Tanei the Science Guy had a great thread the other day about how to align with the natural cycle of a year.
Go check it out here.
In it, he shows how our bodies and minds are meant to do certain types of work in each season.
First, we plan in the winter. It is the season for thinking, planning, considering the past year and preparing for the next one.
Second, we plant our seeds in spring. We take the first steps towards our goals. Without these first steps there will be no harvest.
Third, we sacrifice in summer. Summer is the season for work, for long days, for short nights, for exhaustion. This is when we nurture the seeds we’ve planted and pull out the weeds that arise.
Fourth, we harvest in winter. This is when we do the work to finish our plans. And as we do, we also get to enjoy the fruits of our labors.
I love this model for seeing each year, and feel that it is true at other time scales as well.
It seems self evident that this model applies to time at the scale of a life.
It is also true at the scale of day.
As we fall asleep we enter the winter of a day. The cold of night sets in and we do the mindwork of dreaming (where we integrate our short term memories of the day into our long term memory) and planning for the new day.
After that mindwork, our day begins with planted seeds. We do the basics that get our day started right, maybe it’s the time for exercise, for ticking off the easy tasks.
As the day progresses, it’s time to sacrifice. We hit our stride, get into a state of flow, and pound out the work, whether it’s mental or physical.
And the, as the day finishes up, we harvest. Enjoy a good dinner, spend some quality time with the family or out on the town, still enjoying the high that comes from the serious work we’ve achieved.
And then, it begins again.