Done for the Week: Crossing the Finish Line

Back from my day at the races.  But not back to earth.  Not yet.  And not for a while, if I can help it.

Here's the story of what I got done last week: 

Done for the Week:  Aug. 15-21, 2011

1. Completed Week 15 of 15-week triathlon training program, resting for race; ran twice; biked once; swam twice
2. Worked out and meditated several times with my training partner
3. Attended second Open Water Swim class
4. Swam across the lake--sort of 
5. Rented new, larger, more life-sustaining wetsuit (unlike the one I own, this one permits breathing, which I've come to appreciate--the hard way!)
6. Continued working on pre-race anxiety, mental training, pre-race nutrition and hydration
7. Packed to leave town for the race
8. Picked up race packet; bought stuff at the expo 
9. Shared pre-race dinner with my husband and training partner
10. Did gear check with my training partner
11. Finished the race!!!  Beat even my stretch goal
12. Celebrated with my training partner and friend, who also finished with strength and grace
13. Attended triathlon camp reunion, post-race
14. Helped youngest son prepare for first long-distance flight on his own
15. Finished No Death, No Fear:  Comforting Wisdom for Life, by Thich Nhat Hanh
16. Continued to work my two part-time jobs 
17. Provided technical assistance to nonprofit organization
18. Meditated four times
19. Published 1 blog post
20. Continued reading Elizabeth George's In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner aloud with my husband
21. Continued work on current clients' projects
22. Attended Issues Night
23. Attended Jobs Prayer Vigil
24. Paid the monthly bills
25. Accomplished major cleaning/decluttering/rearrangement of main work room
26. Did laundry

Last week's focus goal was to "finish my training using the less-is-more and self-nurturing approach appropriate to the final days before the race."  Did that. 

Tuesday evening's pre-race swim across the lake proved even more of a hurdle than I had anticipated.  Last Monday I wrote about this planned workout that "I intend to get to the other side by any means necessary."  And by Tuesday night, I had delivered on that prediction.  The "means necessary" turned out to include yelling "Help!" in the middle of the lake when my extra small wetsuit and this year's two additional pounds combined in a way that was literally breathtaking.  After the motor boat came to my rescue, and I had regained my breath, but not my cool, I transversed about a third of the race distance using a "noodle."  Thus I joined the ranks of what my partner referred to as the "noodle girls."  A humbling, and scary experience overall.

Subsequent race preparation made room for learning all I could about how wetsuits can restrict breathing and contribute to panic attacks in the open water swim portion of a triathlon.  This led to re-thinking my sausage casing of a wetsuit, and deciding to rent one a size larger.  I also crammed in a short session in the pool on Friday trying out the borrowed suit.  The result?  I could breathe on race day, and made it all the way across the lake , without stopping to rest, or switching from freestyle.    Spent my way out a dilemma, but it was soooo worth it.

Last week's most important accomplishment--hands down--was finishing the triathlon.  Once again, I surprised myself by doing better than I expected.  I took 4:44 off the swim; 1:03 off T1 (the time spent shedding the wetsuit; getting on shoes, socks, helmet, Camelbak, and sunglasses; and, unfortunately discovering I had forgotten to unlock my bike before the race); 1:06 off T2 (bike to run); and 2:22 off last year's run time.  I added 1:18 to my bike time, but race officials had added 1.5 miles to the course this year.  My pace was just shy of 2 mph faster.  My net gain put me at 2:00:35--36 seconds over my "dream" goal of breaking 2 hours, nearly 2-1/2 minutes under my stretch goal of 2:03:00, and 4-1/2 minutes under the 2:05:00 I thought I would do.

Needless to say, I am ecstatic!  In my second tri, I moved from the back of the back of the pack, to a position near the middle--and in the top third of my age group. 

For today, I'm resting on my . . . ahem, laurels.  

My goal for the week:  come down gently, and as little as possible, from Cloud 9-3/4.

Done for the Week: Nearing the Home Stretch

As soon as we can manage it, my husband and I plan to see the heralded movie Crazy, Stupid, Love.  Life here lately has been all three.

