“If we don’t need it and we can’t manage it, maybe it is time to clean out the digital garage.” This last line in a short blog (posted in full below) came up as I reflected a year ago to this day, on the loss of highly personal files. I had written and saved them as an archive of ideas and memories to be addressed when I was (mostly) done writing for clients and community. I had good intentions. Don’t we all?
Each day of this mid February calendar week holds a different celebration. So, how do we handle the time between social calls to duty on the day?
Today is Lunar New Year with all the gallantry and power of the Year of the Horse. Ramadan begins shortly with shorter fasts as it returns to winter months, Black History Month continues and many more on the Canadian calendar alone.
Requests came for a post with more detail on Dr. Rangan Chatterjee’s five core rituals noted in what is now part 1.These are the steps to reclaim our spaces and energy with care this February at work or in the community.
Here’s to heaping helpings of joy, health, wellbeing and belonging, expanded, in plain language, following the original outline offered in Dr. Chatterjee’s ‘Happiness Prescription’.
Break out the reds and pinks, February has arrived.
In North America, it heralds declarations of love through greeting cards, chocolate, jewelry, flowers, gourmet dinners, and reservations for spa treatments. You’d get the idea that happiness if not full-blown authentic capital L O V E is something exchanged, gifted, and celebrated outwardly. But what about those of us, well most of us now, that are deskbound alongside our automated calendars as we get closer to ‘the official day’ and all that is commercial romance?
A virtual writers’ group I belong to, has a set check-in at the top of each studio hour we share. Its protocols include a welcome question posed to the writers, directors and managers of mostly film and theatre projects. We beam in from all over North America and sometimes Europe. 
Today, the ask in the last hour block was, “What is your favourite pastime?”
It’s Sunday. December 28. A lull between the manic, joyful madness of making Christmas merry and the tightening of New Year’s noose of celebration mixed with expectation. Yep… so much preparation and anticipation. Then, it dissipates in hours.
Lists. We make ’em before the events. To do. To buy. And then we construct a kind of Fantasy Football League of lists of what not to do going forward, in the annual rush to improve our lives in whatever way is important to each of us in 2026. Yet again.
So, I do feel lists qualify as one form of writing. Bullet points, words next to boxes to check off, and full sentences. Start on a page big enough, and it’ll end up as a journal entry. I used to kind of poo poo ‘journaling’ as not real writing. It wasn’t generally paid, published or impactful on others’ lives. I was wrong. Turns out I have many boxes of archived pages and short-form scribbles. Writer, teacher and big-time meditator, Natalie Goldberg once advised a participant who confessed in our online masterclass to having journals from 10 years ago.
“Oh, just throw those notes out. You don’t need them.” I recoiled in horror. DECADES, I have kept my notes. There are pretty journals, nostalgic covers or businessy books, started and abandoned after a couple or a score of gripping pages. Scrapbooks with notes written LARGE in coloured pens so my deteriorating penmanship could still be deciphered and perhaps seen in a new perspective on the different colours or sizes of paper. I’ve been a closet journaler for years, not even admitting it to myself, apparently.
Below is an email from Kash Khan, whose health posts, DNA testing and theories I have followed for a while. This is taken from his UNCENSORED email, as it is titled, where he is free to say what he deems necessary. It is a complete piece about the science of the power of expression on our very health. Enjoy. I’m going back to slowly decluttering, the semi-legible brilliance I have hoarded all these years, as my holiday project.
Writing to deliver content in text or presentations is a full-contact body experience. We need to be fit, and so we continue from the post Write, Move, Breathe: Self-care for Creative Longevity Part 1
Do tips on the care and feeding of creatives differ from those of ‘regular folks’ pursuing other professions? Possibly, let’s dive in.
“A clean desk is the sign of a sick mind” was a silly saying on dime-store bumper stickers that found its way onto novelty plaques and gag gifts of yesteryear. Is it true for anyone you know?
Likely not, yet it was the rallying call for folks protective of their kind of effective, ‘visual filing’. Out of sight, out of mind. So, they must have things accessible and have an uncanny ability to locate any file in any category in what we see as a ‘bless this mess’ situation.
Does the opposite aesthetic offer more? Will a pretty, organised, minimalist-chic office lead to more productivity?
In our last post, we explored the nurturing of creative work and how it relates to the nurturing of healthy longevity. Today, we look at writer wellness and creative longevity that helps us reap the rewards found in the moment and the long run, as we live towards the ultimate deadline with both healthspan and creativity.
Less than 8 years into the launch of my writing career and public relations practice, I had to deal with divorce and, on its stress-bound heels, a diagnosis of chronic illness. Both came with fatigue and frustration. In today’s post, we explore the care and feeding of writers with the practical routines that sustain us into our senior health and working years. We’ve looked at some rituals of writing. So, now we continue with some of the habits of living strong, independent, and creative lives, up until life’s ultimate deadline.