If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you may have noticed that I’m kind of into National Novel Writing Month.

It’s going on right now, and this is the fifth year I’m participating. But…

It’s looking like I won’t finish my novel this year.

Rather than being depressed about it, though, I’m taking it as a sign of progress. Because in the past, I would have gotten all control-freaky about it.

Well…to be honest, I kind of started out that way this year, too. You see, this Sunday I’m going to NaNoWriMo’s annual fundraising write-a-thon, The Night of Writing Dangerously. At this event, there is much frivolity. There are noir-ish costumes which would inspire even Dashiell Hammett. There is dinner. There is a candy buffet the likes of which causes even the strongest of constitution to swoon. There are pep talks and raffle prizes.

But mostly there is writing.

And if a rampantly noveling author actually manages to finish his or her 50,000 words not by the deadline of midnight on November 30, but at the write-a-thon itself, much glory accrues to said author. Who is cheered roundly by all assembled, gets to wear a large crown for the rest of the evening, and is generally made much of.

So of course I decided that I wanted to finish my novel at the write-a-thon.

Ah, the authorial hubris.

I’d clearly bitten off more than I could chew. A lot more.

Several days later, as I sat staring at my bedroom wall in an almost catatonic stupor, I mustered the energy for a single thought. “Where on earth did this crippling depression come from all of a sudden?”

Thankfully, because of all the attention I’ve paid to my perfectionism patterns over the last several years, I’ve become very, very good at spotting them in action. So I was able to understand almost immediately that I’d set myself up for an effort that wasn’t very good for me at all.

Sure, I could have pushed myself. Lost sleep, gone into an utter writing frenzy. But for what? Out of the four times I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo in the past, I’ve won (i.e., completed over 50,000 words during the month) three of those times.

I realized I no longer need to prove to myself that I can do this.

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Literally. Not to mention the coffee mug.

Nope—this year, what I need to prove to myself is that I have the ability to let go of this really, really fun but still arbitrarily chosen goal. To understand that the world will continue spinning on its axis even if I log less words than originally planned.

But also, to keep on writing anyway.

It would be just another manifestation of all-or-nothing thinking if I were to simply quit. It feels important to me to keep going even in the knowledge that my word-count bar on the NaNoWriMo website will almost certainly stay blue and incomplete rather than brilliant, glowing purple and adorned with a “Winner!” graphic.

I think that if I “lose” this year, it will be a significant win for me, because it will show me how far I’ve come in my battle against struggle with personal exploration of my own perfectionism.

So even though I probably won’t officially finish my 50,000 words this year…

This may be my most important NaNoWriMo year ever.

And it will be nice to close the book (heh) on such a significant lesson learned.

I owe a great deal to Leo Babauta.

Before discovering Zen Habits while web surfing a few years back, I’d never paid any attention to blogs, thinking they were merely somewhat exhibitionist online diaries. Leo changed all that for me.

It helped that at the time he was talking a lot about David Allen’s Getting Things Done, exploring it, and developing his own stripped-down version, Zen To Done. I’m a productivity and systems geek. I was hooked.

But mainly what Leo did for me was show me that a blog could be topical, useful, and interesting…and make me think, “Hey! I could do that, too!”

So I was happy to hear of his just-released book, Focus: A Simplicity Manifesto in the Age of Distraction, and I downloaded the free version within minutes of hitting the page. As I waited for the download to finish, I noticed where he’d written, “…you’re free to review the book, give away the free version on your blog, or interview me.”

Considering that Leo is almost singlehandedly responsible for opening me up to the world of blogging, I jumped at the chance to interview him. Then, in the midst of thinking about what I wanted to ask him, it struck me that I’d rather give  my readers the opportunity to do the asking.

So thanks to everyone who shared with me what they wanted to ask Leo! They’re great questions..and here are the answers.

————-oOo————-

Q: Leo, I know you’re an advocate of gradual, one-step-at-a-time change. But sometimes we really do get jolted by unexpected insights or new ways of thinking. Since starting Zen Habits, have you had any “lightbulb” moments when something just clicked for you suddenly? Even if you didn’t do anything about it right away?

Leo: I have those moments all the time. That’s what I love about life—there’s never any shortage of things to learn!

Some examples:  the amazing connection that you can form with readers and other bloggers when you start a blog, the way that blogging forces you to reflect on your life and what you’ve learned, the difficulty and joy in finding a way to communicate what you’ve learned clearly so that readers can understand and put it into action, the joy of giving up goals for your business, the passion I’ve found for what I’m doing, the power of stripping down my site to nothing but the content. I could go on all day.

Q: I’m currently reading Focus, and unsurprisingly, I think the content is fantastic. But I’m curious—what was your process for choosing and organizing the material in it?

