Reigning on the Parade

It's Communist Party time over in China. As usual David Rowe does the honours in producing a masterpiece for this auspicious occasion


Chinese whisperers are saying that the emperor is NAKED!

Old habits die hard

It's that time of year again. Nanowrimo is just around the corner. After 3 years of brain dead word count quota filling with bugger all story to show for it, this time I have decided that I really do need to make an effort to get back to proper novel squiggling

About two months ago I managed to get my paws on Charles Duhigg's book "The Power of Habit" and I am slowly making my way through it. In combination with the evil "Hell Week" it has made one thing very clear. There is a lot to be said for doing stuff on autopilot. Using one's brains to make plans when they are still fresh and unfogged by the slings and arrows of daily dramas so that there is no need to make decisions when will power and the brain batteries are running on empty
The writer of Hell Week said that the reason soldiers can get so much stuff done is that someone else has already done the thinking and all they have to do is follow orders and just keep on marching.
Unlike Catness who gave me this inspiring book, I never actually did the 7 day program. The book arrived in my life right in the middle of some serious Dursleyish dramas and through no fault of its own has been tainted by them but one central message still remains which is reinforced by the book about habits. Clever use of thinking time can drastically increase the effectiveness of doing time. Because decision fatigue is much more draining than physical fatigue.

For almost 3 years I had set up a house work schedule with certain jobs assigned to certain days and was pleased to discover that it did not take too long for it to become almost automatic so much so that it required more energy NOT to do the job of the day and something else instead. Tasks that has initially taken almost an hour soon shrank to less than half that time leaving more space for squiggling and slinking on Twitter

But then Petunia got sick and I got totally out of the usual routine. It is now only some 3 years later that I finally feel I can get back on the broomstick of usual routine. Even just a token gesture is sufficient to start anchoring old housework habits again.

Last month I dusted off the old housework schedule and also decided to make a habit of writing 333 words per day. Not 333 good words. It could be any old waffle (and usually is) just so long as there are 333 or more of them. Sometimes I would do double that or more and I missed only 2 days in the whole month so I was happy with that new habit. Now for October I have decided to double it to 666 with the intention of using at least half of them for plotting and planning for November


And this time there will be no gaps in the 31 day streak.