In the midst of it all, I'm still managing to get some things done--and not others.



Done for the Week:  Aug. 1-7, 2011

1. Completed Week 13 of 15-week triathlon training program; ran twice; swam three times; biked twice
2. Worked out several times with my training partner
3. Attended first rained-out Open Water Swim class
4. Began working on pre-race anxiety, mental training
5. Purchased new hydration system for biking
6. Revised race goals
7. Finished The Purple Culture, by Stephen Boehrer
8. Continued to work my two part-time jobs 
9. Provided technical assistance to nonprofit organization
10. Meditated once
11. Published 1 blog post 
12. Shared Happy Hour dinner with my husband
13. Continued reading Elizabeth George's In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner aloud with my husband
14. Met with new web client, finalized agreement; worked on project
15. Met with current web client; worked on project
16. Worked for recall candidate several times
17. Voted early with my husband, and accompanied son to vote early
18. Helped family member with minor medical crisis
19. Attended grandson's birthday party
20. Made continued progress in cleaning/straightening/decluttering living room & family room 
21. Worked with my husband on major push to clean/straighten/declutter kitchen
22. Shopped for (nearly unaffordable) groceries with my son
23. Did laundry

Last week's most important accomplishment, as the week before, was all the effort I put into getting ready for the triathlon.  And last week's focus goal was to give triathlon the attention and the energy it deserves, and to relish its gifts and take in its lessons.  Triathlon is beginning to take its rightful place at the top of my list of priorities most days, as it will need to for the remaining 13 days before the race.  And I am starting to feel excited, as well as nervous. 

I had hoped to beat last year's time by 8+ minutes, bringing my overall time under 2 hours.  Last week I learned that the bike course had been lengthened by 1.5 miles, which will most likely pretty much trump my new, faster bike.  My times in each event are slightly faster this year, from what I can gauge in training.  But probably not enough faster to get me in under 2 hours. 

 I hope to take 2-1/2 minutes off my swim time, 29 seconds off my first transition, 28 seconds off my second transition, almost 3 minutes off my run time, and to finish the biking course in 54 minutes (improving last year's pace by 1.5 mph).  That's the stretch goal, which would bring my overall time to 2:03.  I would be really happy with 2:05.  (Pretty slow for a sprint triathlon, but way faster than the people my age who are sitting on a couch on a Sunday morning in August!)

Oh, and not to be forgotten, the essential goal of having fun!

This week's focus goal will be to return to the regular practice of meditation as an aid in taming the nerves I am starting to feel.  It should also help keep me more balanced as our recall election, and this phase of the long crazy political journey we are on, conclude in the next two days.  

As to that, I'm keeping my fingers and toes, but not my eyes, crossed.  Time to take our state government back!

Vacating My Post--Finally!

No, not my blog post.  Although I will be doing that too, tomorrow, but not "for the rest of [my] life," (as Humphrey Bogart's Rick warned Ingrid Bergman's Ilsa).  Just until next Wednesday.

No, the post I'm referring to--in the sense of "job, employment" that Thesaurus.com tells me is synonymous with "appointment, assignment, berth, billet, office, place, position, [and] situation"--is that of full-time mother.  I have occupied this post, up-close and from afar, on- and off-line, for more than thirty years.  Most of us who attain this position, whether through careful calculation and arrangement or, as in my case, by backing into it--not once, but three times!--never stop being mothers.  But I have been reluctant to stop mothering, more so than your average (Mama) Bear.  

Some would (and have) call(ed) much of what I've done smothering, or brand me with the disdainful sobriquet "helicopter mom."  I would (and have) counter(ed) that I have placed a high priority on parenting, and that my last two, in particular, have been relatively "high needs children."  School years and adolescence have been bumpy--to say the least--for my two-years-apart male offspring, the tag ends of a not-so-blended family.  Their older mom was "sandwiched" between their own and a geographically distant elderly generation of family members requiring major support.  And these boys both came with their own charming but challenging traits and difficulties.  It has not been The Brady Bunch, by any stretch of the imagination.

