Friday, May 30, 2008

Goal & Activity Log

The above image is a snippet of a spreadsheet I use to keep track of my progress on certain goals. The overall purpose is NOT to try and accomplish each goal every single day. Instead, it is an observation tool to see how much balance I'm creating in my life. Making a little bit of progress each day on a few goals is better than very sporadic or infrequent progress or no progress at all. Consciousness and awareness of one's actions is key. After a period of time the chart shows me if I have neglected any goals or if I have spent too much time on certain goals but not on others. A balanced life leads to fulfillment.

A summary explanation of the goals:
  • Exercise - about 10 minutes of bicycle and then some strength training and back exercises.
  • Journal - keeping my handwritten diary up to date.
  • Catholic Formation - this includes going to church, studying with a private tutor to become a Catholic, spiritual reading, learning, and prayer. There are some really great online study groups at CCEL.
  • Big Mind or Shadow - these are practices from Integral Life Practice. You could say that the Big Mind meditation helps you experience god-consciousness. Shadow work (i.e. the 3-2-1 Process) involves dealing with difficult people, emotions, memories, situations, etc.
  • ACIM Lesson - study of one of the daily workbook lessons from A Course in Miracles.
  • Write my book - progress towards writing my book on esoteric Christianity.
  • Compose music - progress on writing about 20 minutes of music for a small string ensemble.
  • Blog post - writing posts for my blog, like this one!
  • Morse Code - now that I've got my ham license, I want to learn the code before I get on the air. I'm still mastering the alphabet.
  • Special Projects - this relates to a list of various special chores around the house, such as organizing all my photographs into albums, cleaning out closets, redecorating, etc.
  • Volunteering - time spent helping my condo association; and eventually I would like to volunteer at a nearby hospital.
  • Friends & Family - hanging out with people.
  • Dining out - not necessarily something I want to do too much, as it can get very expensive very fast. By monitoring my activity I can help to avoid excessive spending.
  • Library, Park, Museum - free fun activities that get me out of the house. With 6 months off from a day job it could be easy for me to become a hermit at home. I have to watch that I make sure to get outdoors, enjoy the weather, and socialize.

2 comments:

Robert MacNaughton said...

Hey Susan,

I love this post outlining your tracking practice. We're doing a fair amount of work here at Integral Life preparing to offer practices like these once our new web-portal: IntegralLife.com launches this fall. I would love to get your help in working with these practices in the future.
Hope all is well!
Cheers,
Robert MacNaughton
Community Director
Integral Life, Inc

Susan said...

Hi Robert!

Thanks for your comments and for visiting my blog. I'm delighted to hear from an actual Integral Life employee and associate of Ken Wilber's! Wow! I can't say enough good things about the Integral Framework and all the great things available through the Integral web sites. It all just blows me away. The Integral approach is really such a positive step forward for humanity. I hope there will be more momentum to get it out into the mainstream consciousness.

Feel free to contact me anytime about Integral ideas or tracking one's ILP. I continue to use charts in my practice, and really find it to be extremely helpful. The trick is just keep monitoring one's self and one's behaviors in an observant, non-judgmental way. It becomes its own practice, a way of *being* rather than a list of chores, like a to-do list.

I'm currently writing a book on Integral Christianity, so I'm trying to steep myself as much as possible in the Integral Framework. I hope my book will get people excited and show them how they can apply the Approach in their own day-to-day life, within a Christian context.

Good luck with your work at Integral Life! I know the full site has just appeared recently. It looks fabulous! I look forward to exploring the voluminous content and interacting with others.

Thanks again,
Susan Martin
e-mail: mysticpoet@inbox.com