Silence the ringing alarms of obligation
Oh, hi friends!
What alarms go off in your life every day?
Work. Meetings. Family. Life. World Cup. (Oh wait, that one’s over.)
Each of these has its own distinct ring, but the underlying tone is the same.
Me. Me. ME! It’s time to pay attention to meeeeee!
So many alarms. So many obligations. So much stimuli.
A funny thing though…you don’t need to listen to all of them, all the time. You can turn off one. Heck, why not two? Even if just for a day.
See what happens when you’re not responding to a dozen alarms.
See what happens when you lay out an agenda and stick to it.
See what happens.
Photo by Malte Wingen on Unsplash
“On the actual Untouchable Day itself, I picture myself sitting in a bulletproof car surrounded by two-inches of thick impenetrable plastic on all sides. Nothing gets in. Nothing gets out. Meetings bounce off the windshield. Texts, alerts, and phone calls, too. My cell phone is in Airplane Mode all day. My laptop has Wi-Fi completely disabled. Not a single thing can bother me… and not a single thing does.”
Wow. I am amazed by this idea of scheduling a weekly Untouchable Day devoted to deep creative work and cutting off contact with everyone else. It’s drastic, but…appealing. (h/t Kat’s Kable, a weekly round-up of longform journalism.)
This week, I wrote about how to stop being late to everything for the New York Times’ Smarter Living newsletter. (Scroll down!) This is definitely a “do as I say, not as I do” situation, since I’m still late to about 80 percent of my obligations, but I’m trying! Always trying! (My favorite tip is to figure out your “late trigger”—the thing you try to squeeze in that inevitably throws off your entire schedule.)
So if that sent you here, welcome! I’ll be in your inbox at 7:30 a.m. EST every weekday. If that's too much email for you, I understand. No hard feelings.
We won’t discuss the news, but we will talk about work and careers, productivity, balance, Sondheim songs, stories you might interesting, writing advice, and more. I pass along jobs that sound decent and good apartments in the city and videos and songs that might make you laugh or think or cry or grow horrified by my taste in culture. I’ll rip off the Band-Aid on my own creative failures and successes as a journalist, playwright, screenwriter, and Porg owner living in Brooklyn. (More about me and here’s the Brass Ring archive.)
Basically, I want you to wake up and have the best day possible.
And I’d be very glad to hear about your life! Because we’re all in this together. That's the whole point. So hit reply anytime.
Do you like these daily emails? Please share with a friend!
Thanks, as always, for reading.
Love, Kara