yahoo events list

[lobelia321]

Okay, so here's my yahoo calendar events list, in any old order. These are the headers of the nagging reminder emails. They have to be short! I get fewer characters than for txt-porn! Some of these go out to me every day, and some of them once a week or a month or every other day or whenever.

You can see, I am held together by the paperclips of my to-do list.



Forget about what you haven't done. Focus on what you can do today. :-)

Please stop doing LJ! Do something else for 15 min, then do 5 min. LJ. OK??

REMINDER: Have you had lunch? Take a break now!

REMINDER: Have you written something today? You can do this! You are not behind!

REMINDER: Go to bed! Read a nice book!Get up early tomorrow! :-)

REMINDER: Smile! You've done a lot! I'm proud of you!

WRITE: Conference paper. You can do this! It doesn't have to be perfect!!

REMINDER: Write 15 min. on narrative! You can do anything for just 15 minutes!

TEACHING: Prepare film

TEACHING: Prepare narrative

REMINDER: Do your book proposal! You can do this! It'll be fun!

FRIDAY is ERRAND DAY! Check Notepad. Check notes in kitchen. You can do this!

TEACHING: Prepare architecture!

TEACHING: Finish preparing Italian Ren.!

REMINDER: Go to a cafe! :-)

REMINDER: So it's boring -- but just do it! Don't think about it!

Don't fritter about with urgent but low-priority tasks. You are nothing to your institution!

Writing something imperfect and messy is still a blessing! You can do this.

How do you feel today?Emotional temperature? Assess w/out judging, like yoga.

REMINDER: Clear your desk hotspots! 2 minutes: GO!

REMINDER: Not achieved anything today? Forgive yourself! Do something nice now!

REMINDER: Have you planned the weekend?

Ccollaborative research project! *g* Enjoy it! It's for YOU!

REMINDER: Renew library books!

Plan weekly menu and grocery shopping on SUNDAY! :-)

REMINDER: Have you prepared next week's MENU??

TEACHING: It. Ren. prepared for next week? SLIDES? Handouts?

TEACHING: Film! Videos? handouts?

REMINDER: Pay your BILLS!

Buy GUARDIAN. Check jobs.ac.uk

TEACHING: Essay qq Film!

WEDNESDAY is ADMIN DAY! Check admin folder in loft, Notepad email! Go fly!!

REMINDER:Get some music,write some fic.No need to be perfect: have FUN!

REMINDER: Pay your BILLS! nr.2

TEACHING: Architecture! Prepared? Handouts? VISITS?

TEACHING: Narrative! Prepared? Handouts? Reading?

Order books for Islamic Art! (lists in Teaching magazine file in loft)

Keramik für Mami!!!!!

Plan visit to Port Sunlight!

Waresley Wood bluebell season!

My passport runs out on THIS DATE

lost with dom on tv channel 4

Comments

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

This is great! I feel better just reading them. I might steal some and attempt to put them to use in my own life. Not the teaching ones, though, because that will make me very confused.

I like all the exclamation marks!!!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

This is funny, that you like the exclamation marks. They have a strangely urgent-making effect, like a bright trumpet blasting. A sort of general let's get up and do it now effect. Which I need to stem off the general inertia.

These are not magic tablets, btw. Alas. I just spent 1/2 hour watching an episode from The Office and this is in the middle of the day! Number of words written on paper today? Zero, zero, zero. I feel very bad. But this is when looking at my little reminders does help.

[childeproof.livejournal.com]

Note to self:

BOOK PROPOSAL CAN BE FUN
BOOK PROPOSAL CAN BE FUN
BOOK PROPOSAL CAN BE...

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I am not claiming that, so far, reading this email has once made me actually sit and write the book proposal but it has made me think of it at least once a day, while deleting the email. *g* I'm hoping for some sort of Pavlovian effect: perhaps if I read the email often enough (400 times??), my brain will actually go 'Yeah! FUN!'

[tvillingar.livejournal.com]

Uh. Though some of those notes and reminders might work for me, I couldn't live like this: a pile of reminders on top of all the other clutter - it would make me feel even less accomplished. Also, I don't react well to someone watching over my shoulder, even when it's in the form of an email.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. But I tend to write endless lists to myself anyway, post-it notes, to-do lists -- this way, at least, they are accessible anywhere in the ether (so if I lose a list, I can look it up on the net) and they repeat every day so I don't have to carry ancient notes around with me, plus I get to delete them all which feels like decluttering and getting rid of stuff. They make me feel a little safer that way and they are deliberately upbeat. Also, it's me nagging myself. I do that, anyway, so may as well do it online, *g*. I respond disturbingly well to someone telling me what to do...

