I am…

… a ponicorn princess.
… quitting TV as a habit
… a full-time student, full-time investigator and a full time positive thinker
… planning a hell lot of things.
… deeply proudly organized
… not crying anymore… and it feels good.
… in love and fascinated by love. I can’t believe I am this deep into you.
… being proven wrong about some things that I found to be unfair, but out of my control
… feeling quite happy with the way my life is evolving.
… living so much, I didn’t remember how good it felt
… Tomie Kourai Aminoacido

… here…

Ponicorn Love and Aminoacid Kisses

My Daily Moleskine

Please,ignore my spanish

As you may have read, I bought a bunch of Moleskine notebooks a few weeks ago. Among them I bought a pocket-size ruled notebook, I planned on using it to keep myself organized. I’m the kind of person who needs to have everything on paper, but (I have to admit it) I suck at keeping up with printed organizers and even PDA’s, I even have two Moleskine daily planners (I bought them for two different purposes, don’t give me that look!).

I’m just more of a free writer; some days, I barely have anything to do, some others, I need to write very long lists of pending tasks, for this, I need something I can use my own way, something I can personalize in case I need it.

I started checking various GTD systems, but I find them so rigid, I know I won’t keep up with them. And It wasn’t until I read Gala Darling’s guide to her very own Filofax, I came up with a different idea, that I KNEW would help me organize myself. This is how i did it:

When you open my Moleskine, the first thing you encounter is a manifesto, I wrote to remind myself to stay positive. of course, ‘Letting sequins into my life’ it’s there. On the first two pages, you can see a calendar I printed including just the months from July – December, remember, my planner covers only these months. From the next pages on, I separated my Moleskine into twelve sections (yes, twelve!):

1. Daily – A week in two pages.
2. 2011 – For any upcoming event or information that does not fit in my 2010 planner.
3. Projects – A few pages for project ideas, notes or lists.
4. Manifesting – I also believe in manifesting to make happen.
5. I love – Making ‘I love’ lists or statements has saved me from madness a lot of times.
6. Music – I constantly need places to write songs/bands I discover and I want to download or learn more about.
7. Movies – Also, movies I want to learn more about, watch, or just check facts on.
8. Ideas for articles – Here I write Ideas for new blog posts, or articles on El Espejismo.
9. Lists – I am a list-maker. I need lists all the time.
10. 88 days – Here i keep a list of my goals for the 88 days project.
11. Spending – A detailed section where I revise how much I spend every week and what on.
12. Extra – Notes, songs, scribbles, love letters, etc. Anything goes.

Most of the sections are pretty much self-explanatory, but also, some of them are a little more personal and I designed them to cover a specific need of mine.

• Projects – I don’t know if I’ve ever said this here before, but I tend to get ultra creative at night, when I feel super tired and desperate to go to bed, this is when I think ‘I should paint this, I should do that’ sometimes I do it (like right now, I decided to write this and here you have me), sometimes I feel too tired to start some real action. But when I decide to get my hands on it, it’s normally when my whole week gets messed up as I tend to stay up until I finish what I start (then again, like right now) leaving me too tired to be productive on the next day. Having a place to write all these ideas help me go to bed knowing I can get my hands on it on the next day without the risk of forgetting the super fantastic idea I just had.
• I love – It’s not the first time I write here about how focusing in what I love about my life has saved me from depression, madness and angst. I just write short sentences of love and gratitude, and then I write the date. Even going back to read them makes me feel positive.
• Ideas for articles – If you click on ‘Future posts’ on the column of the right, it will take you to a password protected page, here I keep a list of ideas for future articles and posts, but when I am not in my computer and I have a brilliant idea for an article, I normally have to write it on my cellphone as a reminder. Sometimes I get them and end up forgetting about them. Well, not anymore. Here I can collect all of those without having to run to my laptop in the risk of forgetting.
• Lists – One of my best friends once told me that writing a to-do list gave her an accomplishment feeling; I’ve been there, but in my case, things are a bit different. I am one of those unlucky beings that need to write everything in a sort of step-by-step list that helps me remember what needs to come next. As I’ve said  hundreds of times before ‘Asperger is to blame’. You can imagine my listing section takes over almost as many pages as my ‘Daily planner’ does.
• Extra – This little extra  is one of my favorite sections. I love to write, scribble and sketch, and normally on regular planners I don’t have as much space as I would like for this. This section, being one of the ones I use the most, starts from the last page on, going backwards, which combines it with my 88 days section, this way, I am not limited by the number of lists I can make, and my doodling creativity has no limits as well.

