How I plan to live a productive, stress-free life

What hasn’t worked so far, is to wait for inspiration and then take inspired action. I need clear goals and a schedule for the day. And since I have a full-time job, I need to work quite a lot if I want to get closer to my goals. This is actually, now that I think about it, quite a large issue. Namely the issue of finding a way to work systematically and disciplined, without losing the joy of working and turning it into something that I do out of a sense of duty, rather than a sense of joy.

What I don’t need though, is stress. Things must be allowed to take their time. Instead I need to observe myself while I’m working. I need to look for where my efficiency drops and in general what I can do better. In other words, as with so many things, present moment awareness and self-observation is much more valuable than perseverance and a high tempo. 

I’ve noticed that I need a day off from have-tos. One day where I don’t have to do anything productive at all. I can do some fiction writing at this day if I choose to. But no studies or even blogging. This seems to be true for many people. So maybe this is another one of those things where the Bible proves to be right. There is a problem with this though. Since I work my regular job five days per week, I only have Saturday and Sunday for my projects. Because when I get home from work I’m too tired for most things. I can however do some courses and work on projects that don’t require too much mental effort. So if I’m mindful of my limitations and adjust accordingly, I will probably be okay. And as said, as long as I take a relaxed approach to my Saturdays, I will probably be okay.

However, re-reading this post I realize that I've already cheated with my Saturdays and worked hard on stuff that I said I wouldn't. So, it's not always easy to stick with one's decisions. But I'll have to treat this as a work in progress. I can't say that I've really cracked the stress-code. And honestly, if I want to live a truly stress-free life, I probably need to learn a bit more about things such as finances, budgeting and how to run a successful business. Things that are essential if you want to thrive in life, but that we, for some reason don't learn in school. Probably because we have to learn so many other things that are guaranteed to be useful throughout our lives... LOL!

And how do I balance this so that I don’t slack off instead? Because I at least, live under the constant threat of ending up on the sofa, watching movies and doing nothing.

Learning to recognize the ego both in the active and the relaxing part of me, is the first thing that comes to mind. Learning that the ego can both tell me to just keep on pushing when I need to rest, and it can also tell me that what I know that I should do today can wait till tomorrow.