or altars to commemorate a place where a special event occurred, so does our individual acts of celebration remind us of the importance of the person who touched each of us in a special way.

Acceptance

Finally, I offer the technique of acceptance. When we accept something, we no longer fight to change circumstances. We no longer express disbelief or shock that this tragedy has occurred. We no longer shake our fists in the air or our heads at the ground. We sit quietly as the momentous experience wraps itself around us, and we accept that “it is what it is.” Once we can do that, we can begin to face the next stage our life holds for us.

Let me remind you that everyone experiences and survives grief and mourning in different ways and over differing periods of time. While you may have reached this stage of acceptance, there may be others who still struggle to break the surface of the emotional pain and breathe air again. Look around to see if there is someone who needs help. Helping others to process their grief may be just the thing to help you to handle yours.

There is no one way to handle grief, and many people use many different ways to wrap their minds around sad events. Ultimately, time will pass, and the grief will lessen. We will not forget the person we lost, nor should we try to do so. Everyone comes into our lives for a purpose and a season. Some stay in our lives longer than others, and some touch us in very special, close ways.

I will miss you, Jennifer. You were a part of my life in many ways over the past two decades. I have many memories and stories of times we shared together, on and off stage. Thank you for the gift of yourself that you gave to all of us, and thank you for the gift of your music.

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This is the middle of the month checklist:

• Have you received all of your tuition payments for the current month? If not, make a list of who owes what money, and make one or two calls per day to remind your students' parents to bring the payments up to date.

• Is your studio or teaching space straightened up and clean? Take a few minutes at the beginning and end of each teaching day this week and put things away, straighten up teaching materials, and clean the bathroom.

• Do you have the schedule for the next week or two laid out? If not, take the 5-10 minutes to do that. Then look through your calendar and determine when you will practice or devote time to your other goals.

• Have you set up a system to catch your receipts and records to be used in filing your 2012 taxes? Take a few moments to set up such a system now. 

Monday Morning Check In: Freedom From Limits

I made an interesting discovery this week. As I have written in the past, I complete “morning pages” daily on a fairly consistent basis. I habitually wake up on the early side of the day and spend about 20 to 30 minutes thinking and writing about whatever is on my mind.

This past week I have struggled with “skittered thoughts.” This is my description for those times when I cannot seem to calm my mind down, when my mind seems to be in the active “monkey mind” as the yoga instructors refer to it. My thoughts alight on one thought only to bounce off a few seconds later and head off in another direction. Very disconcerting.

I accomplish very little on mornings like this. My goal is to complete three full hand-written pages in my composition book (4 if the book is wide-ruled), about 25 minutes’ worth of writing. On “skittered thoughts” mornings, I flit from one idea to another, jump up a minute later to make a note about something, cross the room to complete a small task, and then return to my writing. All of my actions seem relevant at the moment I do them because I cannot calm my mind down to a speed that allows me to grasp the core of an idea to wrestle it onto the page. Instead, I reach to catch the tail end of each thought, and my skin starts to crawl with unexplained physical energy. I am agitated and exasperated because I cannot seem to sit still for more than a few seconds at a time.

Less coffee, you suggest. I wondered about that myself, but I have not altered my caffeine intake in years. I always drink the same size cup of caffeine every day. If I add to my load, I do it later in the morning.

I also thought that the problem stemmed from my having something I needed to really digest on the written page. I worked hard to dig into the words and see what the pen turned up. Nope. Nothing changed.

Then I remembered an old saying, referred to as “Parkinson’s Law.” This expression was published by Cyril Northcote Parkinson in an essay in “The Economist” on November 19, 1955: “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” See the full article at: http://www.economist.com/node/14116121. This expression means that if I allow myself 10 minutes to dust my living room, then amazingly enough, it actually takes 10 minutes! The flylady.net folks use this phenomenon to their advantage by suggesting that house cleaning activities be timed so that they last only as long as the time you allow to complete them.

What could it hurt to try it? I grabbed my iPhone and asked Siri to set the timer for 23 minutes, which she gladly did for me. I asked Siri to play the "Beethoven for Book Lovers" playlist to put me in the writing mood. Then I started writing as fast as I could, because I knew that 23 minutes was about 3-5 minutes too short for how long I would need to write three pages of long-hand writing. Surprisingly, I ended my third page of writing at the sound of the timer going off. I happily report that at no time during those 23 minutes did my mind skitter around my thoughts. I wrote with a purpose and fierce determination to finish before the timer sounded.

I did not stop with that one day’s writing experiment. I continued the rest of the week by repeating the timed writing exercise, and I completed each day’s writing assignment with no return of the skittering thoughts problem.

