There's this shelf at my library that I haunt.
I stop in at least once a week. After I check the holds area for any books waiting for me, I make a beeline to this shelf -- the 640s of the Dewey system.
I've been obsessed with this particular Dewey decade since January and have kept my arm of the couch shoulder-deep in related books since then: farming, homesteading, householding, skill-hoarding, nesting. You may have noticed the new daily pie page called nest. Yeah, this is what that's about. I'm crazy about homemaking right now. There are several factors feeding into it (to be shared soon) (no, I'm not pregnant), and I can justify the obsession because most of what I'm learning is useful. Like, really useful, on a life-long scale.
Anyhoo, so I'm slurking around this shelf today and spot a book called The Experts' Guide to Doing Things Faster: 100 Ways to Make Life More Efficient. Now, thanks to the books I've gorged on since the New Year, I'm way more into doing things more slowly than I have before, getting more enjoyment from actions and people, and generally wringing the goodness from life with my bare hands. But efficiency is like catnip for me. When I was 10 and we were moving into a new house, Mom caught me going to the house from the moving truck empty-handed, and she said, "Don't waste a trip."
A seminal moment, y'all. It was logical and made the job go faster, and then it stuck with me forever. I still don't like to waste trips from one room to another or one office to another. And I bet that advice is in that Expert's Guide. So I picked it up, sensing a sneaky cat-mint high within its pages.
I scanned chapters on How to Clean House and How to Go Through Airport Security, each written by an apparent expert of the subject, and then this one caught my eye: How to Wake Up. I looked at the so-called expert and laughed: a firefighter. Of course.
His name's Zac Unger, and he's written a book called Working Fire: The Making of an Accidental Fireman. And he knows all about waking up. Which, to Zac, means getting up. Here's a taste:
Awesome. I'm so guilty of thinking I deserve more sleep, and lolling around in bed to prove it. Dave and I have this whole spooning routine in the morning, which, don't get me wrong, is nurturing and restful and generally great. But it's also an excuse to stay in bed longer. You know how I know? Because our routine involves two alarm clocks, and we're always in bed wayyyyy after the second one goes off.
So. I'll be working on Waking Up = Getting Up, or at least Waking Up = Followed Much Sooner by Getting Up, because I do love the spoon.
Check out the longer chapter excerpt on Unger's website -- practically the whole chapter -- they're short. Then try the Counting to One Thousand by Seventeens thing. I got to 51.
I stop in at least once a week. After I check the holds area for any books waiting for me, I make a beeline to this shelf -- the 640s of the Dewey system.
I've been obsessed with this particular Dewey decade since January and have kept my arm of the couch shoulder-deep in related books since then: farming, homesteading, householding, skill-hoarding, nesting. You may have noticed the new daily pie page called nest. Yeah, this is what that's about. I'm crazy about homemaking right now. There are several factors feeding into it (to be shared soon) (no, I'm not pregnant), and I can justify the obsession because most of what I'm learning is useful. Like, really useful, on a life-long scale.
Anyhoo, so I'm slurking around this shelf today and spot a book called The Experts' Guide to Doing Things Faster: 100 Ways to Make Life More Efficient. Now, thanks to the books I've gorged on since the New Year, I'm way more into doing things more slowly than I have before, getting more enjoyment from actions and people, and generally wringing the goodness from life with my bare hands. But efficiency is like catnip for me. When I was 10 and we were moving into a new house, Mom caught me going to the house from the moving truck empty-handed, and she said, "Don't waste a trip."
A seminal moment, y'all. It was logical and made the job go faster, and then it stuck with me forever. I still don't like to waste trips from one room to another or one office to another. And I bet that advice is in that Expert's Guide. So I picked it up, sensing a sneaky cat-mint high within its pages.
I scanned chapters on How to Clean House and How to Go Through Airport Security, each written by an apparent expert of the subject, and then this one caught my eye: How to Wake Up. I looked at the so-called expert and laughed: a firefighter. Of course.
His name's Zac Unger, and he's written a book called Working Fire: The Making of an Accidental Fireman. And he knows all about waking up. Which, to Zac, means getting up. Here's a taste:
"The reason you have trouble waking up is because you feel as though you deserve more sleep. You don't. There's nothing in the Constitution about lounging around in bed, and the snooze button is not your birthright. In my line of work an alarm is an alarm; it rings and I get up no matter how much sleep I've had so far that night. And you need to do the same thing. No more fooling yourself, no more bemoaning your sleepy fate. Maybe you only got four hours of sleep last night, but that's a problem you need to deal with on the nighttime end of things, not in the morning."
Awesome. I'm so guilty of thinking I deserve more sleep, and lolling around in bed to prove it. Dave and I have this whole spooning routine in the morning, which, don't get me wrong, is nurturing and restful and generally great. But it's also an excuse to stay in bed longer. You know how I know? Because our routine involves two alarm clocks, and we're always in bed wayyyyy after the second one goes off.
So. I'll be working on Waking Up = Getting Up, or at least Waking Up = Followed Much Sooner by Getting Up, because I do love the spoon.
Check out the longer chapter excerpt on Unger's website -- practically the whole chapter -- they're short. Then try the Counting to One Thousand by Seventeens thing. I got to 51.
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