At twenty and breathing-down-the-neck-of-eighteen, however, they are as ready as any their age that I can imagine to spend several days on their own--in each other's company, even!  They can cook and launder their own clothes, if not clean up religiously.  One can drive the other to work, or to the emergency room.  A sister who won't hang up on them lives nearby.  There is food in the house.  The dog will get them up every day.  The setting and their own amazing maturity will keep them as safe in my absence as I can when I'm here. 

My nest is not empty--yet.  But I am the one leaving it.  For my own good, and theirs, and their father's.  But not for good.

Beginning to put to bed a long and (mostly) lovely part of my life. . .

Procrastination, On the Receiving End

Debt's not the only thing that gets kicked down the road

Today has flown by, and I have only a few minutes of consciousness left to attend to this post.  What most needs to be "put to bed" tonight is me.

What's keeping me up?  The procrastination of others.  Which has come back on me.

A large annual project, which I have handled for my community organization for the last couple of years--last year on a totally volunteer basis--is way past its bed time.  

Several months ago, I informed people that I would not be available to shepherd this major undertaking this year.  I was assured that others could, and would take care of it.  They couldn't.  And they didn't.

Not only did the team of individuals not have the requisite skills to handle it, but they didn't even know what those skills were.

So they didn't ask what needed to be done, or figure out what needed to be done.  And when they finally called me, in desperation, to pull it all together, we were looking at the deadline in the rearview mirror.  

I spent the better part of this evening, after working much of the day, retrieving vital files from email trash, and attempting to reconstruct the data needed to complete the work.  I will probably pull this one out of the fire (enough metaphors in the mix?), but it won't be pretty.

For those of us who are prone to putting things off, it is probably a fortuitous corrective that we ourselves occasionally end up holding the procrastination bag.  And the procrastinators who put us in that position are, by rights, entitled to our compassion--along with the irritation we can't completely suppress.

2010--The Year in Rearview, Part II

At the risk of being trite, I am putting together this little list of things I accomplished in 2010. I hope it doesn't read like one of those dreaded holiday letters.  But frankly, I need the encouragement.  For me, 2010 was a year of change, a year in which I got off some dimes, just did it, and put some things to bed.  What follows is the B side to yesterday's lament.


Some Stuff I'm Happy I Did in 2010

• Maintained my new blog, meeting all but one deadline, and publishing 264 posts (as of tomorrow).
• Trained for and competed in two 5K races and my first sprint triathlon.
• Finally learned to breathe efficiently while swimming freestyle.
• Loved and supported my kids through some tough times.
• Did my first public poetry reading in many years.
• Revived some old friendships.
• Made significant progress on repairing my house and cars.
• Began a regular yoga practice.
• Faced down my blood pressure phobia for a time, before faltering temporarily.
• Resumed writing Morning Pages.
• Learned some new web skills; designed and maintained new website.
• Worked hard in effort to bring much-needed jobs to my community.
• Wrote 15-1/2 chapters of novel's first draft.
• Finished reading 100 books; still slogging through several; abandoned a few.
• Attended an online meditation retreat, maintained my own meditation practice, and kept my meditation group going.
• Provided significant support to struggling nonprofit, and began learning to say no.
• Survived a difficult year emotionally, holding my own with depression and anxiety.
• Spent lots of time playing with my grandson.
• Made it through most of the 14th year of my 2nd marriage, still friends.

And now, I have some more holiday celebrating to attend to, and my final 2010 post to dream up.  My countdown clock has already pronounced this year 100% complete!

Vacation Reruns, Part 5

This is the last post picked by my husband to rerun while I'm on vacation.  We return tomorrow.


His intro:

How could I not end with this beginning. You can do anything. 

THURSDAY, AUGUST 26, 2010

Now What?

Part of a group of 10 young Nepalese women who scaled Mt. Everest in 2008

Finishing the triathlon I first dreamed of entering 11 months ago brings me once again to the challenge of coming down from a personal Mt. Everest.  My intention is to handle this descent with more grace and aplomb than I have previously mustered on such occasions.

