The essay theme for April is Transforming Spring Fever into Joyful Focus.

Week One, what habits might give you the most immediate and reliable satisfaction?

Next, how do you refill your energetic/ creative fuel tank? How often are you doing it, and might more time be helpful?

Week Three, would you like to have room for even more learning? If so, what subject would you explore? Would two hours a week, for only a month, interest you at all?

Finally, looking ahead, would you like to plant some creative momentum seeds for the months to come?

~~~~~~~~

What stands in the way of you accomplishing your heartfelt dreams?

 If you’re like me, it’s the Tyranny of Tedious Tasks. With no one to delegate anything to, it is up to me to make these daily living tasks as few as possible, and then as pleasurable as possible.

My list includes the usuals: washing dishes, paying bills, grocery shopping, doing the laundry, tidying and cleaning my home. If I tell myself, “I’ll just get all that done first,” I risk running out of gas, so my precious creative efforts are given only leftover, low-quality energy. I have to figure out a way to put less effort into my predictable check boxes so that I have more quality time available for painting, reading, walking, and writing. In short, what I need is a system to rely on so I can stop reinventing the wheel, once and for all, and have a way to experience a chunk of joy every single day.

Uncertainty, stress, and real danger pervade our world lately, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. With all this instability and calls for action, staying sane is more important than ever. But how?

By remembering what we love, what defines us as individuals and as a culture.

The good news is that in March you created a “to thine own self be true” carry-on travel bag packed with your own most important survival essentials. Now you simply need to add a metaphorical change of clothes, toiletries, cell phone charger, and you’re good to go. Excellent. But one question: Where to?

The itinerary is full, so we must plan ahead. Rest assured, you won’t have to choose between being a responsible citizen and being happy. You can have both. Maybe not at the same time, but with mindful intention, you can have both. Here is my current plan, which works for me as a single person living alone.

On Sunday afternoons I plan my 3 weekly projects: self-care, home care, and creative practice.

4-Hour Self-care includes a commitment to daily 30-minute exercise, which I do first thing each day. I don’t jump out of bed to do cardio, not ever! Instead, I focus mostly on stretching, mobility, and strength training. The remaining 30 minutes of my 4-hours-a-week are used on Sunday afternoons for meal planning for the week, creating a grocery list at the same time. It makes for a gentle healthy start to every day.

4-Hour Homecare for me is very simple. In the evening, I go from room to room with a basket, gathering things that have migrated around the house and putting them back where they belong. That brings all the stray teacups back to the kitchen for my daily evening dishwashing. When I look around just before I shut off the lights, I know I have a tidy clean slate to begin with tomorrow.

These two things, so simple, have magically removed the lead weight of guilt I used to carry around with me every single day. I no longer need to nag myself, saying “I should exercise” or cringe, thinking how trashed the entire living area is. I no longer fear an unexpected guest seeing how I really live! I have time and space for everything. Now I am my favorite guest!

Emails, appointments, and socializing can easily eat up the rest of my waking hours if I’m not careful. I have time for that too, but only after I have cordoned off time for my weekly 6-Hour Creative Practice. This blog takes 2-3 hours to write, surprisingly enough, but that still leaves time for a couple watercolor study-and-painting sessions every week.

My Latest Art Practice: I’m still working through the eight Oliver Pyle lessons called, “Planning Wash Sequences” and am finding it useful. Here is my humble work-in-progress version, in my 9 x 12 study notebook, made by Bee Paper Company. The paper wrinkles when I don’t manage the water well, but that’s okay. This paper is a useful and affordable companion to my 140# watercolor paper sketchbooks. I’ll share updated photos as the lesson progresses.

I’ve also started a small watercolor on 140# cold-press watercolor paper of a scene at Great Dixter in East Sussex, UK. Here I will try to apply what I’m learning in Olly’s course.

This is where my Desert Island Me triage kit comes in handy. I know now that if I don’t prioritize time to immerse myself in the world of watercolor, my energetic well will run dry and I will be useless to everyone, including me. Life may even begin to feel like a burden, that is how important this time is to me.

That’s it for April Spring Fever Week One – these are the habits that give me the most immediate and reliable satisfaction. What are yours? Feel free to share them below.

~~~~~~~~~~

I hope you enjoyed this essay. Click on the “Word Cloud” at the right if you’d like to read more about a specific topic. Feel free to forward any of them to friends and family members who might enjoy them.

Public comments can be posted below. (You may need to click on the title of this essay to access the “Like” and “Comment” areas.)

Private questions or comments will reach me by using the Contact link here.

All three of my books are available on Amazon in eBook and paperback formats.

The newest book, Look at That! – Second Edition, is also available as a beautiful hardcover.

A big thank you to the recent donors to the Tip Jar on this blog. If you find these posts valuable, I hope you will contribute to The Tip Jar. It is my preferred alternative to having this be a subscription website. The Tip Jar is a secure site, and it helps keep this website solvent.

As always, thanks for spending some time with me “aloft.” Happy gazing and sketching!