If you feel overwhelmed by everything that’s going on around you, it can be hard to do anything. In this episode, Shannon and Janine discuss how choosing just one thing to do can allow you to move forward.
Discussion topics include:
- Taking delight in little things in nature
- Choosing just one thing to do—and doing it—when you’re feeling overwhelmed
- How the current climate can be paralyzing
- Applying the just one thing principle to self care
- How Janine’s yoga practice now feels cemented into her daily routine (and is great self care)
- Choosing just one thing to help you become an anti-racist
- That just one thing doesn’t have to be a gateway to doing more things. You can do just one thing.
- How Janine’s one thing (writing postcards to voters) has turned into 3,000 things.
- Shannon’s major desk clean: it started with just one thing
- How sometimes clearing a physical space can help clear our mental space too
- How small things are still important even when big things are going on
- An important zen proverb: “Before enlightenment; chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment; chop wood, carry water.”
- The ineffectiveness of so-called multitasking
Links
- Yoga with Adriene’s Courage playlist
- Postcards to Voters, the group Janine writes postcards through
- Leo Babauta’s blog post, The Zen of Doing
I have been practicing “doing one thing” for the last week or so. I am doing the SuzeOrman.com “Must-Have Documents” program where I created a will, a revocable trust, a financial power of attorney, a medical power of attorney, advance directive, and other documents. I filled out the information on the computer one day; read and reviewed one document per day, making any necessary changes; all I did today was print them out, staple them, and put them in a folder; next I will get them notarized; then another day I will get them filed away. After that comes writing a letter to my executor. Each day that I do something I feel relief as I am getting my affairs in order. “Doing one thing” works! And yes, there is no such thing as multi-tasking. It doesn’t work. (Although that didn’t mean I didn’t lie in an interview and say I was good at multi-tasking! LOL)