A new month
For me, the start of the month is a small form of personal regrowth and wiping the slate clean. “Wiping the slate clean”. Does anyone else immediately think of Mr Smith in The Matrix when reading those words? No? Then you probably haven’t watched that film as much as I have. Anyway, I am trying out a few things this month. The first of which is to use a more conversational tone when writing. Why should I write as if I’m detailing something serious, when I could be writing as if I’m talking? Writing is meant to be fun, and this isn’t the Financial Times, it’s just a blog post on a website and it’s just for fun. So if you like or dislike that, feel free to comment or send me a message. I love good feedback, it helps me grow. It also keeps me accountable to others, which is a form of motivation that has played a large part in my life so far! I might as well stick to something that works for me!
The second thing I’m trying to do is create a podcast. It’s been on my mind for years, ever since I first heard Stephen Fry’s Podgrams back in the day and listened to the BBC Radio 4’s downloadable shows, The Incomparable and others on 5by5 at the time. Having a conversation online about a topic that you enjoy sounds so simple, but I put it off for years, saying I needed co-hosts, the right technology, the right microphone, the right location, good soundproofing and something to say that people would actually want to listen to, with beautiful artwork, music and a nice landing page with good hosting and a good website. There are so many little things I want to get right before I begin to upload these podcasts that they might not get done this month, but each month I get closer and closer to that point, so that’s something to be positive about. At the end of the day each of them doesn’t need to be perfect. It’s a first go. Trying to remember that perfect can get in the way of good, is certainly something that has troubled me in the past.
Finally, along with reading the website and books and now listening to The Minimalists. I love their style of writing and hearing them on a podcast is even better. A lot of what they have said has resounded with me over the years and I have acted on it in fits and starts. At the moment, I am attempting to get rid of a lot of the stuff I have accumulated that I simply don’t need. I’m coupling that new wave of motivation provided by the start of a new month with the motivation I gain by being accountable to others. So I’m doing The Minimalists’ Game with Dan from danielpape.co.uk. You can follow others who are doing it on Twitter and Instagram by using #MinsGame. I’ll be cataloguing my journey here:
And he’ll be cataloguing his here:
For me it’s about creating as much motivation as possible to get rid of all of the things I’m not likely to get rid of without a reason. I have been able to leave so many things in boxes for years in the loft, or books on shelves when I know I won’t actually bother to access them and many other things besides. So now is the time to begin to get rid of them, whether to charity or someone else or recycling or the bin. So that’s what I’ll be writing here over the next month: the things I’m getting rid of to stay accountable and to show the silly things as they leave my possession!
