Missing Stuff

One great frustration has always been losing stuff, or really misplacing it, or more frequently having my wife move my things to wherever it might fit at the moment to accommodate visitors or prepare for the cleaners.  Sometimes my fault too.  I bought a VLog kit with an Amazon honorarium, used it twice to make brief movies of my grandchildren and never saw it again.  While I own lots of shoes, a few are versatile to many situations, including gray suede chukka boots.  Very few places they could be, though not in the closet with the rest of my shoes.

Sometimes I stumble on a cache of moved stuff.  When purging my family room of clutter, I happened upon a cardboard box wedged under the edge of our oak coffee table.  I removed one item at a time.  Women's clothing.  Also a variety of my stuff.  Stationery supplies, swag taken off tables at expos, handyman stuff that I'm surprised I never had to go back to the hardware store to replace.  I found a pre-inked stamp given to me by my hospital, complete with name and degree, intended to clarify who provided a marginally legible signature.  I removed the protective plastic cover and pushed the rubber surface onto scrap paper.  Out of ink.  No surprise for an item probably not used for fifteen years.  But it's mine.

What struck me about that box was not so much its contents but how unsorted it was.  Having like things together.  There is a place where paper hole punchers go and a place where a tube of plaster filler goes.  Those homes are different.  My desk, among my most protected places, has stuff that I would use at a desk.  It does not have paintbrushes or torn wallets that I've not gotten around to discarding.  My closet has designated places for dress shirts, pullover shirts, sweaters, and long pants, the latter organized by jeans, casual pants, and dress pants.  While it does not eliminate decision fatigue the way only having khaki pants would, it saves me from a clothing hunt when I try to dress in a way appropriate to my activities.  When I need to wrap gifts, the supplies are only in two places.

I've taken to sorting rooms as recent Semi-Annual projects.  My son's bedroom last cycle, our family room this one.  These spaces are not mine.  I am not the principal user of either.  But orderliness for myself also helps the user, whether my son who has not occupied that room for 15 years or my wife who sits on the family room couch as her prime space.  Most of the stuff there is not mine to discard, but enough is to recapture what is mine.

I found the VLog Kit in a laundry basket.  Not found the suede shoes.  Handyman stuff will go to the basement.  Not sure about the best destination for Expo tchotchkes.  But none of this stuff will get assigned to a random box.

Class Selections

Submitted.  My request for seven classes for the upcoming OLLI Semester.  I had seriously considered letting the next semester lie fallow.  The last couple terms had imposed a few strains.  I especially liked one course.  The others left me unenthused.  To be fair, I got closed out of one, the instructor took ill in another, and was judged inadequately qualified to enter another at mid-year.  

The fall catalog arrived online first, then as a printed brochure, which I did not use. While the University offered 435 courses total, this time it offered electronic screening by time, location, and subject.  I created a paper grid of fifteen squares, putting the five days horizontal and the three class times vertically.  I generally do not enroll in courses that begin at 2:30 PM and try to keep Friday afternoons free to prepare shabbos dinner when standard time returns.  I asked the program to list all courses each day at the local center.  I've mostly found the live experiences superior to watching on a screen, though some of the selections simulcast by experts who live in another part of the state have been excellent.  For each day, I placed the classes to consider further in their appropriate grid box.  

How do I cull classes?  Partly by topic, partly by prerequisite skills, partly by my willingness to sit through 75 minutes.  The professor matters more each year.  Experience has generated automatic exclusions.  I also do not particularly take well to classes where we watch a video for the majority of the class and engage in a discussion afterwards.  Despite these restrictions, I had ample options Monday through Thursday.  Friday morning contained a class that I could not take the previous semester.  And they offered violin lessons late Tuesday afternoons, which made the exclusion of late classes less than absolute.  Finally, I went to the Online options, selecting only ones with known top teachers.

With the grid filled, I next focused on how I want to spend my week.  I insist on one day off, usually two.  Having a late morning course followed by a break for lunch, then an afternoon class mostly has not gone well.  Certainly not more than one day weekly, and then to accommodate the weekly violin lesson.  

Finally, what do I like to learn?  Most of my educational experience and professional continuing education has involved lecture formats.  That has changed somewhat as on-demand videos expand options and much Medical Continuing Education for license renewal can be obtained from written text followed by questions that confirm the person read the material.  Indeed, I read quite a lot.  Three subscriptions, four Torah commentaries online each week, a quota of books each half-year.  I watch instructional YouTubes, several daily, so adding a DVD in class often feels like excess.  

What I do not do enough is engage in conversation, challenge ideas, perform with an audience, or get feedback on my work.  As I looked at each grid, I rationed the lectures which would have me absorbing presented material but expanded classes that would force me to create.

I came up with seven;

Lectures:

1. History of Advertising, conducted by a neighbor
2. The Federalist Papers, led by my favorite prof.
3. Delaware Landmarks, led by a committee familiar to me.

Doing:

1. Non-fiction Writing
2. Acting on Stage
3. Folk Guitar
4. Violin

I do not expect any to be over-subscribed.  It will require me to declare Tuesday as a work on-site day, due to a gap between my late morning class and mid-afternoon violin session.  I've done this successfully before.  Pack lunch, bring laptop and leather portfolio, then find a quiet room with a tabletop.  It helps immensely to know in advance what I will pursue over two hours of unstructured time.

