Blank canvas

Putting together my task list for the day, which is really an ongoing task throughout the week but something that gets really serious around 8:30 am, I see that today is a particularly blank canvas. Which is not to say that there's not stuff to do, there always is. I could work all day, every day, no problem. But there isn't that much that's particularly pressing.

Which I think really should tell me that I need to be sure to step back and focus on longer term processes that I have been pushing back for some time: managing my mailing list and sketching out a newsletter or two. That is an aspect of my business I really need to focus on more. If I am going to be writing, it might as well support my business. More importantly, I guess, if I am going to be writing, it might as well be in a way that benefits my clients. In some sense, no doubt the blog does that in that it keeps me centered and with a proper orientation towards the long term, which largely protects me from the winds that might buffet me and lead me into poor decision-making.

On the subject of the task list, I am reminded of what a professor I'll call Dan said many years ago in an Al Anon meeting, about how he has gotten to the point where he has dispensed with task lists entirely and just goes through the day doing the next right thing. He is a zen master. I need to go back to the meeting where I used to see him regularly. Much wisdom.