As I mentioned yesterday I was helping my son with his religion homework and he had to select 10 Commandments to live by and I decided to do the same thing, just for fun.

I posted my first 5 yesterday but so, obviously it’s time for the next 5 today. 

6) Rest before you need to

It’s way too easy for me to put off resting until after I get the next thing finished. However, since I have a tricky relationship with time, I end up trying to do too much and I wear myself out. Sooooo, I have started choosing/scheduling my rest instead of waiting for it to occur naturally. (When it is easy to lose track of time, it is also easy to lose track of rest.

7) Keep lists of everything but go easy on yourself about them

I have a single notebook for keeping track of stuff to do (although I will temporarily part things in my reminders app if need be) and I keep track of things that I need/want to do in there. That way, I know I have captured everything and I know where to find it.

But, I go easy on myself if I forget things or if I have put too many things on my list. I know they’re putting too many things on my list as a tenancy of mine, so I don’t have to worry when it happens. It doesn’t mean that I have screwed up, it means that I put too many things on my list.

8) Use the tools that serve you

I used to feel weird about using notebooks, reminders, and my timer because I *shouldn’t* need them. BUT, now, for me, it all comes down to ‘Does this thing make my life easier or smoother?’ Yes? Okay, let’s do it up.’ Because life doesn’t have to be hard just to prove anything. I would rather save my energy for something a lot more fun than avoiding a useful tool that could help me. 

9) Done beats perfect, every time

Are used to spend a lot of time trying to get things done perfectly but I realize that meant that I never finished anything. So now I am to get things done instead of trying to get them done perfectly.

10) Find your helpers

It is hard to ask for help particularly when you’re like me and is tricky to articulate the help that you might need. But there are lots of people out there who want to help you and who are able to help you and it’s very useful to find your own path towards asking for the help that you need and the help that other people have to offer.

I’m sure that if I thought about it I could come up with 100 life lessons or self commandments. But that wasn’t what the assignment was about it was only about 10 and there’s a lot to be learned in doing what the assignment asks and then stopping when that’s done.

I was keeping my youngest son company while he did his World Religions assignment today and after he finished writing his personal 10 commandments, I was inspired to write my own.

Just like him, I am more into the shalls than the shall nots and my list is not so much about morals as about helping myself to be at ease in my own life.

In no particular order, here are the first five commandments that I came up with today.

1) Respect how your brain works

My brain doesn’t work the same way as neurotypical people’s but it only causes me trouble when I try to make it work like everyone else’s. When I respect how my brain works, life is much smoother.

2) Choose how to spend your time

If I am not careful, my time gets eaten up in small tasks (and their resulting rabbit-holes of related tasks.) If I consciously choose my time, I spend it in ways that are much more satisfying.

3) Dance whenever possible

Yes, I am one of those people dancing in the car at stop lights and bopping around the kitchen while I cook. I might be awful at it, I don’t know, but I sure as hell like it.

4) Be kind to yourself (past, present and future)

This is not the same as being ‘nice’ to myself. ‘Nice’ might mean avoiding tasks or practices to avoid temporary annoyance. Being kind means taking good care of myself right now, getting the me of right now to do things that will make life easier for future-me, and it means forgiving past-me for the things I did poorly.

5) Whenever possible, turn your face toward the sun

I am relentlessly hopeful. That doesn’t meant that I pretend that everything is perfect all the time. It means that I acknowledge what’s difficult (or even awful) and then I take action to find hopeful steps forward.

(continued tomorrow)

It’s only May 1st and I am having my first cup of tea on the front steps.

May this bode well for the summer ahead.

My title is a pun. Or maybe a play on words. I get those things tangled sometimes.

Since I always have so much going on in September, I tend to lose time and find myself dumped unceremoniously into October before I even realize it.

Then, of course, we get into birthday season (I swear, half the people I know were born in October or November) and then I find myself bewildered in December wondering how I got there.

I’m taking a couple of measures to make sure that September goes a bit more slowly this year. I’m basically putting some time ‘anchors’ in my day so I notice that time is passing and one day doesn’t spill into the next.

One of those anchors is the yoga I was talking about in my last post. Another, is a drawing project about an octopus.

Every day, I have been drawing a little ‘note to self’ in the form of a quick sketch of an octopus named Octavia who is learning to take better care of herself.

It might be twee but I’ve never let that stop me before. AND, besides, drawing octopi is fun.

I set some rules for myself – a quick sketch in pencil, not very detailed, minimal erasing, and while I can go back after this month and correct errors, for right now, I am just leaving the drawing however it landed in the first place.

See?