[tvillingar.livejournal.com]

I don't mind someone giving me a task to do but I do mind if they hover around after I've started doing it. It feels like I'm not trusted to complete whatever it is without supervision and that rubs me the wrong way. The whole idea of getting email reminders (plus I'd actually have to be in front of the computer ALL the time to see them) has that feel of hovering, to me.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Heh, to me it has exactly the opposite effect. My intray is full and I feel happy because it's all those nice emails. And I certainly don't trust myself to complete anything without supervision. And as there is nobody around to supervise me except myself, this was one pathetic attempt at self-supervision.

Argh. *bangs head*

I know, I must seem pathetic to efficient people out there. I seem pathetic to myself. But there I am.

[tvillingar.livejournal.com]

Heh, my sink is NOT shining... but I've never been a list-person. I may scribble down something small but lists everywhere? I couldn't even figure out where to start. And then I'd get even more stressed. At the moment, listlessness is fine with me.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Heh, you are evidently much more together than I am! I am a personality held together by paperclips.

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is excellent! I might have to steal some of those. I love your "you can do this!" and "have fun!" I tend to forget the little encouraging things. They're what my mother would call "positive self-talk."

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I know. When I first encountered this positive self-talk in FlyLady I found it very cheesy and dubious and fake but it has a strangely successful effect on me. It works at least for a few seconds when I look at the subject line; at least, I have to *think* about being positive (if I'm not actually *being* positive). The negative approach gets me nowhere. And it's sort of a bit of self-nurture because I am normally very bad to myself, I am always castigating myself and wallowing in guilt. Thank you for finding something nice to say about my sad little system for holding my life together.

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

Recently, my mother was reading a book about the mindset of poverty. She works with special-needs children and many of them come from very poor families. The author of the book says that children from middle-class and/or successful families learn at an early age to talk to themselves in a positive way. "I can do this!" "Wow, look at what I did!" This is apparently different in poor and/or troubled families where only the negative is reinforced: "You're stupid, just like your mom," or "You'll never be able to do that right." It's hard to imagine people saying these things to their children, but they do, all the time. But they also say the same things to themselves, with the same horrible efffects. Just for the record, this was the result of some study or other, not just anecdotal evidence. Maybe FlyLady just thinks she's being nice, but she's definitely got the right idea.

And don't call your system "sad" and "litte" (nasty, negative words!) until you've seen my motley collection of colored post-it notes that I'm trying as a less procrastinative (look at me! I invented a word!) way of keeping a control journal. At my job, I always functioned well with post-it's, so I'm going to try a similar method here. Rather than running around with a notebook, I'll just have pastel-colored stickies everywhere reminding me to do this and that. I'll let you know how it works!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

We are eerily synched! I, too, have been putting up post-its everywhere! Not as much as you but with little reminders and labels such as 'pyjamas' (on the boys' drawers so that they can put their laundry away by themselves -- taking advice from the 'laundry quandry'; will I ever be able to spell that word correctly again?) or 'salt and pepper' on the bit of the shelf where I now want the salt and pepper to go. My computer is kind of festooned with post-its.

I took the 'not perfect' approach with my control journal. I took crappy slightly wrinkled scrap paper and scribbled on it with a blunt pencil. The things we do. Then I went into perfectionist mode by typing up two weeks' menus and shopping lists and grouping the groceries by category.

It's interesting about your mother's research with poor people. I do, however, not think that all middle-class people reinforce positive messages. I am as middle-class as they come but I have mega-negativity in my brain, in the way I talk to myself. I try not to do it with the children but I always talk myself down. it's true, I won't call my system pathetic any longer! Thank you for the mutual support from the mutual support of whatever we are!!

It also seems to me that you are talking slightly less kindly of your mother than you were a while ago? How are things going in that department? I was thinking this morning about things that have improved in my life and I must never forget that my relationship with my mother is one thing that has improved phenomenally. Gradually and accompanied by much misery and dogged slogging on but it's now better than it has ever been. I think FlyLady is the last nail in the coffin of my mother-hang-up (I have been unable to clean my house because I did not want to be like my mother), but perhaps it is also the other way round -- only because my relationship with my mother has calmed down, am I able to throw myself into housework the FlyLady way?

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

I do, however, not think that all middle-class people reinforce positive messages.

No, I don't think so either. Maybe the middle-class isn't as outright abusive generally, but I know that my husband's family is horribly negative in a sort of back-handed way. They would never say, "oh, you can't do that," but instead chip away at your confidence with things like, "well, don't be disappointed if it doesn't work out," and a general fear of failure that makes all of them afraid of taking risks. My husband is the lone exception and he just gets bombarded with all kinds of "what ifs" whenever he's around them.