Leo: I started with the issues I face with finding focus, and the solutions that have worked for me. I expanded with some of the broader philosophical things I’ve been exploring and learning about.

Then I asked readers to share some of their problems, and the holes that I didn’t cover, and they responded brilliantly. I wrote a bunch of chapters to address these problems and holes, and I think it turned out much better than if I hadn’t gotten feedback from readers.

Q: One of my readers would like to know what advice you would give someone with a pattern of all-or-nothing thinking, who gets overwhelmed by everything (s)he thinks (s)he has to do, and can’t imagine tackling only one small change at a time? Someone who thinks, “At that rate, I’ll never get anywhere”?

Leo: I’d suggest a little experiment: one week, try tackling everything you want to tackle at once. The next week, force yourself to make one small change and do only that. Repeat this experiment once more if you dare. See which works better. I don’t know which will work best, but it would be fun to find out.

Q: Another reader asks, “How can we convert intellectual understanding into action? I know everything up here (taps head), but I have such a hard time implementing it!”

Leo: You don’t really understand something until you do it. I conduct little experiments of 1 or 2 weeks, sometimes up to a month. I say, “What would happen if I try this?”

And then I see what happens—sometimes I “fail”, but actually it’s a successful experiment because I’ve learned something. So I suggest you approach it by putting everything you learn to a practical test—a 1 or 2 week experiment—and see what you can learn from actually doing.

Q: Here’s another insightful one—“I love the idea of rewarding myself for building positive habits, but the kinds of simple pleasures you talk about are actually hard work for me. I get antsy and uncomfortable just sitting and enjoying a sunset, or walking without my mp3 player, etc. What are some absolute baby steps for amped-up, anxious people who find stillness scary?”

Leo: It might be interesting to explore why you’re afraid of stillness. What are you afraid might happen? What’s stopping you from giving it a try, and enjoying it? Be completely honest with yourself or you’re wasting your time.

If you can figure out your fear, you’re bringing it out into the light. Then you need to shine more light on it:  is it really real? Test it out with a small test:  sit still for one minute, and see what happens. Did your fears come true? If not, maybe the fear isn’t grounded in reality—try a slightly longer test, and so on, until you gain the confidence needed to toss the fear aside.

Another important thing: find ways to be still or quiet that you actually enjoy. If you don’t like sunsets, maybe you like a quiet bath, or a massage from your spouse, or reading a good novel, or doing some yoga, or looking at art. There are so many ways to find beauty in stillness—if you haven’t found it, keep looking.

Q: A reader wants to know, “What role does fine art play in a lifestyle that values simplicity and decluttering?”

Leo: Simplify and declutter so that the fine art may stand out, so that you may enjoy it more fully.

A painting in your home, for example, is much better appreciated if it isn’t surrounded by clutter. Great music is better enjoyed when you’ve found the stillness and quiet that doesn’t distract from the music. A beautiful novel is best experienced when you’re able to shut off technology and disconnect for a little while. By simplifying, you find the time and space to enjoy art.

Q: And finally, someone asked a personal question. She’d like to know how your recent move to San Francisco has affected your own life’s simplicity and focus? (I’m going to tack on my own question, since I live here, too, and ask you what the biggest surprise has been for you about San Francisco?)

Leo: The process of finding simplicity and focus are the same no matter where you are—they just allow you to enjoy wherever you are that much better.

Guam is a very different place than San Francisco, and I love the differences between the two wonderful places, but in the end, I still love writing, spending time with my family, reading, getting outside and getting active, taking walks, enjoying simple food. That hasn’t changed, but the nature and people and food have.

The biggest surprise … hmmm. I can’t really think of anything, except the Giants making it to the World Series! I’ve been a Giants fan since I was a teen-ager, so this has been incredible. Other than that, I came into the city without expectations, so no surprises or disappointments. Everything has been perfect.

————-oOo————-

Considering that last answer, it’s definitely fitting that as I sit here finalizing this post for publication tomorrow morning, the San Francisco Giants have just won the world series. I can hear the fireworks and happy yelling through my open window right now. (Go, Giants!)

Thank you, Leo, for agreeing to this interview and responding so quickly to my request. You’re a blogger and a gentleman.

And thanks once again to those who contributed their questions. Feel free to continue the conversation in the comments!

Despite the fact that it’s downright fashionable to say so these days, I’ve gotta say, I really like the Buddha. My kind of dude—an idealist, but in a no-nonsense sort of way.

The man didn’t sugar-coat things. After years (or lifetimes, depending what you believe) of spiritual seeking, and one rather epic sitting meditation under a tree, he returned from Nirvanaville to offer humanity his four noble truths.

And what’s that first one again? Oh, yeah. “Life is suffering.”

Hardly what a bright-eyed, open-hearted, positive-thinking seeker wants to hear, is it?

