Post No. 501 - Being organised

When I was a kid, I catalogued my books the way my primary school library did, and then tried to charge my friends 20 cents to borrow them - mercenary intentions, I know (I wanted money to buy more books), but I was too soft a touch and don't think I got any money from anyone :) What was more to the point, though, in the context of this post, is that it was the beginning of my attempts at being organised.

I've run several cataloguing systems with my books, and the old card index system I had was probably, in many ways, the best, but I do have to admit the advent of affordable personal computers (not the ones that initially came out, costing around $5k a pop) has made life easier - mainly because of the search function. All I have had to do is get to grips with what search functions won't do, and develop a minimalist system to cater for that.

This also applies to my day job, where it is often more important to know where to get information, than to try to become a walking, sitting and coffee guzzling encyclopaedia of knowledge ... and just managing (up to a score or so, for me) work assignments can be an issue in itself, and I've tried whiteboards on my desk, formal calendar systems, etc, before finding that entries into the spreadsheet I use to record my hours so I can enter my timesheet each week probably the most effective.

In terms of my spiritual life, remembering things like Sabbats and Esbats is easy enough, but finding the time and energy to actually do something about them is more of an issue ...

As far as this post goes, what I wanted to cover was how I keep myself organised in terms of lighting a fortnightly cycle of candles (on the nshrine site). As for that, I basically have a Word document where I have headings for each day in the fortnightly cycle (e.g. first Monday, Second Wednesday, etc), and then under each day heading I create sub-headings for the purpose or destination of candles, and then under each of those I write the text I wish to use and a hyperlink to the shrines I wish to paste that into.

So, for example, the index looks like this:

and a particular entry may look like this (without the actual words, which range from personal and/or sensitive through confidential to sacred):

I used to have entries for each goal, but that wound up having far too many candles to be lit, so I collated them under the candles I would light for each rune, for instance, which helped enormously, and them more recently added the hyperlinks which made another major improvement in reducing the time required to do this.

This is all fairly trite, but it is worth thinking about how to organise one's practice to be efficient and effective, I suggest.


[1] BPLF = Balanced Positive (spiritual) Light Forces. See here and here for more on this.

[2] Please see here and my post "The Death of Wikipedia" for the reasons I now recommend caution when using Wikipedia. I'm also exploring use of h2g2, although that doesn't appear to be as extensive (h2g2 is intended - rather engagingly - to be the Earth edition of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"). 

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr 
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear"; ... aka Bellatrix Lux? Morinehtar? Would-be drýicgan ... )

My "blogiography" (list of all posts - currently not up to date) is here.  

I started this blog to cover karmic regression-rescue (see here and here), and it grew ...  See here for my group mind project, here and here for my "pagans for peace" project (and join me at 9 PM on Sunday, wherever you are, to meditate for peace), and here for my bindrune kit-bag.

• One size does NOT fit all. 
• Gnwmythr's Stropping Strap: Occam's Razor only works if  the simplest solution is actually recognised as being the simplest, rather than the one that best fits one's bigotries being labelled 'simplest'.
• May the world of commerce and business be recognised to be a servant, not a master, of the lives of people.
• Ban the dream interpretation industry! 
• A home is for living in, not feeling, becoming or being rich or a “better” class than others.
• Housework is for ensuring a home is comfortable to live in, not competing to outdo or belittle others.
• Like fire to the physical, emotions to the soul make a good servant, and a bad master. 
• Expertise at intimacy and emotional happiness is generally not the same thing as spiritual growth.
• "Following the crowd" is not "going with the flow".
• Armageddon is alive and well and happening right now: it is a battle between the indolence of "I only ..." and/or "I just ..." and/or "Everyone knows ... " and/or "they can ..." and what Bruce Schneier [2] calls "security theatre" on one side, and perspicacity and the understanding that the means shape the end on the other. Indolence vs. perspicacity, and expediency vs. honour.
• The means shape the end.  
• As words can kill, the right to freedom of speech comes with a DUTY to be as well-informed, objective and balanced as you can be.
• My favourite action movie of all time is "Gandhi", although I've recently come across "Invictus" and might put that one in to that category. However, I loathe the stereotypical action movie - and, for similar reasons, I loathe many dramas, which are often emotionally violent, more so in some cases than many war films. 
• All of the above - and this blog - could be wrong, or subject to context, perspective, or state of spiritual evolution ... 

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger [people]. JOHN F. KENNEDY (who was quoting 19th century Episcopal Bishop Phillips Brooks)

Jesus loves you.  Odin wants you to grow up. (Facebook meme, according to John Beckett)

Females, get over 'cute'. Get competent. Get trained. Get capable. Get over 'cute'. And those of you who are called Patty and Debby and Suzy, get over that. Because we use those names to infantalise females – we keep females in their 'little girl' state by the names we use for them. Get over it. If you want to be taken seriously, get serious. JANE ELLIOTT 

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing. (based on writing by) EDMUND BURKE

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." EINSTEIN

We didn't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we only borrowed it from our children ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY

Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

Those whom we cannot stand are usually those who we cannot understand P.K.SHAW

Few men are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, and the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world which yields most painfully to change." SENATOR ROBERT F. KENNEDY (US Attorney General 1966 Speech) 

Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product ... if we should judge America by that -- counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. ... Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile." ROBERT F. KENNEDY 1968

Tags: about me, professionalism,

First published: Sunnudagr, 29th December, 2013

Last edited: Sunday, 29th December, 2013