I rarely DNF (which means "Did Not Finish" or "Am not gonna finish" and it can be used as adjective, noun, or in this case verb) books; I'm usually happy enough to just leave the bookmark in indefinitively. I'm juggling books pararallel anyway. Maybe if I were more fastidioous about only reading one or two books at at ime I'd DNF more often.

Here, though, I am gonna remove the bookmarnk from where I was in the book and just put it back into storage. It's not a bad book, it's just not where I'm at right now when things ça plane pour moi with GTD and cleaning my home and taking digital minimalism to new ridiculous extremes and having turned a corner on diet and exercise. I am trying to figure out how to sustain this, or at least set things up so that when the inevitable depressie episode hits my life and living space will have been cared for and will have been made a little bit better and gentler by my then former now current self. This particular self help book would be three steps back from where I'm right now: carefully managing a small handful of spoons with good planning and patience. Slowly and softly, not pushing through but just taking care. Marie Kondo or David Allen would be more appropriate for the current situation. Again, that's not a judgement on this book nor or There's Nothing Wrong With You which I'm also gonna move from the to-read-pile back into storage. So that's ten down, sixteen to go. And that's some by high ordeal, some by DNF, some in the merry merry month of may, some by very slow decay, and that's gonna have to become okay by me. It'd've been a reread if I had kept going because I have read it before.

I'm gonna bring it back out when I'm back to my usual self drowned by resistance and procrastination. (It's ridiculous that I set out to run a GTD blog when my own life has been so ruined and wrecked by procrastination, fatigue, and burnout. But it's because I then know what works and what doesn't work.)

Let me comment on one thing where the book admonishes beginning meditators on having a mind full of "hmm better not forget the laundry appointment" type stuff. I have the oppposite recommendation and I feel strongly about it: instead, keep paper and pen at hand when you start out meditatiing. You can write up those things that you don't wanna forget. Only put things you actually can do something about like "remember to buy light bulb". Monestaries have a 27/7/365 schedule while many people in secular life have a chaos and a mess that's of course gonna tear at their minds. Now, what I've found is that soon enough once you have your stuff in order (with GTD for example) you're never gonna touch that paper. But until you get there, that paper, and your restless monkey mind, are helping you, not beating you up.

I'e been taught (by other theachers, not Huber) that one way to look at meditation is that one rough categorization of our thoughts, emotions, and sensations are primary sensation, simulating imagination (remembering or planning things),and the reflexive mind (self-awareness), and that through trying to focus on primary sensation, and catching us starying from that and resteering our thoughts to that, we strengthen the reflexive mind. And it might seem that having a paper and pen will encourage your simulated imaginative mind to just start planning and listing off todo items and yes. That's not "real meditation", but, it's building a life where you have clarity enough in order to meditate. Just like the monastic life of scheduled samu you will have your buying of lightbulbs and oven liners scheduled. Just don't do this when meditating with other people but it's great for your home practice. The idea is not that meditation should become a planning session. Make room for real planning sessions in order for that paper to stay empty during your meditation sessions.That paper is just there as a big net right outside the spotlight. To help you relax.