Especially when, these days, we’re conditioned to believe the opposite. We can have it all, we’re told. All we have to do is read this book, attend this workshop, buy this product, apply this system, or make this one “simple” lifestyle change.

But it’s never that simple. In our mad dash toward our goals and dreams, we’ve forgotten something very important.

Life is bloody hard work, people.

Even plain old physical existence is tough enough sometimes. The Buddha, in leaving the sheltered life of his father’s palace for the first time, encountered a sick person, an old person, and finally a dead person. We all run into that first condition every now and again, the second if we’re lucky, and the third…well, it’s pretty much inevitable.

Add to that the myriad issues we deal with—our parents and siblings, school, learning to make and keep friends, taking on new responsibilities as we mature, religion and spirituality, learning to make good choices for ourselves, our livelihood and finances, romance and sexuality, difficult situations and relationships, families of our own, personal growth of all kinds.

And just when we think we finally have any one of these things nailed, *BAM!!* Things change on us again.

How the heck do we deal with it all?

Slowly. One piece at a time. Learning from our mistakes more often than from our successes.

Oh, yeah. I said the Buddha was also an idealist, right? The other three of the four noble truths chart out one possible path through suffering and into liberation. And here’s where it gets interesting.

The Buddha (as I understand it) made an interesting distinction between pain and suffering. The former is unavoidable, the latter escapable.

Pain is part of life, whether it’s the stub-your-toe, fail-at-an-important-thing, or lose-a-loved-one variety. To be alive is to experience some hurt.

Suffering is the excess emotional clinging we do in response to our pain.

Now, it’s super-easy to read a judgmental tone into that statement, and I don’t want it to come across that way. Neither, I think, would any self-respecting Buddhist. We cling to our pain for hundreds of reasons—it’s the default option that’s coded into every one of us. So that isn’t meant as an accusation.

It’s not our fault that we suffer. But it is (gradually) avoidable.

I’m not a Buddhist, per se—just someone who has been inspired by its philosophy. I have a layperson’s understanding of it only. But I find that distinction between pain and suffering a heartening one.

There’s no instant enlightenment to be found here on earth. It’s a long journey down a winding road full of bumps, potholes, and blind curves. But let’s not forget that we find excellent companions and gorgeous scenery, too.

And the idea that our suffering can slowly disappear along the way gives me hope.

I know I’ve already featured one guest post and one interview recently, but when the chance came to interview Lisa Baldwin of Zen At Play, wild iguanas could not have dragged me away. It’s not often you get to interview one of the bravest, most clear-minded and humorously wise people you know…you know?

I love her take on life, the universe and everything, and I’m especially thrilled to be participating in her upcoming Treasure Project, which starts this coming Monday.

What’s it about? Oh, silly little things like mindfulness. And creativity. And decluttering (but only if you want to). And maybe stretching your comfort zone a bit in a safe and nurturing environment. And just plain fun.

(Click the buttony button to learn more and/or sign up.)

I was curious about why Lisa who, by her own admission, has “been drawing for around 5 minutes,” came up with the concept of drawing her cherished possessions…so that’s where we started.

Me: What’s so powerful about making art about our treasures? What exactly does it accomplish?

Lisa: Seeing. The power is in the seeing.

We tend to view our belongings as a single mass. We accumulate, intentionally or otherwise, and it all hovers silently around us. We pluck out what we need when we need it, and don’t think too much about each thing’s place in our lives. The Treasure Project is about really seeing our possessions and gathering clues from them.

The things we treasure for their usefulness or meaning hold all kinds of useful information that we can act on. Being aware of your treasures is the most powerful place to start when you want to simplify, because when you know what matters most, the only question left is how to clear away the rest so you can appreciate the best.

Through art-making, and the seeing that the process requires, we get to cultivate a creative habit and have fun at the same time.

Me: Displaying our imperfect creations in a space where others can see them can feel pretty vulnerable. What would you say to the people who might want to join the Treasure Project (or doing anything creative, really) but don’t feel comfortable sharing whatever kind of art they choose to make?

Lisa: Yes, I absolutely get the vulnerability of it all—I am an art-sharing chicken! And it’s interesting that we worry so much about other people’s feedback, because the really tough stuff is what we tell ourselves.

Practicing self-kindness can be part of the process—it might even be the intention of the process. At the same time, choosing who you share with is important—some humans are safer than others, and your tiny creatures of creativity need a safe place to play.

You get to create that safe place by whatever means you need.

That might mean choosing something like the Treasure Project so you can practice sharing in a small group of kindhearted people who won’t critique your work unless you specifically ask for that. Or it might be that you create a safe place to land some other way.

Either way, your creativity is worthy of your care and attention.

Me: I’m like you—I have a strong, ever-present, and yes, obsessive urge to declutter and simplify my life. But some people really need to feel surrounded by a certain amount of stuff to be comfortable. How can we each know where to draw the line (pun intended!) between feeling supported by our possessions and stifled by them?