I colour coded all my events, that ways I can tell from the outside what’s coming. At the very end I keep some post-its and colour flags just in case I need them. Also, in the pocket, I have a small address book (Which I am still thinking about, since I rarely use address books), a couple of business cards just so I don’t have to dig through my purse looking for them, and the receipts I have to take care of.

So, how do you organize yourselves?

The 88 days project

Your power lies in knowing that you are always changing and being responsible for the quality of that change. If every 88 days or so your body completely regenerates then in 3 months time you can be a whole new you! Now that’s real power. So what are you going to do with all that power?

Pretend it doesn’t exist and keep behaving like a victim in all your old habits? Or take charge of the situation and Re-invent yourself?
Go on I dare you!

The body coach reinvented

A few days ago, my friend Dafne showed me the quote above and it got me thinking about how hard would it really be to change my life, to transform myself into someone different, someone who made me happier than I am right now.

I made a short list about the things I would like to improve or even completely change about my life, things from fears, insecurities, etc. And after revising it a bit, I thought ‘Why not changing them in 88 days?’ That’s how I’ve come with the idea of The 88 days project.

I decided I would work on it for each and every single day on the following 88 starting last monday, which means that by  Oct 14 I will have accomplished all my goals, So to make it even more official (Cause I know that if I keep it to myself I will probably end up procrastinating and eventually forgetting about it) I am keeping a registry of this on my daily planner,and I’m also writing a part of the ever-expanding list of…

Things to work on the next 88 days

1. Conquering my fear of the dark
2. Cutting the negative people out of my life
3. Improving my already awesome relationship
4. Setting AminoKou as a formal business
5. Writing more articles for El Espejismo
6. Paying more attention to my health
7. Working on my relationship with my mom
8. Saving!!!
9. Stopping my media dependance
10. Reclaiming my identity
11. Cutting my candy addiction from the root.

There’s more of course, some of the things I decided to work on are a bit more personal, but after all this whole process is just about redirecting your focus and re-entering your life with a new more positive attitude. It’s all about creating a new you.

How to do it?

As of Monday I started working on my intense fear of darkness. It may sound silly or childish to say so, or it may even remind you of that 90’s canadian-american TV show, but I’ve been terribly afraid of the dark for about 5 years. Yes,pretty irrational,but that’s precisely how phobias act: irrationally, messing with a part of your brain you don’t really get. I don’t really know how it started, cause I remember not being like this until recently. So I began exposing myself  to the thing I was most afraid of: Sleeping in the dark.

I normally sleep with my TV on, which I am aware is not the healthiest thing to do; not only you’re exposed to the radiation emitted by the TV during your sleep hours, but also, all this noise does not really allow you to rest properly, So, on monday night I decided I would turn my tv off, and instead of sleeping with my regular cartoon channel on, I left my laptop on playing When Harry met Sally until I fell asleep. Last night, instead of a movie I read a bit until I decided I was sleepy enough to go to bed without spending the well-known minutes worrying about the dark. It worked. I woke up at 3 am once and then again at 5 30 cause I was having a nightmare, but I consider this to be a huge success.

Even though waking up after my nightmare was terrifying and I even thought of slowing my pace. I did not turn the TV on, and I won’t do it tonight, instead, I am trying it again.

That’s what it’s all about, doing what it takes to help you reach your goal. For example, I want to cut my media dependance. How can I do this? Identifying where is my dependance coming from, and slowly walking away from it. In my case it’s all from TV and Internet,So I’m going to start slowly getting away from these two. I’m not cutting it completely, I’m just going to use them less and fill the extra time with healthier activities.

That’s All, just list what you want to change, identify how each point behaves and break it! You can even indulge yourself after you have accomplished one of your goals, I know that after I get to sleep quietly in full dark I will buy something to cheer me up! It doesn’t even have to be something expensive, even a cheap set of bangles will do.

I am aware that the most difficult part for me will be cutting off the negative people, but I have to try it, and I’ll set my most decadent prize for this one.

Are you joining me on this? If so, what are your plans for the next 88 days? I am so excited. I’ll keep you posted on my 88 days journey.