There are a million websites, okay, a couple of hundred thousand, that will tell you to curtail your email time.

Your chat time.

Your surfing time.

Here's the thing: what they're really telling you to do is to limit the amount of time you spend on things that net you little-to-nothing, and max out the time you spend doing the stuff that nets you big-time.

You've got to keep body and soul together, yes.

You've got to keep Making Things, putting good things out there into the world that you make, yourself, out of sweat and twine and (your preferred medium).

But sometimes, the most productive thing you can do is to pick up the phone when it rings and talk to the (relative, soon-to-be-not) (and brave!) stranger on the other end.

Sometimes, the best use of your time is to reach out to a bunch of people you haven't connected with in a while and share a few words, regardless of how many (or few) people will read them.

Sometimes, it's just about...wandering. And seeing where the wandering will lead you.

We Virgos, we tend to forget that. We like forward motion, and checking things off lists. We like making a plan, and tend to think that deviation from it spells certain doom.

Here's the thing: I veered about as far off the proscribed list today as was possible. As in, I did not start Working until 1. Or so. Up until then, I spent my day talking and wandering and musing.

But then? I sat down and wrote me a big, Shitty First Draft of Chapter Something. Even smiled a few times while writing it. Oh, it'll all be thrown out, but it don't matter none. It's all in the doing.

Extend extend extend yourself.

Or oh, what you and the world might miss out on.

xxx c