Lisa: Yes, the sweet spot is different for everyone, and that’s a good thing. I think we need to find the line through experimentation—we’re not necessarily going to know in advance where it is, and nobody else can determine it for us.

I don’t believe that anyone is under any obligation to let go of anything if they’re happy with the way things are—you get to keep things if you want to. Clearing is a matter of asking good questions about your stuff, and getting clear about what supports you and holds you back.

Our way of consuming means that we do tend to have more than we want once we start looking closely, but it might also mean adding a thing or two, or keeping things that other people don’t recognise as treasures. Ask questions, listen to the answers, find your own line.

Me: I adore your poem “Real Lions.” To me, it beautifully expresses your desire to release the artificial urgency we create around so many things. How can we remain conscious about doing that when cultural pressures so strongly enforce the “crank it out and crush it” mentality?

Lisa: Ah, thanks so much! You know, when my time here is up, I strongly doubt that I’ll be wishing I’d hurried, cranked or crushed more. I’m going to be wondering if I paid enough attention. Was I awake?

The idea behind the crank-and-crush method is that it’s what you have to do to get the most out of life, but I don’t believe that for a minute. (Okay, maybe there are occasional minutes where I wonder if I should do more cranking, but I try to let it pass. And sometimes a little passion-driven cranking is useful, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a way of life or that you’re failing as a human if you take a nap in the afternoon.)

How can we be conscious of artificial urgency? Our bodies tell us. Our racing thoughts tell us. Our feelings of inadequacy tell us.

And if we can stop to ponder for a moment, and ask how we’d approach a thing if there was no urgency, we can often see the calmer path clearly.

Me: You’re all about lightness and spaciousness and being awake to ourselves and the world around us. How do you manage to stay so aware? And for all the times you/we don’t manage it, what can you tell us about not getting all self-judgmental about that?

Lisa: Sometimes I think I’m too aware. Other times I think I’m not aware enough.

I’m happiest when I remember that both are true. There’s a lot to be said for a good, honest effort, you know? And if we’re noticing the times that we’re not so aware with gentle curiosity, then we’re making good progress.

—————————oOo—————————

So I’m going to be playfully inviting a higher level of awareness into my life for a month, starting Monday. And giving the whole letting go of self-judgment thing a good, honest effort.

Anyone wanna join me? I’d love it if you came and played, too!

Thanks, Lisa, for taking the time for this interview in the middle of your busy preparations.   Again, folks, you can find Lisa Baldwin pondering profoundly and exploring eagerly over at Zen at Play. Or conversing cheerily on Twitter as @zenatplay. (Are you sensing a theme here?)

Warning:  This post gets a little heavy. It also doesn’t give any crisp, clear answers to anything. But I needed to churn up some of the stuff that’s been lying in the murkier depths of my mind, and I’m offering it here in case it’s helpful or sparks a good conversation. Which would be very nice. (Hint, hint, wink, grin.)

For the past few years I’ve focused on scaling back and simplifying my life. I had to. I was depressed, exhausted, and completely burned out.

Now I’ve got several things going on that I’m genuinely excited about. The challenge, for me, is moving forward without getting into that “all or nothing” headspace which has been my lifelong companion.

I make lists of everything I need and want to do. At first this feels great—it clears my head and lets me relax because I don’t have to worry about dropping any balls—it’s all there on paper where I can see it.

Then the lists undergo mitosis, sometimes often within seconds or minutes of being created. They subdivide from nice, clean rows of words into huge, unwieldy, overwhelming deposits of impossible.

I create and revise the lists again and again, knowing darn well there isn’t enough time for it all.

The best I’ve done so far is to realize that I have utterly ludicrous expectations of myself. I haven’t yet figured out how to stop myself from having them. I might have to accept that I never will.

So I’m (slowly, gradually) learning to do something that’s incredibly difficult for me.

I’m admitting—through clenched teeth because I soooooooo much don’t want it to be true—that I won’t ever accomplish everything that I want to.

Whew. I typed it. And my stomach just tied itself in a knot.

Because oh, my God, if I can’t accomplish everything, then I’m a failure! I’ll die with regrets! People won’t respect me! I will Be Less Than I Could Have Been! And that (*gasp!*) is a mortal sin against my life’s very purpose, whatever it is!

(Did I say something further up about all-or-nothing thinking?)

I will type it again, with emphasis.

I WILL NEVER ACCOMPLISH EVERYTHING I WANT TO DO IN MY LIFE.

I am mortal. I have a finite amount of time on this earth. I can only do so much. I need to breathe deep and let that fact sink deeply into my bones.

The first thing I experience when I do is an increased sense of desperation. If that’s true, then every single minute is precious! I shouldn’t waste any of it!

