Until recently I had no idea just how long an object at rest could remain at rest. I have always been a champion sleeper, and I've had idle curiosity about how long I could sleep if I didn't deliberately rouse myself from bed at some point out of guilt. Now I know the answer is basically: forever. I can easily sleep eleven hours at night and still take an afternoon nap and then settle down for another eleven hours of sleep the next night. While this makes me the envy of insomniacs, I am here to report that This Is Not Good. Sleep studies have shown that excessive sleep (more than nine hours) is just as detrimental to health as insufficient sleep (less than seven hours). And "sleeping your life away" is hardly regarded as a rich and flourishing human existence.
The best way to get oneself into motion, as Newton pointed out, is of course an external force. This is why I perk up when my editor sends me proofs of a forthcoming book to review, or editorial suggestions for revision. Hooray! An assignment from the universe! But most of the time I have to find a way to act as my own external force. So here are some of my most successful strategies for rousing myself to action.
1. Do anything! Anything at all! The smallest of nudges can "start the ball rolling." When I stumble out of bed in the morning, the first thing I do is make myself a to-do list, and the first items on the list are all pathetically tiny:
- Weigh myself (okay, I'm obsessive here); take my few medications; make myself my mug of hot chocolate. (I could list those as three separate things, but that might cross over into the ridiculous.)
- Check my online bank balance and reconcile it with my checkbook register (okay, I'm obsessive here, too, but oh, the joy of feeling that I have a grip on these two key numbers for my well-being). I used to balance my checkbook every month, but now I do it every day; I love the reassurance of knowing each day that all is in order.
- Unload the dishwasher - how I love this task!! The only task I love more is putting a load of laundry in the washer. Bliss is the sound of the washing machine chugging away. Something in my life is getting better! Something is actually happening to improve my situation!
By this point I've already bestirred myself enough that I can now tackle Real Work using any of these approaches.
2. Pick just ONE item from my work smorgasbord and work on it for an hour, or if that is too daunting, half an hour. Lately, I've been logging mainly half hours. On my current list of acceptable half-hour tasks I see:
- Make notes on The Put-Em-Rights by Enid Blyton, which I just read for final revisions on a scholarly article.
- Go through the second round of edits on my forthcoming chapter book, Vera Vance, Comics Star, and see how many of my editor's queries I can address in thirty minutes.
- Type up the poems I wrote last week for a possible novel-in-verse.
- Search for a box for the Christmas ornament I'm sending off for this year's Betsy-Tacy ornament exchange.
- Go online and buy some stamps - did you know first-class postage is going up five cents in January?
- Give a first reading to an article I agreed to peer-review for a children's literature journal.
- Write a blog post (guess which item on the list got picked this morning?)
3. If I've chosen a task that can be done at my desk or on my couch, I "enter the zone" by turning over my beloved hourglass or half-hourglass, and lately, lighting a candle, too. This helps to signal that real work time has begun.
4. Use a counting strategy. Mine involves doing things in multiples of five. (Further evidence of my OCD?) If I'm extra-daunted, extra-lethargic, extra-inert, I commit to do do just FIVE small steps toward a task: unload just five things from the dishwasher, fold just five pieces of laundry, address just five of Margaret's editorial queries, type just five poems. This is a favorite. I do it when I walk and drive, too, obsessively counting the next five driveways (when walking) or traffic lights (when driving). It's oddly meditative and comforting, as well.
5. Eliminate any competing temptations for complete time-wasting. I make the bed so I won't be tempted to get back in it. I put my phone out of reach so I won't scroll idly through Facebook for an hour or two. I deleted the Sudoku app from my I-pad and stored the I-pad in an inconvenient spot. (TV happens not to be a temptation for me, and in any case, other people control the TV remote in my house.) If there is absolutely nothing else to do except for productive activities, productive activities do tend to get done. I do, however, allow myself to read library books as a distraction from the more purposeful tasks, if my inertia is dire enough. I can never count an hour reading for pleasure as a wasted hour.
I'd like to be able to say that once I become an object in motion, I now stay in motion, but Newton was wrong about this one, at least in my case. I can only sustain motion for so long before sloth once more overcomes me. But that's okay. The whole point of this blog is to argue - to you, and to myself - that with just one hour a day you can accomplish many lovely things. And the point of this particular blog post is just to list some tried-and-true ways of rousing oneself to work - to do anything at all! - for at least one hour.
Because, my friends, a productive hour is SO much better than a twelfth hour of sleep. Trust me on this one.
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