You know you are going to leap into the unknown but you don’t believe it yet.

This is the thought that swirled around my head in the fall and winter of 2022.

For a decade and some change, I blazed a path in tech as a software engineer.

If you know me, you know I am a woman and women in tech are rare, especially in the engineering pools… the statistic is worse now than it was in the 1980s, hovering at about 17 percent for the ratio of females to males in coding jobs today, verses 20 percent way back in the days of wild hair and parachute pants.

Being an odd bird has never bothered me much.

You really need to get okay with not caring what people who you don’t care about think about you.

Trust me, that is a huge life skill — Stop caring about stupid and trivial things.

You have limited resources, especially time; don’t waste it on dumb stuff.

You weren’t put on this planet for gossip, pointless speculation, or arm-chair philosophizing.

If you were here for that, you might as well have landed on this planet as a paperweight; at least that is useful.

Now that we have what we are NOT here to do out of the way, let’s discuss what you might want to do with the remainder of your 4 thousand weeks, however many you may have left before you hang your hat on the exit door of life.

A Checklist List For Prioritizing Small Tasks

For small tasks and distractions, time-bucket items to a time of your day when you have already completed your creative and focused work, and bang those puppies out.

Your mind will be clearer and more ready to enter the flow-state when you return to your actually important work.

Don’t allow any list of tedious and small tasks to grow longer than 5-7 items.

If your list is already way longer than that, below is a checklist to help you curate your to-do list.

It doesn't make the cut if the item in question doesn’t check at least half of the following boxes.

Anything that doesn’t meet this standard is unimportant, and you are distracting yourself with tedium, probably because you are afraid to do your real work.

Remember, at least half of these should be yes, or it doesn’t make the cut.

• Will completing this task bring clarity?

• Will completing this task contribute to my goals or make more time to pursue my goals?

• Is this a task I assigned myself, or was my failure to say no why I ended up responsible for this?

• Does this task take care of anything related to personal or business upkeep and, therefore, must be completed promptly?

• Can I complete this task in less than 30 minutes?

• Can I complete this task in less than 5 minutes?

• Is there a deadline associated with this task?

• If I do not complete this task, does it matter to me or any of my loved ones?

• Am I leaving money on the table by failing to complete this task?

• Will I sleep better and have less anxiety simply by completing this task?

The rest does not matter, stop filling your days with empty tedium, it is worse than sugar for your brain and even worse for your future.

Future you will thank present you for caring enough to be diligent with your time.

You will also earn self-respect as you develop the skill of slicing and culling your to-do list like a brave and swarthy time pirate — argh matey, thank me later.

A Checklist For Clearing Your Mind

Now that you have curated the mundane but necessary from the simply mundane, you are ready to clear the clutter from your mind.

Mindset is so important that entire industries, plural, have sprung up around the space.

Of course, what is more enigmatic and empowering than gaining control of your mind?

Most people do not check their minds, ever.

You don’t want to be most people, that is why you are here.

Here is a checklist for your brain; this one gets easier with practice, and you will make your own version once you get used to the exercise, as I have outlined.

For now, you can use mine. Use this list when you want to assess how much mental load to put behind a thought, concern, or anything that will take energy from your beautiful mind.

Spend that precious currency wisely, my friend.

As soon as you answer “no”, omit the thought from your noggin and move on to the next thought currently consuming available disk space in your brain.

Or move on; you have actual, important thinking to do, like about your vision, goals, and dreams, remember?

Ask yourself the following when pondering anything that you cannot shake from your mind. Shake it loose and deal with it or dump it—

• Is this thought my own, or is it someone else’s view, opinion, worry, etc?

• Can I do anything at this moment to solve this?

• Does this thought contribute toward or diminish my goals?

• Is this thought likely to lead to action that will add to or diminish my finances?

• Does this thought offer any constructive utility? Is it useful? Does it matter?

• Does this stem from my rational mind, or is this fear talking?

• Is this thought the truth?

• Is there anything I can learn from thinking this, or can I teach someone something because of it?

• Does my body respond when I have this thought?

• Is this actionable or worth my time?

Remember the serenity prayer? Yup.

Those are wise words there. There is no need to continue stressing until your knickers are in a twist and your palms are sweaty, sister.

You are in charge of the chemical soup you inhabit, now act like it and get a grip on your thinking.

No one will help you with this.

No one will care that you are doing this.

You should not care at all what anyone thinks about your worldview.

Your Tribe

You should find your tribe.

Your tribe will be busy building their dreams.

You must seek them out because they do not know or care about you yet.

Your tribe will not help you build your dream; they are building theirs.

Your tribe will encourage and cheer you on while you build concurrent (parallel) dreams.

Your tribe will call bullshit when you drop your standards; they will encourage you when you have a lousy day, and they will celebrate with you when you nail your first big win.

You are not meant for mediocrity but you can have it if you don’t change.

You are in control of the entire process.

Change is scary and thrilling because you must accept the parts you cannot control and focus hard on what you can control.

Uncertainty is life, so don’t try to talk yourself out of changing because you will be forced to change whether you like it or not.

• If you don’t change your mind, your mind will atrophy, and your goals will remain forever out of reach.

• If you don’t change your body (via exercise and nutrition), your body will become weak, and one day, you will suffer pain, immobility, poor quality of life, and early death.

• If you don’t change your spirit, you will not develop self-reliance and intuition; your inherited belief systems and perspective will rule you and lead you down another person’s path, the path most people take.

And most important of all:

• You are here to complete your mission, not someone else’s.

Peace My Friends — S

Be kind to yourself; begin now.

ART UPDATE

Limited Edition Fine Art Prints

Introducing "Selfie" by BinaryLady, a captivating limited edition print to inspire your imagination.

“Selfie” by BinaryLady aka Sonia Cook-Broen 18” x 18” 1/100 Limited Series