Deliverable

I need to institute some new habits this week so I thought I’d spend some time looking back on this process and see how it’s worked so far. I started my “Deliverable” journal on April 10th, which means I’m coming up on two months that I’ve been doing this. What’s worked? The habit that I was starting most from ground zero was the physical exercise. (I’d not really been exercising regularly when I made it a weekly deliverable on April 10th).

I made the following goal for the week ending 4/17/05:

• I did one set of 25 reps & 1 set of 15 reps of pushups on Monday, Wednesday & Friday.
• I did a pilates workout with my video or DVD on Tuesday & Thursday.

I’ve basically increased the number of reps on the push-ups each week until it became essentially a regular 20 minute upper body workout. The ab work on Tuesday and Thursday essentially takes 10 minutes to complete, but yields large dividends. (The toughest part is the starting…). I think that the key to my success so far with maintaining this is that I made it:

• Easy to start – No equipment needed, no place to go, just hit the floor and do the pushups
• Easy to complete – 2 sets of pushups goes really quickly, so “I don’t have time” really isn’t an issue
• Easy to maintain – I increased the number of push-up repetitions on a weekly basis, (rather than each workout) and upped the number of reps very gradually (After a week of 25/15, I’d add a set of 10). This gave me a schedule that I could consistently count on, and made the next week very similar timewise to the previous week.
• I found a nice balance – The twenty minutes, 3 days a week seems to be giving me the results I want while remaining doable even if my schedule gets crazy.
• I found a nice mixture of days on / days off – The routine varies enough so that burnout isn’t as much an issue. (Though I do need to constantly find new ways to vary the types of exercises I do for various body areas.)

So, the question becomes how do I transfer this these other things that I want to make a weekly habit?

• Voice & Speech training (especially the speech training)
• Music training (maintaining and improving my skills on Trombone / Guitar / Bass / Singing / Piano)
• Monologue training (I’m planning on taking a monologue class in July and will need to have some type of consistent practice in place by then).
• Songwriting – Ideally I’d like to find a way to make all of my creativity “habits” as opposed to something that I do sporadically.

Having said all that above, I think the thing that might have been missing in my past attempts at this is the whole “mixture of days on/days off”. I believe firmly that you must first make a thing a habit before you worry as much about the time spent. (The goal in the beginning of the habit is consistency… find the amount of time that you’ll be able to do the thing no matter what.) That part I get… but in the past I’ve always thought I had to do a thing every day. If I was to practice trombone, it had to be every day for “X” amount of time, or five days a week. Perhaps I need to find a way to incorporate the “Day on/Day off” approach into my thinking about practicing. 3 days a week playing the trombone consistently for 6 months is better than one month playing every day followed by 5 months of not touching the horn. I think the key here is to avoid absolutes. If I make “play trombone on Monday/Wednesday/Friday” my goal, that does not mean I can’t play the horn on the other days. It’s just giving me the freedom to not play without guilt. I can look back on the week and say “I’ve accomplished my goals for the week”. It’s alot easier to build on that success that it is to get into the spiral of self hatred and loathing that comes from setting insane goals and then not achieving them. Going back to the physical analogy: It is not unreasonable to set a goal of being a world champion body builder. It is unreasonable to expect to achieve this goal in 3 weeks of intense workouts. Maybe the best way to put it is to say that the Universe responds to consistency. Maybe it’s the consistency that says to the Universe “I’m serious about this… this is what I really want”.

When I put my goals down for this week I’ll keep all this in mind…

Here’s how the week shaped up:

Physical
I feel I’m maintaining my current physique, but I’ve hit a bit of a wall with my upper body work. I’m continuing to put in the 20 minutes, 3 times a week…. but I find that on Friday my workout is not really focused. I have to find more options that will help me obtain my physical goals in a healthy way. Also this week I did my pilates on Tuesday and Friday.

• Pilates video on Tuesday & Thursday complete
• Upper Body Workout – 20 minutes (varied exercises alternate dumbells with pushups… see how my shoulders feel…). complete

Acting (Film/Stage/Voice-over) & Filmmaking – Creative

• Review and rehearse Ernest lines until they are second nature complete / Though the scene didn’t go as well as I would have liked and I was pretty down about it after class, I think I’ve come to terms with the end of the class (this was my last scene). Bottom line this is only the beginning. There will be other scenes, and I will take what I learned here and use it for my next scenes.

