CNC: Calendar, Notes, Commitment

Notes

You actually start with a brainstorming phase, and that's when it's important to write down all the ideas: to get them out of your head, not to let them bother you anymore, to free your head for new ideas and to have a place to elaborate on ideas a little bit further. I use Google Keep, because it's really smart about syncing stuff across the devices, but any note-taking app will fit, as long as you have your phone nearby. Maybe you have a paperback notebook, then it will do too, but it should be effortless to find this note-taking device and to write things down, because some things tend not to come the second time.

I prefer to make hierarchical lists, because they allow me to move points up and down (whatever that means), make levels connect meaning, delete them all at once or mark them as completed. All the brainstorming rules apply: no critique, write down any idea that comes along, look at the ideas the next day and so on. That's how most of my blog posts start, by the way.

Calendar

Some things in the notes are action items, but to become such, sometimes they need the time and place, and that's where a calendar comes in handy. Any calendar will do, as long as it has these features:

The difference between the notes and the calendar is the decision to spend your time doing something, and it's called a commitment. So we'll talk about commitment a little bit.

Commitment

Relations come to my mind first when I hear the expression "a lack of commitment". And yes, one approach to evaluating the importance (of commitment, in this case) is to imagine exactly the same circumstances but without this one thing: what difference do you see? I'm not an expert in relations in any way, maybe some people just meet their ideal ones and get happy, but I've seen couples splitting while sharing the same values (which is important), with one of these values being... a lack of commitment. No one can explain what's happening; it's not some fight or hardships, people just fail to commit. Of course I speak about romantic relations, but I see the same stuff with friendships or partnerships, especially if it's some hobby. If you plan something, just ask someone to send an invitation to a calendar or offer to send it yourself. If people look at you like a psycho, there are a few options here:

I try to have all the important events in my calendar for some not-so-obvious reasons, other than not forgetting about them:

It's beyond the scope of this post to discuss how stressful life is and whether we are overcommitted in general (probably we are, on average), but every time I see a person having difficulties committing to something, exactly one question pops out in my mind: am I talking to an adult? I don't say being an adult is easy, but making commitments, breaking them and feeling the consequences, from my perspective, is what being an adult means. Like you are supposed to take this amount of frustration, which, by the way, as my therapist framed it, contributes to your personal growth. And I feel bad for people failing to commit, because they rob themselves of personal growth – kind of an easy way to live, I get it, but I don't buy it.

Conclusion

I assume challenging yourself is the most important condition for long-term survival, and I challenge myself and fail when nobody sees it. The most frequent case being: writing a few thoughts for a blog post and failing to write the post. There are two types of posts: concrete and abstract, just like this one. It's hard to get the relevant stories, it's hard to get the arguments pro and contra, it's kind of hard to figure out what I'm thinking about all this, so I fail again and again.

And I think about kids, who fail at school again and again, and that's the only way to learn. My daughter told me they have discussions at school and that the first time they fail, including jumping to other subjects and failing to lead a civilized discussion overall. And the topic doesn't matter, even if it seems there's little room for discussion there. We think that school is an exercise and adult life is about accomplishing everything successfully the first time, but it doesn't work this way. I think it's all an exercise, but when you fail, you get better.