The second thing I feel is the arising of a quieter, steadier part of myself. She tells me that the real waste is allowing the time to fly by unnoticed as I obsess about the future. That if I accept that there is only so much I can accomplish, then I should be as fully present as I can in each moment, to make clear, intentional choices about how I spend my time.

She also says that living in the moment, as clichéd as that sounds, is the way to fully savor my life. This, she gently reminds me, also includes the not-so-pleasant feelings. Because even though chocolate and cheesecake taste mighty fine, I’d quickly get tired of them if that was all I ever ate.

We need the contrast to know when we have it good.

So I’m learning to catch myself in the act of engaging with old patterns—the ones that keep me fantasizing without taking action, making plans with unrealistic timelines, buying products that I keep hoping will be the “magic bullet” to solving this or that problem and not using them, and driving myself into the ground through obsessive workaholism and perfectionism.

Interestingly, I’ve noticed that I keep getting the same amount of frustrated even though I continue to expect different results. Funny, that.

So even if I simply notice that I’ve gone down my usual trail toward the murk and overwhelm, I’m trying to consider that a success, because you can’t change a pattern—especially one as ingrained as this—without first being aware of when you’re doing it.

Like I said at the beginning, there are no clear-cut answers here. But there is a growing awareness.

I’m thinking that’s a good first step.

I can’t resist one more plug for National Novel Writing Month, which starts at MIDNIGHT TOMORROW! (Yep, somehow midnight on Halloween night seems very fitting.)

Even though I’m very sad about not doing it this year myself, NaNoWriMo was one of the key things that taught me how to start fighting back against my perfectionism when I first participated in November of 2005.

I’ve done it three times since then, and successfully completed a horribly raw and unedited 50,000-word novel twice. And I don’t think I’ve ever found a better—or more fun—crash course in how to throw your inner critic out the window (or at least lock her/him in a closet for a while).

So it’s worth stating again how heartily I endorse this program. If you’ve never heard of it and you’re intrigued, or if you have and you’re on the fence about participating, NOW is the time . . . because it won’t come around again for another year!

If you have specific questions I can answer about NaNoWriMo for you, feel free to post them in the comments below or send me a private e-mail at the address in the very bottom line of my “About Me” page. I’ll make a point of checking that at least a few times today and tomorrow.

I also want to make two offers for anyone who’d like to get involved . . .

If you do NaNoWriMo this November and would like a personal cheerleader, I’d be happy to be your NaNoBuddy via e-mail. You can send me your word counts if you want to keep yourself gently . . . ac-count-able (heh). Or you can just check in with me and tell me how it’s going, and I can reply with hearty cheering-you-on messages and any advice I can offer.

If you’d like to be part of this adventure of literary and creative abandon, but don’t want to actually, you know, write a novel, consider making a tax-deductible donation to the Office of Letters and Light, the parent non-profit which runs NaNoWriMo and other beneficial programs—many for children.

There’s something in it for you if you do, hopefully. A very good friend of mine is doing NaNo (again!) and she’s personally raising funds to get into a special Write-a-Thon here in San Francisco on November 22. If she makes her stated goal, she will not only get in herself, but she’ll be able to bring one guest.

That will be me.

If she raises enough to qualify us both to attend the third annual “Night of Writing Dangerously,” I promise to blog from there and give you an insider’s view of the unbridled thrills and excitement. Maybe I can even take a little videocam, record a few brief interviews with other writers, and post them here. (I haven’t included a video in a blog post yet! Hmmm . . .)

Oh, if you’d like to donate, you might want the link:

Donate to my writerly friend’s NaNoWriMo fundraising page here! Just click the link and then the “Sponsor Me” button (after reading her lovely page, of course).

So there you have it, ladies and gents.

A fantastic month-long chance to play with imperfection begins tomorrow.

You can join in if you’re inspired to.

If you do, you can take me up on my offer to be your NaNoBuddy.

And/or you can donate to the cause and hopefully get me in the door to blog from the Write-a-Thon itself.

Or none of the above. Of course it’s up to you. But I couldn’t resist one more reminder that NaNoWriMo 2009 starts at MIDNIGHT TOMORROW! )

I had it all planned out. It was going to be so much fun.

It really was a great idea, if I do say so myself. My blog is about overcoming the kind of perfectionism that gets in our way by telling us that what we’re doing isn’t good enough. National Novel Writing Month (which I’ve written about before), is a month of hands-on practice in blasting straight through that mindset with wild writerly abandon.

So I was going to blog my entire NaNo novel publicly, right here, during the month of November.

Practice Makes Imperfect and NaNoWriMo—what a natural combination!

