Designing Your Life

For what has to be the dozenth time, I'm trying to read/listen to Designing Your Life. I can't help but wonder why its taken numerous listens to really get started. I'd really like to design myself into something that works for me. Honestly, taking that much responsibility seems pretty daunting. And due to a lot of recent events in my life, I'm easily daunted right now. Sometimes, the overwhelm of possibilities just seems like too much to face up against and I instead listen to a podcast and resolve to design my life in the future.

But I'm trying again. Why now? Certainly because 1) some things need to change 2) I have magicked away some old problems, so why not create new ones? Or maybe identify and fix new 'design' problems. (Thus far, the book has emphasized that design is about solving wicked problems.)

So Today's Writing is just an exercise from the book. I'm trying to figure out my Love-Play-Work-Health Dashboard status. The idea is that each of these is a category and you're at empty, full or somewhere in between.

Love:
Damn good, actually. After having a really unsatisfying relationship for about two years (and during Covid, yay!), I'm in an incredibly fulfilling relationship. I could do a little better about connection with friends and community. I feel a little more out of touch with my family than I have in the past. I did just get to see Wiemer, which is awesome!
So, love 80%

Play: Almost none. Well, this. Writing is play for me. Especially this forum where I'm just out here, writing for writings' sake. Cooking too. I love cooking just for funzies. The beauty of cooking as play is that I can knock out health and play in one go. I did just get a cookbook from the library that has skillet meals, so I could try some of those out. I'm not sure if the answer is to add more activities in play, or to just play more.
So, play 50%

Work: Boo. I don't like my work. Headspace is pretty uninteresting these days; I liked our mission before but now it just doesn't feel... important enough? Big enough? It isn't compelling enough to want to keep slogging through. Work holds a number of design problems that I'll probably eventually get to solving. For now, I'm just trying to do the assessment. Well, then there's the skydiving portion of work. I love skydiving but in some ways it feels like my work. But not so much lately. I could bump that into play for a while.
So, work 10%. Oof. Bad.

Health: Okay. Right smack-dab in the middle. My vegetarianism has fallen off the wagon. My water drinking has fallen off the wagon. But I'm still drinking less and I'm not eating complete shit, so that's good. I'm drinking a fuck ton of coffee these days and I'm not exercising. When I say all this, my health sounds worse than I realized. Also, I'm not meditating.
So, health 25%. My health isn't broken, but I'm coasting.

Questions from the Worksheet:
What do I observe and am I being fair? Work and Health are def the low boys. They could use some serious upgrades. Work makes it really easy for my health to just spiral downwards. My work actually really kind of casts a gray haze over everything. Am I being fair? Yeah, I think so. I mean, life is solidly okay. I'm still recovering from the whiplash of a breakup and a nasty issue with a landlord. I'm still a little bummed from Nationals too. But I think there are some upswings coming. For today, this feels fair.

If I could make one incremental adjustment, I think I'd have to choose to make it in health. I get such a mood boost from just feeling as if I'm being healthy. Drinking water, running, doing yoga, meditating, eating healthy? All of those things boost my mood, if only because I think smugly "Good job you, look at you adulting!". So I would make some changes to health. And I believe that change would be enough for me to tolerate the mess that is my job these days.

Potential incremental changes for me:

• Less caffeine
• More water
• Stretch Daily
• Get back to working out a couple times a week
• Eat healthier (a salad a day?)

Okay. I think the value of a morning routine might be the thing to start with. I really liked smugly drinking my morning glass of water and I've stopped doing that. It would take very, very little to do that every day. I think I could aim extra high and go for a couple sun salutes after I get out of bed. I'll try these things for two weeks and report back.

Based on this worksheet:
https://designingyour.life/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/DYL-Love-Play-Work-Health-Dashboard-Worksheet-v21.pdf