Earlier feats that have involved elements of fatigue, let-down, the need to rest without resting too long on one's laurels, a sudden shift in a rather stringent routine, and the question of  what new focus might arise, have included giving birth; completing a stint as a special ed para working one-on-one with a severely autistic child; finishing grueling semesters as a graduate student; turning in my master's thesis; passing doctoral prelims; coming to the end of semesters teaching college; helping care for my father through a long terminal illness; transporting my frail elderly parents back to their Louisiana home after Katrina brought them to live with me; and ending a number of demanding temporary jobs.  In each instance, I recall the inability to relax, to remember what I did for fun before being sucked into the vortex of this latest absorption.  


(Incidentally, my wetsuit model was Xterra's Vortex 3--an upgrade when the Volt I'd ordered was on back order.  And I experienced wearing this rubber deathgrip, especially at first, as though I'd been "sucked into" it.)


This time, in my latest venture, I tried to balance my effort throughout with yoga and meditation and mindful self-care, along with continued interest in other parts of my life.  It remains to be seen what the aftermath of the triathlon will bring.  But I suspect that, despite the unaccustomed high of the last few days--after a long difficult onslaught of challenging life events and circumstances, I am not used any longer to success, and to elation--I am going to have an easier time "coming down."  


For one thing, I don't intend to abandon the exercise that has become an important part of my life.  As the post-race soreness and tiredness recede, I am slowly resuming physical activity.  And I mean to adopt, and keep to, an "off-season" training routine that will maintain a base of the endurance and strength I worked so hard for.  


For another, I am enjoying a new calm, which I imagine is a product of having faced some pretty intense fears.  Other things that have intimidated me now seem more doable.  The lesson is fresh that "doing the thing I think I cannot do" brings amazing benefits.  And there are a lot more "things I think I cannot do" where that one came from.

For starters, there is the novel I started this summer, and put on the back burner in order to concentrate on the triathlon.  The feeling that "If I can do this, I can do anything" is waiting to be harnessed.  

Now What?

Part of a group of 10 young Nepalese women who scaled Mt. Everest in 2008

Finishing the triathlon I first dreamed of entering 11 months ago brings me once again to the challenge of coming down from a personal Mt. Everest.  My intention is to handle this descent with more grace and aplomb than I have previously mustered on such occasions.

Earlier feats that have involved elements of fatigue, let-down, the need to rest without resting too long on one's laurels, a sudden shift in a rather stringent routine, and the question of  what new focus might arise, have included giving birth; completing a stint as a special ed para working one-on-one with a severely autistic child; finishing grueling semesters as a graduate student; turning in my master's thesis; passing doctoral prelims; coming to the end of semesters teaching college; helping care for my father through a long terminal illness; transporting my frail elderly parents back to their Louisiana home after Katrina brought them to live with me; and ending a number of demanding temporary jobs.  In each instance, I recall the inability to relax, to remember what I did for fun before being sucked into the vortex of this latest absorption.  


(Incidentally, my wetsuit model was Xterra's Vortex 3--an upgrade when the Volt I'd ordered was on back order.  And I experienced wearing this rubber deathgrip, especially at first, as though I'd been "sucked into" it.)


This time, in my latest venture, I tried to balance my effort throughout with yoga and meditation and mindful self-care, along with continued interest in other parts of my life.  It remains to be seen what the aftermath of the triathlon will bring.  But I suspect that, despite the unaccustomed high of the last few days--after a long difficult onslaught of challenging life events and circumstances, I am not used any longer to success, and to elation--I am going to have an easier time "coming down."  


For one thing, I don't intend to abandon the exercise that has become an important part of my life.  As the post-race soreness and tiredness recede, I am slowly resuming physical activity.  And I mean to adopt, and keep to, an "off-season" training routine that will maintain a base of the endurance and strength I worked so hard for.  


For another, I am enjoying a new calm, which I imagine is a product of having faced some pretty intense fears.  Other things that have intimidated me now seem more doable.  The lesson is fresh that "doing the thing I think I cannot do" brings amazing benefits.  And there are a lot more "things I think I cannot do" where that one came from.

For starters, there is the novel I started this summer, and put on the back burner in order to concentrate on the triathlon.  The feeling that "If I can do this, I can do anything" is waiting to be harnessed.  

