Focus Amidst The Whirlwind

Lists, a Fresh Perspective

Hello Gorgeous Folks,

This is a good week to sharpen our focus and centering skills.

Mercury entered its retrograde shadow period on July 16th and Mars enters Gemini on July 20th. Mercury turns retrograde on August 5th.

Gemini is ruled by Mercury, the planet of communication, intellect, and adaptability. With fiery action-orientated Mars entering Gemini the same week that Mercury enters its retrograde shadow period, focus can be a challenge.

When I think of Gemini energy, I often think of the bumblebee buzzing around going from flower to flower tasting the various nectars. Gemini’s approach encourages us to experiment with different ideas and philosophies. The challenge is that it can quickly lead us into overwhelm due to falling down too many rabbit holes.

What helps me climb out of the rabbit hole to stay focused, calm, and centered is creating lists.

Now, I admit, lists have been challenging for me. I used to be so obsessed with creating the perfect list or getting all the right things on the list that I forgot the whole purpose was to help me complete tasks and activities.

The trick was finding the balance with a list long enough to give me a sense of control over my day, but short enough to keep me motivated when I didn’t complete everything on it. There will always be days I cannot get it all done because of life. 

I also needed a way to stay on top of the things that didn’t need to be done that day or week but get done eventually that month.

My solution was to have different lists in different places.

I have a manual old-school paper calendar for broad strokes weekly planning where I list my 3 to 5 top priorities for the week. Then I have 1 or 2 main priorities I write down for each day.

But for certain projects, I use a Trello board, a free digital list tracking system. Trello is based on the Kanban planning method, adopted from the IT software implementation world. It’s a digital way of taking several long lists of items and breaking them up by phases or stages. 

So for example, if you are creating a video series on a particular topic, a Trello board is a good tool to use because you can list the topics for each video, then on the specific video list, you could break down all the different subjects for that one video or you could break down the production phases, such as writing, filming, editing, and distributing. 

Continue adding items to the appropriate phase or bucket as you complete tasks. The magic of a Trello board is that because it is digital you can drag and drop items as you work. You’re able to archive items and entire lists.  

Trello is a fantastic company. I am not sponsored by them. I just love them because their software has made my life so much easier. I think their creators should be nominated for a Nobel Prize.

Anyway, if you try Trello, or a similar approach, let me know how it goes.

Easefully yours,

Darice

www.trello.com