Every day we all get up and make your way through our daily routines. If you’re anything like me, you’ll do most of these tasks, making and eating breakfast, making coffee, shower and shave, brush your teeth, and do it completely on autopilot.
And during this routine our minds may disengage or stay partially asleep. There are mornings where I feel as if I’ve sleep-walked through the morning and found myself awake at my desk, not really sure how I got there.
When I take one of these tasks and focus on it, try and bring my full mind to the task, everything changes. If I change the way I shave, pitching the disposable razors and picking up a straight razor, I no longer can safely shuffle through my morning. I need to be alert and focused and very, very careful.
Even just thinking about these tasks makes me wonder what I’m doing and what I can do better. Can I improve my dental hygiene? Should I prep the coffee setup the night before or should I make it a morning ritual with careful preparation?
And what are the steps for each and every task?
For today’s assignment, pick out one common daily task, perhaps from your own morning routine, and dissect it, examine it, and think carefully about why you do it, what you want from the task, and how it could be better. Then write a short essay about this task with your fresh perspective.
What can you do to make this task less routine and more mindful? What will the change in this task mean to you? And if you have perfected the performance of a specific task, how will your expert knowledge help others with their routine tasks?
Pick one task today. For bonus points, pick another task and write about it tomorrow.
The Writing Assignment: Write About A Common Daily Task by Randy Murray, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.