Thank you for the mutual support from the mutual support of whatever we are!!

Hey, any time! What are we? Twelve steps to Stepford? Flysisters? The Society of Fly?

It also seems to me that you are talking slightly less kindly of your mother than you were a while ago? How are things going in that department?

Am I? I'm not really going anywhere with her right now. I've put off any big talk for the time being, but am trying to be more honest with her right up front, if she says something that rubs me the wrong way. I'm not sure I'm succeeding on that front, though, because I still tend to sugarcoat too much. The therapist suggested a letter, and I'm currently mulling over that option. It's certainly one my mother would use, if she were in my place!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh, slog away at the mother thing! It will work out somehow or other. Remember (*puts on FlyLady hat... in fact, doesn't need to as never takes it off these days;has become a personality crutch*) Your relationship with your mother didn't get into a rut in one day, and it won't get out of rut overnight. All I can say is that I feel so much more peaceful now vis-a-vis my mother. And you know how awful I was!! I was in a terrible, terrible state. Remember that time I flew to Amsterdam? That was terrible! And the meeting was so not like I imagined it.

We can be the FlySlashers!!!!!!!

*now has picture of copulating arthropods stuck in head*

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

Hee. *pictures you in FlyLady hat*

I remember you and the Amsterdam trip very well. In fact, it's what inspired me to do something about my mother. Someday.

I like the sound of "FlySlashers," even though it's a bit disturbing. But we're a bit disturbing anyway, so it fits!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

What do you think a FlyHat looks like? I immediately pictured a sort of old-ladies' hat, Mrs Wainthropp-style, hard felt, with a feather (a feather from the feather duster!!!), possibly lilac in colour.

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

Yes, something like that! the image that immediately popped into my mind was boggart!Snape in Prisoner of Azkaban when Neville dresses him in his grandmother's clothes.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

This is so loony! As soon as we try to picture FlyHats, we can't but help descend into t'world of fandom with startling rapidity. Mrs Wainthropp meets Snape in drag! *howls* Oh, and they can get down on their knees together and scrub!

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

I think that fandom is my only reference point these days! Oh, and they will scrub, or I shall unleash FrankenLobelia. Then they'll be sorry!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

"You look very fetching in that hat, Mrs W, if I may say so."

"Why, thank you, I was just thinking the same about yours, Professor. Be a dear and pass me the feather duster."

"Yes, yes, of course. Shall I kneel for this?"

"If you would be so kind. Now, where do you want it first? On your posterior or up your posterior?"

"Whichever one is shinier, Mrs W. And if the duster proves inadequate, here, use my wand."

[brightest-blue.livejournal.com]

Bwahaha! I should have known you would be this warped. I'd never thought I'd see the day when you'd be slashing Snape/Mrs. W, though. This is serious. *takes your temperature* No, not THAT way!

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

*can't reply for laughing*

[viva-gloria.livejournal.com]

ooooh, you're ever so much nicer to yourself than I am to me. The most effective one at the moment is the three-colour Post-It note installation on the bathroom mirror, which reads (in its entirety) GET A GRIP.

Am waiting for it to work. Does not help that am flinching from own reflection after a bad haircut.

I like 'no need to be perfect', though. Am holding onto that one, fic-wise.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

I am copying the positive outlook from the FlyLady American smile, be happy approach. It is absurd, obvious, cheesy, and (for me) strangely effective. Also, I can flagellate myself quite easily without any help from yahoo reminders or post-it notes. I do it non-stop so this is why I need these friendly, self-nurturing emails to get me away from general doom'n'gloom at least for one second!

God, is it winter or something?

[the-oscar-cat.livejournal.com]

hey this is a really good idea!

*spends all lunch implementing it*

this is funny.

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

*spends all lunch implementing it*

Heh, makes me wish I'd included naughtier things.... *gg*

[the-oscar-cat.livejournal.com]

*sigh* but i'm at work.

i'm not allowed to do naughty things here... :(

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Precisely.

[blithesea.livejournal.com]

This looks effective. Maybe I should try it. Then again, I'm trying to be less on the computer, not more.

Where is the "Hooray, time to shine your sink!" reminder?

[lobelia321.livejournal.com]

Oh, May, don't worry: the 'shine your sink' reminder comes to me from the FlyLady herself! It is her yahoo group that I copied this email reminder system from to begin with. I get a bout a dozen emails a day from FlyLady, telling me to shine my sink, be proud of myself, clear my hotspots, declutter my 'zone', go to bed early and have a rest. I love those emails! This is why I set up my own email system!