I took today off instead of taking the July Fourth holiday off. I'm sitting here with my coffee and water and the computer in front of me. I'm awake earlier than I have been for the past few weeks. It's quiet and peaceful. Just the sound of the Thinkpad's awesome keyboard being depressed as I write this.

Most mornings I feel like I have to do everything all at once. It's stressful and leads me to being more frazzled before the day is even started. I rush through things to try to knock off the next thing on my next actions list. It feels like a complete struggle to get through the morning, and most days I dread getting up because of it.

I'm thinking instead of trying to map this morning onto my normal workday mornings.

What would it be like to not feel hurried throughout the morning? I know what it feels like now. I'm relaxed, engaged with the things that I'm doing, and relishing the prospects of the day.

What is it like when I'm hurried? I'm tense and artificially trying to block things out so I can focus on the things that need to be done to start my day.

So I know what that feels like. Now, how do I use those lessons for my morning?

Instead of thinking about the day ahead I can instead just pause and notice the day as it shows up. I can think of the tasks of the day as possibilities, not absolutes. If aliens came down right now and offered me a free all-expenses paid trip around the cosmos you best believe I'm not going to worry about my email inbox. If Chris Crawford asked me to to hop onto a call to talk about his projects and get my thoughts you'd best believe I'd drop what I'm doing to take that call. My day could change on a dime, so why am I putting so much effort into dumping as many quarters into a game I might not be playing (Hey, it's my blog. Metaphors will be stretched until their breaking point. You have been warned.)

So I'm going to practice with this unhurried approach and figure out how to apply it to each day. I know what being unhurried feels like now and I want to give myself this feeling of contentment and peace each morning.