I got in touch with the organizers, and they were going to feature me in one of their daily Q&A spots. I would get to publicly practice what I preach in a very visible way, and maybe turn some people on to this annual event that I love so much in the process. We could cheer each other on, inspire each other, and keep that flow of raw, gloriously unedited words gushing.

Except then I heard an inner warning siren go off. It was followed by a voice:

“Wait, you’re the person who says she’s finally coming to grips with the fact that she can’t do it all, no matter how much she wants to. Who says she’s tired of trying to be superhuman. And who is already having enough trouble handling all the things on her plate now. And you’re thinking that you can manage to write 50,000 words next month on top of all that?”

Damn.

The disturbing truth is that once you embark on the path of self-awareness, it gets harder and harder to be in denial. Even when you really, really want to be.

So today I’m here to tell you that I will not be doing National Novel Writing Month this year.

And that makes me incredibly sad.

It would have been so joyous! Not to mention good for web traffic! I would have gotten exposure to many thousands of people around the world who do NaNoWriMo and visit its website, and who might have seen my Q&A feature and checked out my blog! I could have possibly been inspirational to people who were thinking about trying NaNo this year, or who were doing it but flagging in their enthusiasm, just by writing my novel publicly! And maybe some of them would have become regular readers or subscribers here at Practice Makes Imperfect! So many exclamation points that I will now miss out on!

Not to mention that I simply adore doing NaNo each November.

It is actually harder for me to not do it than to do it and drive myself into the ground. The latter has been (until recently) my modus operandi. I know very well how to pummel myself into submission over a goal that I’ve arbitrarily decided I have to achieve.

It’s much harder to admit that the world will keep on turning and that I will keep on breathing without my writing a novel next month. It’s so difficult to allow myself to just drop something that would prevent me from the self-care that I need to focus on right now.

Which is why I’m letting NaNo go this year. I need the practice in saying no to things I want so that I can say yes to things I want even more. Like health. And sanity.

BUT . . .

If you have ever wanted to write a novel, I cannot recommend NaNoWriMo highly enough. Here’s an excerpt from (again) my own previous blog post about it:

What makes the program so effective? It allows you to barrel right past your critical mind. You have to write so much so fast that quality concerns fly out the window—you just don’t have time for them. “I can edit later” becomes your mantra. And the amazing thing is that once you push past your initial resistance, get into the flow, and establish a daily writing routine, you realize it’s completely feasible to write 50,000 words or more in a month if you just keep writing and don’t overthink it.

It’s fun, it’s intense, and it’s probably the best training program for recovering perfectionists I’ve ever found.

If there is ANY part of you that is saying (perhaps very quietly) “yes!” right now, then I heartily endorse NaNoWriMo and suggest that you check out their website right away. Because this year’s novel-writing adventure begins at midnight this Saturday night.

If you decide to do it, I’d love to know so that I can holler and whoop and cheer you on!

Warning: The following article describes a brutal act of clutter-clearing in which a number of inanimate objects are heartlessly disposed of. It may not be suitable for sensitive readers. Proceed at your own risk.

I’ve never been a packrat. By most people’s standards, I live quite simply and don’t have a lot of “stuff.” I have learned, though, that a lot of the material I do accumulate is like sea wrack, washed up against the shores of my living space by the waves of projects I’ve started and not completed.

Oh, I’ve tried to complete them—most of them, anyway. Usually by organizing the heck out of them first. I’ve kept lists of projects. I’ve whittled those projects down to bite-sized tasks, devised methods to streamline and schedule those tasks, and created whole systems to track my progress so that I could have the joy of crossing things off my to-do list. I’ve spent hours, days and weeks blasting through those to-do lists like dynamite in an all-out effort to finish as many projects and tasks as quickly I could, so that I could have the simple, uncluttered life I crave.

It never, ever occurred to me that I could simplify my life by eliminating things without finishing them.

In late 2001 I fulfilled a long-held dream and began to learn to play the Indian tabla drums. I took lessons for five years from one of the world’s acknowledged best tabla players, Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri. I adored the classes, and Swapanji is a wonderful, patient and gently humorous teacher whom I miss deeply . . . because I haven’t taken lessons now for over two years.

It broke my heart, but I had to stop for my own benefit. I took the classes far too seriously, and I felt such a sense of obligation that the lessons became more of a chore than anything else. I was feeling enormous stress over the fact that I couldn’t practice as much as I wanted to, and I thought I wasn’t doing justice to either the money I was spending on the classes or, even more important to me, the beautiful musical tradition of the tablas.

At the end of it all (and I still choke up just writing that), I was left with five years’ worth of cassette tapes. Tapes? Yes, because we learned so much so quickly each week that Swapanji allowed us to record the classes. I would come home from class, play through the tape, write down the new composition we’d learned, and refer to it as I practiced throughout the week or refreshed my memory of it later.