Done for the Week: My Heart's Desire

A big week.  One I have been building toward for the last few months.  The road has been long, and twisting, and--like the bike portion of the triathlon, had a pretty steep hill toward the end.  But I reached the goal I have been working to believe in since last fall.  The rest of the stuff on this list is pretty much gravy.


Done List--Week of Aug. 16-22

1. Finished Week 14 of revised 14-week Sprint Triathlon training plan--0 weeks to go!
2. Attended last Open Water Swim Clinic
3. Completed gear assembly and preparation
4. Finished Sprint Triathlon
5. Finished Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, by Pablo Neruda
6. Continued significant support to transitioning nonprofit organization
7. Attended fund-raiser for same
8. Worked my two part-time jobs
9. Published 5 blog posts
10. Meditated 4 times
11. Wrote 5 Gratitude Journal entries
12. Wrote 3 Morning Pages
13. Continued cleaning campaign
14. Attended 1 yoga class
15. Went out with my husband for Happy Hour; continued reading aloud Elizabeth George's In the Presence of the Enemy; saw Eat, Pray, Love together in my post-race stupor
16. Called my Mom
17. Paid some overdue health bills

So, did I mention I finished the triathlon?  You may recall that preparing for and completing the triathlon has been my focus goal for the last several weeks--thus highlighted in green above.  And because finishing the race is also my most important accomplishment of the last week, item #4 on the list above also appears in red, with apologies for the Christmasy colors in conjunction with the fireworks graphic, resulting in a bit of a holiday discord.

Before the triathlon, on Saturday, I wrote the following list of goals for the race:

Making it to the first swim platform

Enjoying some part of each segment

Finishing

Being good to myself

Positive self-talk

Noticing the beautiful day

Feeling good about and for all the participants

Giving myself credit for the effort

Managing my fear compassionately

My life doesn't usually go this way--at least not of late--but I graced with reaching all of them--and with exceeding them beyond my wildest dreams.  That is not to say that I set any land speed records.  In fact, I came in 1351st in a field of 1500, 17th of 25 in my age group.  But I had expected the 1/2 mile swim, 12 mile bike, and 3 mile run to take me around 2 hours and 45 minutes, including "transitions,"--the periods between the swim and the bike, and the bike and the run.  My "stretch" goal was to finish under 2-1/2 hours.  My actual time was 2:08!

The biggest surprise was the swim.  I had been dreading the open water swim ever since learning how many triathletes experience panic attacks during the swim.  I am a veteran of panic attacks, and try assiduously to avoid them, and, as I learned to say as a Catholic child, "the occasion of. . ." not sin, but panic attacks.  I had decided to rely on a swim angel, provided in this beginner-friendly race venue, specifically for women who are nervous about the open water.  So when my wave entered the water, I was paired with a woman who pledged to see me across the lake--along with another nervous swimmer.  Two nail-biters to each angel.

The woman who shared my angel got into trouble early on.  As she struggled, becoming more and more panicky, I treaded water, and even reversed course, to stay with her and our angel.  Part of the time, I was providing moral support to my fellow triathlete.  Finally, as the minutes ticked by and I made no progress across the lake, which was my only access to the rest of the race, I decided to swim on my own.  I learned later that the other woman was eventually transported out of the water by boat, and could not complete the race.  I was the lucky one.  I made it to the other side of the lake, even with the lost time, in less time than I had been able to swim the distance in a pool.  I stopped at none of the six platforms, though I did nearly swim into one.

I am sore and tired today, but crossing that finish line was everything I had imagined it to be when I first thought of trying to do it--one year ago, when watching my daughter complete her first triathlon.  There are few things in my life that have been as satisfying as doing that race.  And so I'll wear the numbers that were body-marked on my arms until they wear off, and the medal that all finishers receive until I'm ready to take it off.  

Next week's focus goal?  Figure out how to use the energy from this achievement.

Done for the Week: It's Called Sequencing

I am kind of dragging today.  I think I've been underestimating how much the triathlon training is taking out of me, and not making the necessary concessions to this final, fairly intense phase of preparation.  I've been pretty much just shoe-horning the increasingly lengthy training sessions into my already busy schedule, and have left very little time to stop, much less to smell any roses--if there are still any, given that I've taken no time to garden this summer.


