Frothy Morning Ritual

As I was describing how I make my morning coffee to my friends, I realized how crazy it was sounding. It's several steps, a significant amount of time, and a lot of clean up for one cup of coffee.

I never considered why I do this until I hit that awkward moment of watching my friends reactions. They clearly thought this practice was insane. So after some reflection here's my rationale for the extra steps.

THE COFFEE TASTE BETTER > A common corporate clique is "the juice is not worth the squeeze," meaning the amount of effort is greater than the value of the result. But I have to say, in this case, the coffee is totally worth the grind. It's delicious!

IT DOESN'T TAKE MUCH TIME > I timed myself the next morning. It was less than eight minutes. Describing the process sounds longer than actually making the coffee.

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THE RITUAL PUTS MY BRAIN IN MOTION > Set steps combined with a reflective state of mind can elevate a routine to a ritual, and rituals work to focus our brain and move us forward.

So, call me crazy if you like, but I plan to keep my cup of joe complicated.

MY MORNING COFFEE RITUAL

  1. Fill a measuring cup with 1.75 cups of water and heat in the microwave for 3 minutes.
  2. Grind the coffee beans.
  3. Invert my Aeropress and pour in the grounds.
  4. Fill the Aeropress with the hot water from the microwave, stir, and cover with the filter. Let sit inverted for 2 minutes.
  5. Add a tablespoon of organic ghee clarified butter to the remaining water in the measuring cup. Put back in the microwave for another minute.
  6. Pour hot buttered water into the blender.
  7. Press Aeropress into the coffee cup and pour that expresso into the blender.
  8. Blend on low until it's a consistent blend of golden, frothy goodness.
  9. Pour in to cup. Drink. Enjoy.
Ahh.... that's good coffee.

Ahh.... that's good coffee.

My Franklin Planner in Memoriam

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I threw away my Franklin Planner this week. Mine was old school, pre Franklin Covey merger. Fresh out of college, I remember receiving my first Franklin Planner and going through the day-long training.

Towards the end of the class, our instructor had us go out 21 days and add the task of sending her a note (not an email, an actual paper note) describing how our first three weeks using the planner were going. A colleague I worked with who was 20+ years my senior flipped his planner to the next day and began writing more immediate tasks he planned to accomplish back in the office. I asked him why he didn't do the exercise as instructed, and he said, "I have no intention of sending her a note."

I admired his thought process, and while that incident has stuck with me all these years, I still struggle with being selective on what actually gets added to my Omnifocus inbox.

I remember upgrading my planner from burgundy plastic to navy blue leather, but it's been years since I've ordered a refill or used any form of a paper task manager or calendar. I still see others who do, but they are becoming more rare every year. I've moved my old planner from office to office clinging to it like a security blanket, but as I packed for an my next move it was time to let it go.

I'm lucky I got to spend some time with it saying goodbye. I paged through it and kept some of the insides, the most important being my mission statement - written in 1993, printed on a dot matrix printer, and signed by Stephen R. Covey in 2003. I was pleasantly pleased to discover how much in alignment I've been living what I wrote 21 years ago. Not achieved it, but living it.

I retyped my mission statement in nvALT in it's original form, resisting the urge to tighten it up and remove a few cliques, and I took a picture of it to store in Evernote.

I also found this little gem - a poem from Rumi via Gordon MacKenzie's Orbiting the Giant Hairball. It seemed like a perfect summary of this transition of letting go.

I carried this poem in my planner for years.