These tapes held pure gold. They contained the teachings of a living legend, instructing very small groups of students in a tiny room. Swapanji played each new composition for us. He gave us individual attention and advice. He gave encouragement, sometimes talked about the history of the tablas, and often told funny stories.

But 90% of the tapes were filled with us students, ineptly tapping and pounding away as we attempted to stuff each new kaida, rela, tukra and chakradhar into our short-term memories. This was nothing I would ever want to listen to again.

Once I’d finish transcribing each week’s tape into my permanent notes, I’d save it with the intention of extracting the 10% of the material with real value for future reference. So when I stopped taking classes, I had a gigantic box filled with five years’ worth of cassettes. I consoled myself with the thought that since I was (*sniffle*) no longer learning anything new, I would finally have time to deal with them all.

It was an Enormous Project. Just getting the (sometimes undated) tapes into chronological order took me a long time. The next step was to listen to roughly 200-250 hours of class tapes through an analog-to-digital converter, and sift through the dirt of the vast, useless majority of the recordings to find the tiny nuggets of gold where Swapanji was actually talking and teaching. I would then need to save those smaller files, date-label them, catalog their contents, and burn them to CD for safekeeping.

I really thought I could do it. In my spare time, outside of my full-time job and my many other projects and commitments. I expected myself to. This unfinished project weighed on my consciousness for two full years. All unfinished things have an oppressive weight to them, but this one was extra-heavy. After all, those tapes were priceless! They deserved to be saved, if not for me, then for posterity!

But slowly I realized that posterity didn’t much care. That other people took these classes, too. That I wasn’t personally responsible for being the caretaker of the material I’d learned. That Swapanji had been recorded—professionally—hundreds of times over the decades.

That I really, truly didn’t have to do this project at all. Ever.

So . . . I threw away the box.

Then I cried.

And then I was swept with the most profound feeling of relief I’d felt in years.

How odd that my biggest lesson came when I stopped taking classes.

I’m a productivity geek and a systems gal. Lock me in a Franklin Covey store, give me free access to all the personal planning paraphernalia there, and I’m in heaven.

I am also a certified master of the to-do list. Hand me twenty pages of tasks, projects and agenda items, and I can slice ‘em and dice ‘em any way you please. I’ve done this with my own lists hundreds of times.

My only problem seems to be with doing the stuff on them.

Even as a child, I carried with me a vague sense of unease about all the things I wanted to do but wasn’t getting around to. (How early does Perfectionitis nauseus set in, anyway? Sheesh.)

Then I learned to make lists. At first they were very simple: Homework. Things to Do. Write it down, do it, cross it off.

Ohhh, yes. The flesh-tingling thrill of crossing things off. There’s no high quite like it. The only thing is, it’s kind of like the old joke about the guy who keeps beating his head against the wall because it feels so good when he stops. You have to keep adding to the lists in order to have more items to cross out.

At first this was no problem. As a classic overachiever, I really was able to plow through many, many things quickly and well. I was invariably praised for this, so that pattern was reinforced strongly. Work hard, earn praise, feel worthy. Want more praise and feelings of self-worth? Work harder.

I became a human doing instead of a human being.

Then came the myriad ways to keep track of it all. I’m low-tech by choice, so I don’t go in for all the electronic gadgetry, but my personal planner addiction began the day I discovered existence of the Day Runner almost two decades ago.

No system has worked for me consistently, though. Even when they gently nudge me into methods of prioritization (ABC-123, context lists, or what have you), I’m still overwhelmed by my own lists because I can’t discriminate. I feel that if I think of it, I have to do it, and that I’m perpetually falling behind in a race I can’t win.

Over the past couple of years, an internal war has raged within me between my Inner Drill Sergeant, who sounds like Anthony Robbins on speed, and my slowly-emerging Self-Nurturer, who tells me that if I don’t learn to ease up and take better care myself, I may very well die. (As in, you know, sooner than I’m meant to.)

Lately the war seems to be escalating. I think it’s because my Self-Nurturer is finally starting to make some solid inroads into my consciousness. The Drill Sergeant is feeling seriously threatened. And I’m sitting in between them, trying to broker a peace and convince myself I’m not developing a split personality.

But some helpful realizations have emerged, too. One of the best is . . .

The power of stopping. Really stopping.

Being who I am, I’ve always seen relaxation, meditation, visualization, and other forms of stress release as just more items for the to-do list. Which automatically brings up resistance, because I already have far too much on the list already. (How am I supposed to fit a conscious relaxation session in between getting home from work, feeding the cats, having something for dinner, running that load of laundry I’ve been putting off for two days, taking a walk to get some fresh air and exercise, working on the five small tasks and two major projects I’ve decided I need to take care of tonight, answering a few time-sensitive e-mails, and taking a shower before collapsing into bed so I can wake up to another overwhelming tomorrow?)