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• Record the lines to R. Purkapile onto the computer
• Outline the first word of each line of R. Purkapile as a guide for memorization
• Paraphrase R. Purkapile
• Examine R. Purkapile line by line for actions. Write them in.
• Review and rehearse R. Purkapile lines until they are second nature. Prepare for performance in class on Friday.

I decided to not do the R. Purkapile. It wouldn’t have been the right way to end class… basically ending it on a monologue that I hadn’t prepared adequately. I need to examine I think why I didn’t want to do this… I think I let fear get to me on this one.

Acting – Business

• Update my acting resume complete
• Change the placement of my backup headshots so that they’re more accesible when I need them complete

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• Create an “Acting Pack” to keep in my bag at all times that contains: Up-to-date Resume, 5 of each Headshot, (what else? Performances I want to see? Acting contacts?)
• Create a resume & headshot file in my filing cabinet that has 20 of each headshot ready to go, (complete) and 40 resumes printed on decent paper
• Purchase a decent folder at Staples to serve as my “Acting Pack”
• Purchase some “fancy” paper for printing my resume at home
• Carry this “Acting Pack” with me every day this week.

— I visited Staples and checked out a couple of alternatives. I think I found one that may work, which I’ll probably pick up this Tuesday. Will also pick up the resume paper then as well.—

• Visit Backstage.com at least once this week. Check the listings. Save all potential’s as .pdf. complete / This I’ll roll into a weekly habit…
• Visit the U. Office w/updated resume (remanded) I keep putting this off and putting this off. I’ll feel the hurt in a month or so if I don’t do this… I’m not sure why I’m so hesitant.

Organize

• Eliminate “Sort/File/or Discard” folder on desktop (7.2 MB) complete
• Assess the contents of my existing A-Z filing system on my main HD. (Are these things filed in a way that I will be able to maintain and remember?) Discard any files that are no longer valid. Refile as needed. / This will be something I do on a regular basis. Didn’t directly do much of it this week. Falls into the category of “Important but not urgent at the moment”

Habits
The evening/morning routines have been very helpful. I kept to them Monday-Thursday, and even ended up doing them Friday night as well. I’d forgotten that I’d included the “Sleep in my bed Monday-Sunday”. Kept to this except for Saturday night.

Clutter:

Probably from Middle English cloteren, to clot, from clot, lump, from Old English clott.

It’s interesting to see this as the words origin, because it’s amazing how much clutter can clog your creative arteries…

Tools:

• Small ziplock freezer bags
• Sauces/Marinades of your chooing
• Sharpie magic marker

Tip:
When you come home from the grocery store marinade your beef and chicken right away. Don’t just place the packages in the refridgerator thinking you’ll do it later! You’ve only got 3 to 5 days that those suckers will keep in the fridge and chances are you’re going to forget them. Then you have spoiled meat. Nasty. Marinading right away allows the meat to better absorb the flavor, and it gives you little baggies of meat to throw in the pan and cook when you don’t have alot of prep time.

Steps:

• Place your chicken/beef out on the counter. The packages of chicken/beef usually come in servings of a little under a pound. I usually get two meals out of one package of chicken.
• Take out two ziplock bags for each pound of meat.
• Chop the meet into small chunks.
• Place divide your meat evenly into the ziplock bags
• Pour your marinade of choice into each bag. Make sure the sauce is evenly distributed in the bag.
• Squeeze any sauce down the sides so that it’s all coating the meat and not just coating the bag. (Do this as much as possible. This keeps the sauce all frozen in one chunk, and keeps the sauce on your food, not on the inside of your bag where it will get thrown away.)
• Fold the top of the bag over, pressing out as much air as possible as you go.
• Seal the bag
• Using your Sharpie, write the type of sauce and type of meat on the side of the bag
• Place in refridgerator overnight
• Place in freezer the following day
• Remove, cook and enjoy as needed!

Well, it’s the first day of June and I just finished paying my monthly bills. 43 folders works like a charm for this. When I receive my bills in the mail, I put them in next months folder. When the first of the month rolls around, I pay my bills. Efficient & easy. Definitely helps me feel better to do it like this.