Minimization of the Day 3/30/10

Things have been super crazy at work for the past couple of weeks, and to top it all off, I'm in the middle of the peak weeks of marathon training. I've managed to keep it all together, but I'm feeling like I need a bit of a breather.

I decided to take some advice from one of the blogs that I've been reading, and to assess my responsibilities for the next week or two and decide what is really important. I realized that I have one too many things going on here - deadlines for work, marathon training, happy hour (organized by me) for the SFRRC, a budget to finalize, stuff to donate, and to top it all off, Wildflower Training Weekend is looming out there as well.

If I go to WFTW, that adds another heap of responsibilities that I need to take care of in the next several days (laundry before and after, packing, shopping for food, not to mention the time away). When I thought about it, I decided that something had to give. I'm sad that I can't make it, but I know that if I give myself this weekend to get things in order I'll be so much happier. For once, I'm not trying to squeeze a million things into a schedule that's already jam-packed, and it feels good!

I hope everyone has fun at WFTW, and I'll see you back in SF, feeling refreshed!

Minimization of the Day 3/29/10

Of all the minimalist blogs I've encountered, they all seem to have a piece of advice in common - start a blog. I questioned it at first because it seems like it's just another thing to add to your list of things to do every day. But as I read more, I realized that the blog is a way to get your name out there and drum up some business. Where I'll go with this, who knows, but for now, it's a way to keep me accountable in my minimization process. Also, I need to get back to blogging about my running, so I'm going to start doing that again too (I still need to write race reports about Ironman and several other races that I did in the past two years!).

On to my Minimization of the Day:

• I'm going to attempt to check my email only three times today. I checked it this morning when I got in, I'll check it at lunchtime, and I'll check it again before I go home.
• I realized that I'm usually quick to answer an email, but it's not always urgent, and it breaks my focus. I'm an editor - nobody is going to die if I don't respond to their email for a couple of hours!
• I have also greatly reduced the number of blogs that I follow, down to the ones that I truly enjoy. I found that I was reading about a lot of things that I didn't really care about (or blogs whose writers were just so bad that it kind of made me cringe).
• I'm still working on my list of top priorities - so far the top of the list is to pay off my student loans, which I think I can do pretty quickly if I follow a strict budget. I know they say that student loans are "good debt" (whatever THAT means!), and my interest rate is great (only 1.2%), but I think it'll be a huge weight off of my shoulders if I can get that paid off and put more money into savings! I'm still working out the details, but I should be able to figure out a debt-free deadline once I get into April.