Inline at the Lost Bean this morning the construction worker picking up $29.20 in coffee and frittata mentioned that the closing of Barnes & Noble had entered the final stage–the dumping of books.

Reading on the value of honesty and absurdity had preceded this.

I get in the car and drive off. Halfway down the driveway, a thought strikes me. I’ll be honest anyway. I’ll tell my wife what I am going to do. I back up to the door and go into the house. I call my wife into a room where we can talk privately. I tell her quietly what I intend to do. She says nothing. She does not get excited. She maintains a perfect calm.

When I am through speaking, the whole idea has become absurd.

page 218

Honesty is of course the best practice, unless appearances are the topic.

which obviously requires a meaningful smirk, if nothing else.

2022’s continued work on self-care continues with some great brainstorming.

Self-Care

No one knows what self-care means.

No one agrees on how to categorize self-care.

There are no metrics for measuring self-care.

Self-care is maintenance

Metric	Source	Outfit	Valid	Notes
Sleep	Nike	Yes	Yes	Rest
Exercise	Nike	Yes	Yes
Medical	Nike	No	Yes	Physical / Medical
Meditation	Nike	No	Yes	Mindfulness
Eating	Nike	No	Yes	Nutrition
Time Management	Brainstorming	No	Yes
Drinking	Brainstorming	No	Yes	Nutrition
Hygiene	Brainstorming	No	Yes	Physical / Medical
Relationship	Nike	No	No
Environmental	Nike	No	No
Self Compassion	Nike	No	No
Soothing Strategies	Nike	No	No
Spiritual	Nike	No	No
Play	Brainstorming	No	Maybe
Service	Brainstorming	No	Maybe

Original List

This list is from the podcast Trained, which interviewed Theresa Melito-Conners, Ph.D.

1. Rest
2. Exercise
3. Relationship
4. Environmental
5. Self-compassion
6. Soothing Strategies
7. Physical / Medical
8. Mindfulness
9. Nutrition
10. Spiritual

Brainstorming

Lydia, Tina, and I met for coffee and brainstormed on this list.

Rest

This category is too vague and too hard to measure. Rename sleep. Also, there are special outfits for sleep—pajamas.

Exercise

Exercise is a good category—well documented and generally well understood. It does require special outfits. It includes walking, yoga, weight lifting, and stretching.

Relationship

This category is an umbrella and is no maintenance. Relationships require maintenance, but that is generally in response to change, which may be growth. Types include Family, God, Personal, Love, Sex, and Intimacy.

Environmental

Environmental self-care is a problematic category. Generalized as spatial surroundings with categories like personal, work, living, and social. Additionally, metrics like cluttered, minimal, highly used are hard to measure. There is likely a requirement to maintain our environments, but this is usually in response to change or neglect and is no maintenance.

Self-compassion

Self-compassion appears to be a logical part of self-care; however, it is too general and complex to measure. It includes qualities like consistency and personal relationships (relationship to yourself). However, it is not helpful and should be removed.

Soothing strategies

One needs to be soothed after a change or significant event—it is not a maintenance metric. There were a lot of discussions here. Art, music, baths, manicures, pedicures, acupuncture (medical), messages, and apply lotion. In general, the features of this category can be better expressed in other areas, and it should be removed.

Medical

This category is designed to maintain our physical body—doctor, dentist, blood pressure, assessments, acupuncture, and similar activities are included here. The class is likely best tracked outside of maintenance; however, we have decided to leave it in because of Kevin’s test.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a subcategory of meditation that includes visualization, mantra, prayer, and other maintenance tasks. Mindfulness is a buzzword and will be replaced.

Nutrition

Initially, we thought of expanding this to consumption and including entertainment of all sorts-art, podcasts, music, TV, books—and even some educational activities; however, this is very general and hard to measure. Also, nutrition carries a lot of judgemental qualities that are likely not the point. Mostly this will be moved to a new category named eating.

Spiritual

Spiritual is seldom a maintenance task and almost always a growth activity. God is likely a better name for this category, but that is growing in most cases. Very hard to measure since it may include everything.

Time management

Time management includes calendaring, scheduling, promptness. For most people, a significant cause of stress is likely additional clarity and scope definition that can help with this metric.

Drinking

As part of splitting nutrition, measuring fluid intake seems to be valuable. It is easy to measure. Unlike hydration or water, measuring overall fluid intake seems solid. Drinking includes water, coffee, soda, and other liquid consumption.

Play

Another metric that needs additional discussion would include video games, board games, role play, and other activities.

Service

Another metric that should be included revolves around working with others. Service is always inconvenient and may not be the correct title. Tasks included saying hello to strangers, attending meetings, answering the phone, cleaning up, and taking out the trash.

Hygiene

Ignoring the basics of hygiene becomes problematic quickly. There is an essential human requirement of hygiene that includes bathing but may include brushing teeth, washing clothing, getting haircuts,  and other socially appropriate cleanliness tasks.