Here's the list of things I got done last week.


Done List--Week of July 19-25

1.     Finished Week 10 of revised 14-week Sprint Triathlon training plan--4 weeks to go!
2.     Continued assembling tri gear
3.     Got bike fitted and tuned up, and had new seat installed
4.     Finished Love and Summer, by William Trevor; 
5.     Took my blood pressure daily
6.     Attended Transitional Jobs Collaborative meeting
7.     Spent two half-days training interim employee at nonprofit social justice organization
8.     Worked on website for Transitional Jobs Collaborative
9.     Continued my two part-time paying jobs
10.     Attended gathering of my husband's extended family
11.     Published 5 blog posts
12.     Meditated 5 times
13.     Wrote 7 Gratitude Journal entries
14.     Wrote 6 Morning Pages
15.     Continued cleaning campaign
16.     Continued mini yoga practice 
17.     Attended 3 yoga classes
18.     Continued writing novel
19.     Went out with my husband for Happy Hour; started reading aloud Elizabeth George's Deception on His Mind                                   
20. Decided to reschedule family trip to Ireland
21.     Called my Mom

Last week's focus goal was to continue writing, and making progress on my novel--once again, not something I found/made a lot of time for.  And given my energy level, and the demands of this last few weeks of triathlon training, I have decided to amend last week's plan to keep this is as my focus goal for the time being.  Instead, I will attempt to continue doing something each week to move this project forward, while recognizing that triathlon training is my de facto focus goal for this next four weeks.  In fact, it seems a bit disrespectful of this undertaking to imagine that I can achieve it without giving it much importance.  As the day of the race approaches, I am appreciating the magnitude of what I am trying to do, as a first-timer, and as someone who has not spent much time exercising in recent years.   

In red, fittingly, are last week's most important accomplishments--all triathlon-related.  

I intend to keep my eyes on the prize these next four weeks.  Not a trophy, or the medal all participants will "win," but the sense of accomplishment I have lusted after since watching my daughter cross the finish line at last year's race.  And the feeling of having reached down pretty deep within to find the courage/audacity and the perseverance and the faith to take this on.

Procrastinating 101: Negotiating Roadblocks

In this week's effort to learn about why and how we procrastinate, and how we can change our ways, I am again relying on Dr. Neil Fiore's book, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play.  And this seems like a good time to say that I am not attempting to provide a free digest of this work.  Those of my readers who follow the above link and purchase Fiore's book will be well rewarded by a much more systematic and detailed explication of his promising program.  In this group of Procrastination 101 posts, I am examining some of Fiore's major ideas, and considering their relevance to my own problems with procrastination.  I am not a poor woman's Dr. Neil Fiore!


Having said that, I am concerned today with his chapter on "Overcoming Blocks to Action."  Fiore begins the chapter with this insightful redo of the Serenity Prayer, a familiar 12-step program staple, which he entitles the "Stress Prayer:"

Grant me the stubbornness to struggle against things I cannot change; the inertia to avoid work on my own behaviors and attitudes which I can change; and the foolishness to ignore the differences between external events beyond my control and my own controllable reactions.  But most of all, grant me a contempt for my own human imperfection and the limits of human control. [p. 95]

Following this tip-off that Fiore has been eavesdropping on my supplications, he frames the discussion on overcoming blocks to action by identifying three major blocks and pairing each with a "Now Habit tool:"

• three-dimensional thinking and the reverse calendar, to combat the terror of being overwhelmed
• the work of worrying, to tackle the fear of failure and the fear of being imperfect
• persistent starting, to tackle fear of not finishing [p. 97]

Of these three combos, the first two speak especially loudly to me.  I know all too well the terror of being overwhelmed, as I have frequently had this excruciating experience and have observed its impact on productivity.  And the thought that all the worrying I do might be an asset--rather than a curse--is irresistibly appealing.  Having so long surrounded myself with unfinished work, the third strategy should lure me, too, but I may have compromised my natural resistance to this sorry state by habituation.


