Every morning I get up and get on the exercise bike and ride for about 20 minutes. While I ride, I start to wake up… and as I wake up, I think about the day ahead of me.
As I think about my day ahead of me, I make notes on a clipboard I always have with me on the bike. I save all the one-sided scrap paper that results from work I do — old taxes that needed to be re-run through the tax software and reprinted for filing… old projects that I started, along the way, then abandoned, once I realized there was way too much work for just one person to do, and I wasn’t up to finding more people to help me get the work done… old drafts of essays and articles and stories I wrote that never went anywhere, because I realized that I was writing them for myself, not really for anyone else…
My clipboard, needless to say, has a never-ending supply of scrap paper to fill it.
As I pedal on the bike, I think about my day and write down the things that matter most to me. It’s so important for me to do this — it involves me in my day — in my life — as soon as I’m up. And it gets me involved during the exercise that brings me to full living, breathing life. As I am becoming physically involved in my day (through the exercise), I am becoming mentally, emotionally, even spiritually involved in my day, as well. And it is good.
One of the nice things about using a clipboard filled with scrap paper for planning, is that I don’t have to worry about making a mistake or messing up. My handwriting has become progressively worse over the years (it seemed to take a nosedive, after each of my accidents), and trying to read my scrawl can be a real challenge. Especially when it’s written during pedaling as fast as I can 😉 Seeing my cryptic scrawl on a sheet of paper in front of me can be a bit daunting. And when I try to write on a sheet of good notebook paper — or worse, a nicely bound journal — it’s very discouraging to see how bad my handwriting is, compared to how it used to be.
And I don’t want to write anything down. It just reminds me of my impairments.
My clipboard, on the other hand, is my “sandbox” where I can scrawl and mess up and write scraggly notes about this and that, and not worry about messing up something that’s nice. Growing up, I was always messing up nice things. My family didn’t have a lot of money, so we had to take care of what we had. That didn’t leave a lot of room for just messing around with writing and drawing and experimenting. Experimenting takes a certain amount of money, it takes a certain amount of existential largesse, a kind of reckless abandon, a ton of tolerance for “waste” … and that’s something my family just never had. So, I got in the habit, early on, of being careful. Of taking baby steps. Of not asking too much and not demanding too much and not taking too many risks.
That childhood experience colored the rest of my life, and when I climb on my bike, first thing in the morning, clipboard in hand, it follows me. It compels me to use scrap paper to scribble my ideas on. It warns me not to make too much of a mess of my paper. It hovers over me, intruding on my mind and spirit.
Pain in my ass.
Anyway, I’ve found a way around that by using all the scrap paper I can find to write down my notes. And then, later on when I am really planning out my day, I transfer my scribbled notes into my computer, in a daily planner that is much more structured and much more neat. Typing up my notes gets me thinking about them in a different way, and it lets me organize my thoughts, so I can get on with the day without needing to hassle over the fine details of when I’m going to do things. Just figuring out how I’m going to do them, is enough of a challenge, thank you very much.
It’s really, really important to me, to be able to “mess around” first thing in the morning. It frees me up to think creatively, out of the box, on my own terms and at my own pace. It frees me up to experiment with ideas and make “mistakes” as much as I like. It gives me a ton of leeway and takes the pressure off. While I’m exercising, pedaling away, I can let my mind roam — let the proverbial wild little dog in the back of my head off the leash and let it run around the park to get its exercise before it straps on the pack to work the rest of the day. Plus, it gives me really fertile ground to dream from. Structure is very freeing for me… but so is a little lack thereof.
It’s all good.
Broken Brain - Brilliant Mind 