I decided to take a sabbatical. Now what? How best to use this gift of time?

I am kicking off the sabbatical with two important tasks this week. First, I started working with a career coach (on Monday morning no less! How’s that for wasting no time?) so I could have some professional guidance with thinking about what is important to me and how I will use that knowledge to help me find more satisfying work when I start my next job. Second, I am beginning to clean out the house today so I can feel more organized and get rid of clutter. I feel a driving need to get rid of useless stuff and I’m happy I finally have time to do it right.

But after this week? What next?

Being the planner that I am, I’ve felt the need to organize my goals for this break from work. I am trying to not schedule every day, but rather to have a menu of things to choose from so I can feel somewhat spontaneous.

I am organizing my activities of choice into 4 categories: Physical, Emotional, Mental and Spiritual. I was inspired from reading James Altucher’s blog and books. He describes doing a “Daily Practice” of four things every day: Physical, Emotional, Mental and Spiritual (he even created a website to help people track their daily practice). I liked the well-roundedness of that approach.

On a daily basis, I will:
Practice yoga (physical)
Keep a gratitude journal (emotional)
Write 500 words (mental)
Meditate for 20 minutes (spiritual)

Over the course of the next 4-6 months, I will also participate in the following:

Physical
Learn to surf
Dance
Get a 200 hour yoga teaching certificate?

Emotional
Volunteer at the kids’ school
Volunteer at the VA
Open my heart to the possibility of dating
Travel

Mental
Write: Work on a novel
Learn to Code
Build an App/Website
Paint

Spiritual
Read more about Buddhism

I am out of time for now…and only up to 324 words; crap! I will have to come back to this later and finish my thoughts.