When methods of de-stressing become just another series of items to check off my lists, I’ve learned I’m never going to get around to them.

But I’ve discovered that when I allow myself to truly stop—to rest for a while because my body, mind and spirit want it, not because it’s an agenda item to be ticked off—I do experience genuine relief.

It’s a subtle distinction, and I’m not even sure I’m expressing it adequately.

My habitual way feels more like:

“Get home from work—check. Feed cats—check. Go upstairs and sit on bed; close eyes and do creative visualization for 15 minutes—check. Start load of laundry—check.”

My new way, which isn’t a solid habit yet but which I’m achieving more often now, feels like:

“Hi there, cats! Can I hang out with you while you eat? **Scritch, scritch** (((PURRRRRR))). Okay, upstairs. Stretching out on my bed because it was a demanding day at the office . . . ahh, yes. This floating in between awakeness and a slight doze feels wonderful. General sense of time passing, but no looking at the clock. >>>really stopping everything; a feeling of timelessness<<< Mmm, now I feel ready to engage with the world again. Wow! Look—it’s only been 20 minutes! Better go start that laundry . . .”

Gentler, Nicer. More peaceful. When I can actually manage this type of thing.

I’d be lying if I said I’m getting as many things done this way, but you know what? I’m getting all the important things done.

With jottings to myself scratched on sticky notes, more often than with my latest “productivity system.”

Though I did walk past the Franklin Covey store at lunch yesterday . . .

I suspect the war isn’t over yet.

“Here. You might like to write about this on your blog.” A wink, a jaunty tip of his imaginary hat, and my friend was gone. In my hand was a tiny book weighing just a few ounces, entitled The Underachiever’s Manifesto.

My friend is known for his sense of humor, but then again, as a classic overachiever, maybe there was something beneficial in there for me. I opened the book.

And closed it less than an hour later. Like I said, it’s a very slim volume. The author would probably say that it’s exactly as long as necessary, and not a word longer.

It left me . . . disturbed. Because it’s a funny book, but in the way that Dilbert cartoons are funny, being only slight exaggerations (hmm, perhaps I’m being too charitable there) on work environments that really do exist.

Take, for example, the “Ten Principles of Underachievement.” I particularly like #3 – Expectations lead to misery. Author Ray Bennett writes:

It would be nice to believe that setting the bar high always helps, but it doesn’t. Most people start on an exercise program looking for great improvement, only to quit out of disappointment. If only they had learned to avoid expectations . . .

Ouch. Nail hit squarely on the head.

He also talks about the law of diminishing returns. In any undertaking, there comes a point where even if the spirit is willing, the flesh is gasping for rest. The mind goes into lockdown from sheer overload. At that point, you start getting less and less accomplished for every bit of extra effort you apply. Continuing to push will result in burnout, injury, or worse.

Slow down, Bennett says. Lower the bar. Good enough is good enough.

Of course, my Inner Drill Sergeant scoffs at this notion. “Are you insane, woman? How can you respect yourself if you deliberately do less than you’re capable of?”

I’m getting better at scoffing right back. Some days I can look my Drill Sergeant right in the face and say, “You’re only one part of me, and I don’t have to listen to you all the time anymore.”

Other days I still snap a smart salute, spin on my heel, and march away to do whatever the Sergeant has told me to. But at least when that happens, I’m getting better at noticing it. On good days, I even refrain from judging myself for it.

It takes a long time to break a pattern this entrenched. Compassion for myself seems like a good way to go.

So I’m experimenting with doing less. Deliberately. Just a little, here and there.

• Not always being the first to volunteer whenever a task comes up at work, because after more than three years on the job, I shouldn’t have to feel like I’m proving what a good worker I am every single day.
• Not balancing my checkbook for the first time in my life. (Miraculously, I’ve survived this.)
• Not trying to cook (which usually ends up as a late-night run for junk food), but allowing myself to order takeout instead.
• Not keeping up with my elaborate personal planning system; just writing down brief to-do lists on Post-It notes as they occur to me.

The Underachiever’s Manifesto is a lopsided little treatise. It doesn’t take into account that there are some situations in which you really do need to strive for perfection—for instance, I don’t think I’d hand the book to an air traffic controller just going on-shift.

I also don’t believe that pushing yourself is always a bad thing. I’m proud that I’ve run three marathons, for instance, and I never would have accomplished that without going way out of my comfort zone. I think that every now and then, choosing a really difficult goal and going all-out to achieve it can really be inspiring, and it can teach you some valuable lessons about what you’re capable of.

But this book definitely got me thinking.

What about you? Are there areas in your life where you’ve experimented with turning things down a notch? What happened when you did? Or maybe there’s a situation where you’d like to try that approach. Where can you do less and possibly gain more? And what would you gain?

Feel free to comment below. I’d love to have a conversation about this . . .