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Posts from the ‘En Suite’ Category

Jan 5

Designing a Concentration Cycle Project

Rain Barrel Notebook Page

By now, I hope you have a page in your notebook with lots of project ideas written on it. If your sheet is a little messy or unorganized, but you are satisfied with the quality and scope of your ideas, feel free to recopy it nicely, and do some simple categorizing. For example, if some ideas suit the “home” stewardship side of things and some reflect the “personal” stewardship side, now would be the time to redo the list, putting them in separate columns. If you like your page’s design, leave it the way it is! Read more

Jan 4

Concentration Cycles: A Statesman’s Example

Benjamin Franklin  also employed concentration cycles as part of his lifelong self-improvement program. According to his autobiography, he compiled his list of thirteen virtues when he was twenty, and his plan was to attend to each one in true cyclical fashion. He would concentrate on one quality for a week, then go on to the next. In this way, he would concentrate on each quality four times in any given year. Read more

Jan 3

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Cycles of Concentration: Brainstorming

Brainstorming, in any area, grants your mind an unfettered opportunity to frolic about in cloud bursts of ideas and lightning flashes of possibilities. Realize, some minds take to such outpourings better than others. A few—often those least used to being called upon for original, unscripted thinking—sit pensive, uncomfortable, and unproductive for so long, the inner being may almost convince itself that it inhabits a body with no mind of its own.

Rest assured, this is a categorical impossibility. Read more

Jan 2

Concentration Cycles: A President’s Example

“Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.”

—No. 110 from Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation

The Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior are ascribed to George Washington, but not because he originated the list, which was already over 130 years old when his tutor assigned it to him as a penmanship assignment. Presumably, during those intervening 130 years, he was not the only school boy set to copying it by his tutor; surely others had longhanded the little statements as well.

What he did do was keep the list handy, making it part of his real life, rather than treating it like a school assignment. He did not pack it away in a bundle of forgotten school papers or throw it out once he received his mark. He reviewed it regularly, and made it part of his continued improvement as an adult. Read more

Jan 1

Calendar Work

Are you sitting with a blank notebook and pen eager to start something in this new year? Are you holding the new calendar and wondering what to record? Are you intrigued with the idea of meeting with yourself weekly but haven’t a clue what to do once you get there?  Read more

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