In speaking of the first tool, Fiore explains that two-dimensional thinking leads us to feel overwhelmed at the beginning of a project.

It's as if you have your nose up against a skyscraper with the expectation that you have to get to the top in one exhausting leap.  You've created a two-dimensional picture of your project--all work, all at once, with no time to catch your breath.  This picture collapses the steps involved so that your body responds with energy to work on all the parts--beginning, middle, and finish--simultaneously. [p. 97]

And not in a good way.


The reverse calendar, which is beginning to crop up as a planning tool in everyday usage, provides, in Fiore's view, an antidote to this anxiety-provoking perspective.  (For those not familiar with this tactic, a reverse calendar begins with the end-product deadline and works backward through a sequence of smaller tasks and their intermediate deadlines.)  While I have had some experience in attempting to use this tool, I confess that it has not proved helpful.


Fiore's examples of individual's reverse calendars give me a clue to my difficulty.  The lists are short.  In my case, the perfectionism that has led to procrastination has also plagued the process of creating a reverse calendar.  I put off constructing the things in the first place, feeling overwhelmed by my desire to do so perfectly; my resulting lists, when I have finally faced up to creating them, are imposingly detailed.  And each mini-deadline then becomes its own boogeyman.  The resulting schema more clearly illustrates the negative consequences of failing to meet each preliminary objective.  It is as if some hologram of the terror I feel about the project as a whole has thus attached itself to each task.   I may not soon turn again to this device, but if and when I do attempt to do so, I will try to curtail my elaboration of the schedule of tasks, and abbreviate my list.


As I think about it, another aspect of the reverse calendar which makes it hard for me to use is its inherent linearity.  I am much more likely to make progress on a project if I can work on a sub-task that fits my current mood, energy level and circumstances.  Can't figure out how to end Chapter 2?  No problem.  Jump into writing Chapter 5, or material that is part of the story and belongs in some as-yet undetermined place.  Don't feel like working on a report's introduction?  Skip to the conclusion.


Of course, some projects don't easily lend themselves to my leap-frog mode.  It would be foolish, for example, to buy food for an event before determining likely attendance.  Or to order flooring for a room whose dimensions have not been drawn.  Sometimes, first things have to come first.  And here the reverse calendar can be valuable, provided one doesn't use it to heighten anxiety.  At present, the runaway train of my reflexive perfectionism requires some curbing before I can derive real benefit from its use.


Now worrying, that is something I am very good at--though Fiore tells us, essentially, that there is worrying, and worrying productively.   It seems to me that he is distinguishing stewing from problem-solving.  And though I am fairly adept at problem-solving, I wish I could say that more of my ruminating graduated to that level.


According to Fiore, the work of worrying involves asking ourselves these six questions when fear of failure or the fear of being imperfect stop our progress:

1. What is the worst that could happen?
2. What would I do if the worst really happened?
3. How would I lessen the pain and get on with as much happiness as possible if the worst did occur?
4. What alternatives would I have?
5. What can I do now to lessen the probability of this dreaded event occurring?
6. Is there anything I can do now to increase my chances of achieving my goal? 

In putting worry to work for us, we domesticate failure and diminish our attachment to the goal of perfection.  The resulting increase in self-confidence allows us to get to work; paradoxically, to improve the performance we are so worried about; and to be prepared whatever the eventual outcome.

In presenting Tool #3, persistent starting, Fiore encourages us to anticipate the negative statements and attitudes that "creep into" our minds and prevent us from finishing the work we've started.  He gives the following examples, and advises that we "prepare challenges" to each, in order to limit their influence on our thought processes and on our productivity.

1. "I need to do more preparation before I can start." 
2. "At this rate I'll never finish."
3. "I should have started earlier."
4. "There's only more work after this."
5. "It's not working."
6. "I only need a little more time."

I have had more than my share of experience getting caught in these and other completion-hobbling mind-traps, and can attest to their power to stop us in our tracks if left unchecked.  


In concluding this section, Dr. Fiore admonishes us to "Keep on starting, and finishing will take care of itself."  Good advice, to my mind.