I went to the grocery store the next day. I had a bank deposit ready to put in the bank, but I had not yet put the checks into my account. Usually I make my deposits as checks become available, and then I grocery shop as I need. I use a grocery list and do not usually succumb to impulse purchases. I do not limit myself much when I shop for groceries; I usually have enough to buy what I need or desire.

Because I had not yet deposited my checks into the bank and was using a debit card, I did not have the funds in the bank to cover shopping in my customary manner. I had to pull some cash from an emergency stash before heading off to the store.

How could I limit my purchases so that I would come in under the amount that I had in my wallet? I grabbed a grocery cart, whipped out my iPhone, and used the calculator function to record the price of each item as I put it in my cart. I kept a running tally of my proposed purchases as I swept through each grocery aisle. At some point I came dangerously close to a total that exceeded the amount of cash in my purse. I surveyed my cart and decided to switch a few items for smaller sizes, and in one case I decided to buy one package rather than two.

I was amazed that I had managed to arrive at a final cart total that fit within the budgeted amount of money I had put in my wallet. As I thought about the entire shopping experience, I realized that I had spent about $20-30 less than I might have spent if I had shopped in my customary way. I had still bought everything I needed, but I had made some choices along the way that altered my final total in a positive way. By saving money on my shopping trip, I had given myself the freedom to make additional purchases in the future, whether groceries or some other category (clothes or books),

What did these “limiting” experiences teach me? I learned that by limiting the amount of time or money I would spend on an activity, I gained more focus on my activity. I concentrated on what I was doing in order to succeed within the limits I had set for myself.

I made choices. I could not buy everything. I could not write about every thought that entered my mind. I prioritized and selected what I purchased or wrote.

There is a value in setting limits. Freedom is lovely, but I notice that when I have a free day (which is exceedingly rare in my life), I do not get very much done. I end my free day wondering where the time went. What I learned this week is that by setting limits to how I spend my time, my money, and my attention, I actually create more time for myself to do something more or at least to do nothing if I so desire.

I once learned of a study about children playing in backyards. In one backyard, the children were told where the boundaries of the backyard were, but there were no visible markers of the boundaries. In the other backyard, the children had a fence that clearly set off the limits of the backyard; the children were very aware where the backyard ended because the fence stood there.

In the unfenced backyard, the children played throughout the entire yard area, but they tended to stop short several feet from the "boundary." In the fenced backyard, the children played in every inch of the yard, including the last few feet within the fence. The conclusion was that when the children were aware of the physical boundaries, they played more freely within the perceived physical limits. When the children were unsure where the actual boundaries stood, they curtailed their spatial play area. They did not feel free to use all the space available to them.

The lesson to be gleaned here? Setting a clearly defined limit allows more freedom. In other words, we gain freedom from limits.

I have given you two examples of how setting a limit might offer more freedom in return. Imagine how many more ways we could use this trick to free us from the thoughts and things we use to limit ourselves.

What a paradox! By setting limits we free ourselves from our limits.

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This is Monday Morning. Have you done your weekly homework? Have you reviewed and completed the checklists from last week? Here is the typical weekly list checklist. Look it over and make an effort to get things in order.

Weekly Checklist

o Have you scheduled all your necessary appointments or lessons for the week on your calendar?

o Is there anything you want to accomplish this week that needs to be broken down into manageable steps over several calendar days?

o What major projects or goals are you working on this week?

o What materials do you need to gather to complete a particular project this week?

o What steps can you take this week to move yourself forward on your goals?

o What can you do today to make some forward progress on your goals?

o What phone calls do you want to make this week? Do you need to schedule time to make those calls?

o What emails do you want to make this week? Do you need to schedule time to write those emails?

o Are you waiting to hear back from someone? Have you scheduled the day when you will follow up with that person?

o What errands do you want to do this week?

o Have you scheduled time to do those errands?

o What materials do you need to gather together to complete those errands?

o Have you sent out your tuition bills for the month?

o Have you done your record keeping from the previous week (or month)?

o Have you scheduled your practice time for the week? Maybe I should move this item further up the list, because I think it is an important daily item.

  I added something new to my checklist. My father sends me a beautiful day planner calendar from the Smithsonian Institute every Christmas. Since I use my iPhone for my calendar and just about everything else in my life, including teaching, I have not found much use for the planner.

This week I tried scheduling my daily activities for each day. I started out the week by "inking" in all the activities, appointments, and lessons I had. Then each day I would visit the day planner and schedule what I would do every hour of the day in general. This is something different than the activity log I completed in the past. I found that I could use the day planner for this same purpose, and I like that I can see the entire week at a glance. So I will be adding a new entry in my weekly checklist: have you planned out your activities for the week?