I don't mean the cocktail, though I will post my favorite recipe for that, too.
When it comes to my personal creative work, I never really let go of pen and paper. I like the feel of ink smoothing itself over the page to the rhythm of my thoughts. I like the painstaking way words line up and rearrange. I like scratching out and marking up. I don't have the luxury of writing pen-to-paper (often I am writing as fast as possible on lunch breaks), but when I get to really stretch out and write, I choose paper.
“Let me walk through the fields of paper, touching with my wand dry stems and stunted butterflies." —Denise Levertov
So it shouldn't come as a huge surprise that I also love journals. I have joined the buljo (bullet journal to the uninitiated) army with my adorable retro journal and colored pens. Work-life balance is some kind of joke someone made up in an HR department at Google on a slow Tuesday. But I have noticed that staying on top of the minutia of my days has been much easier since writing things down in cheery purple and green ink.
My Tools
I thought I was going to drown in my to-dos, so I picked up my adorably retro notebook and got started. I use a Uniball Vision rollerball pen for most of my writing. In my buljo, I use red, green, blue, purple, and sometimes gold and silver. Pretty is somehow motivating.
What I Track
It's strangely motivating to write down "fold and put away clothes" and then actually do it. When it comes to where I fail and at what, I tend to be pretty good at coming up with lists. Long ones. But once you track a behavior, you figure out how to tackle it. And then once it's a routine, you drop it off your list and pick up something new. I also have tasks lists day-to-day, bigger mostly goals, and then huge goals. Like publishing one of my many unpublished books. Sigh. Okay, so we start small.
MezcaL Old Fashioned Recipe
1 1/2 oz reposado tequila
1/2 oz really good mezcal
2 dashes of bitters
1 tsp simple syrup
1 twist of flamed orange peel (heat with a lighter, rub on the rim of the glass, then drop it in)
add ice and stir