Welcome to 2006 and all the changes, slowness, and ideas it brings
January 18, 2006→ 1 Comment
Where did it all go? The holidays, the nice relaxing break (well it was supposed to be relaxing anyway), the warm balmy days spend lazing with family and friends. This week sees me back at work in my home office, husband Mac back at his day job, and the kids back into their normal routine. And it feels only like yesterday ……
This year will be a big one for me …. I know it "in my bones". There are changes afoot in where I will be focusing my time and the services that I will be providing clients. So much of the next couple of weeks will be about grabbing chunks of time to take the thoughts and transfer them into one of 2 things. I will either :
- Create a project file and start doing some more detailed work on it, or
- Transfer the rough thoughts in the "Good Ideas" journal so that I can come back to it at a later date (or not – but at least I have it there).
Stay tuned for further updates and breaking news (said holding hand over right ear and mimicking the radio news announcer). <g>
One of the much loved activities that the lazy summer days of the past couple of weeks have held for me was reading – and 2 books in particular will reasonate their way into the next 49 weeks.
Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig – it is an oldly, and to some people a classic, but it also falls into my favourite books of all time list (actually it factors very close to the top). I have read this book 8 or 9 times over the past 15 years and every time I get something else from it. Each reading seems like a conversation with an old friend but at the same time full of ideas that seem just right for now. Its subtitle, An Inquiry into Values, is timeless for me and a topic that fits very well with the start of a new year. If you haven’t read it then do so; if you have then it may be time to read it again.
In Praise of Slow by Carl Honore (website) – for some time now I have been an avid fan of the Slow Food Movement, so when I was slowly browsing through a bookstore on my birthday (a favourite pastime) and came across this title I HAD to pick it up. After being tied into the fast pace of living in a big city for over 40 years there was something about Slow that intrigues me. When I flicked through to a page in the book that stated
"Being Slow means that you control the rhythms of your own life. You decide how fast you have to go in any given context. If today I want to go fast, I go fast: if tomorrow I want to go slow, I go slow."
This statement was all I needed to march straight to the cash register, book in hand. I still have a couple of chapters to read – you see I am reading it at an easy pace (as opposed to my regular form of zipping through a book and devouring the information) – and I am looking forward to bringing some of the Slow philosophies out of the kitchen and into more of my life and my business.
So time now to take a break for a cuppa and then back to the task at hand – shifting the ideas from random thoughts into project pages. In the meantime I wish for you a year of health, happiness, peace and success.