The University recognizes that some students will regret their choices and assignments.  Within limits, corrections are possible.  I look forward to a few months of mostly daily structure.

Winery Experiences

What makes for the ideal visit?  America's proliferation of wineries in my adult lifetime has made sampling them part of my itinerary when I travel.  Sometimes they cluster, as in Napa, Finger Lakes, or Long Island's North Fork.  Other times the home states have established wine trails sorted by state zones.  I've pursued these in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Missouri, and a few others, usually not as my primary travel destination but as attractions near where I intend to visit.  

Experiences vary widely.  Most tout their vintages in some way.  For a fee that has ranged from complementary to high enough to decline and move on to the next place, a patron can sample 4-6 pours of 30 ml or so.  I've had them served in stemware most frequently, but also in small goblets and on occasion in disposabtsle plastic cups.  At some wineries they owners choose which, with samples of reds or whites on a list.  Other places offer a large sheet of the available wines with brief descriptions.  The taster selects five and the attendant either brings them all at once with instructions on the order or lets the visitor drink one, then the next gets poured.  Most vineyards or tasting rooms remote from the vineyard have something resembling a bar, usually with a wood base, from where customers place their requests.  Many will then ask the taster to pick a table to which a server delivers the selections.  Others continue the sequential tastings at the ordering site.

Most have plantings visible from the parking lot, if not the building where the vintages get poured.

Over the years, I've established my own preferences.  There is the wine itself, but there is also the experience of being at the winery.  The liquids all come with a description of what makes each glass special.  They don't all come with expert people.  I could probably sample a couple of tastes at a large liquor store.  The winery, though, needs access to the attendants.  I greatly prefer an employee, if not the vintner, explaining to me the history of each vineyard, which grapes grow especially well, when the harvests occur, whether the winemaster graduated from a university oenology program, how blending is done.  That and more constitutes the experience.  Many places also offer tours, usually of the production facilities and equipment, occasionally with brief excursions onto the fields.  That's what makes stopping there pleasurable.  The wines have tasting varieties, registered on a personal mental scale that gets forgotten in one minute.  Things the attendant conveyed about the individual winery or the geographic circumstances that enabled the products that I taste will get retained in my mind much longer.

So my own preferencss, now with considerable experience.  I much prefer being at the bar, standing up, with the attendant pouring the next glass as I finish the one already poured.  I then get to chat with her, it's more often a woman.  The vineyard.  What's it like living in a place often remote from an urban center?  I have no preference between me choosing five and the winery staff assembling their own list of which five would make a good themed selection.  I'm confident that they thought it out, while my selections tend to be more diverse, even random, with a white or two and a red or two and a sweet selection.  Stemmed glasses are the way to go.  Often I will purchase one to take home, though I am running out of room in my kitchen cabinets where I store them.  Plastic cups detract from my experience.  I like the brief tours, but don't find them essential.  I tend not to enjoy tasting rooms off-site from the vineyard, though these have enabled me to sample wines produced in regions I am unlikely to ever visit.  I could duplicate this aspect at a liquor store.  Do I need rinsing water or neutral crackers?  At my level of proficiency, I think they add little to the experience.

There's the taste.  There's the more composite experience.  I think the experience of being there matters more.

Soreness

End of the month.  To keep my exercise commitment humming, I need to build into the schedule recovery time and reward.  Every date divisible by 3, I let the leg muscles heal.  As one month transitions to the next, my treadmill time halts for three days.  A longer recovery and a small reward for dedication to exercise over the previous month.  It also serves as time to reflect on what my month's efforts accomplished.  Longer time, faster pace?  Some months, an unexpected layoff for illness, medical procedure, or travel.

It's been a mediocre month as I begin the first of three days of recovery.  One day off for a colonoscopy.  Reduced effort during the restricted diet.  Only partial recovery by the end of the month to where I had started at the beginning.  I worked through a sore right knee, getting by with an elastic brace but experiencing an ongoing soreness.  My breathing never limited what I could perform, but I could tell that my cardiovascular tolerance has ebbed gradually over six months.  And the last few three day recovery spans did not fully restore me to optimal for the next month.  

My legs, mainly thighs and knees, can tell that I did not shirk my best effort at optimal health.  I avoid oral NSAIDS, but have gotten benefit from topicals.  I could ice my knee twice daily, whether exercise days or days off.  

What I do not do is set treadmill goals for the month that follows.  I do not know what my stamina or soreness will allow.  Typically I resume at the intensity and duration where I left off.  That ache never fully disappears.  In the absence of real disability, my willingness to proceed with the benefits of an exercise schedule, which have been many, takes on a life of its own.  Within my capacity to cope.

Creating the Best Narrative

 

My news feed like everyone else's has no shortage of snipes at Jews, essentially ethnically profiled as supporters of the modern nation of Israel.  The linkage is true, the propriety of exclusion from activities of groups with overlapping interests, let alone physical attacks, is probably not justified.  While I read about this most days and think about it often, my own experience has not included any personal aspersions or threats.  Not that they aren't there. I knew the doctor slain at Tree of Life on shabbos morning from college.  That attack had no publi support, no rationalization.  More personally, though, my weekly Saturday morning now has me waving to a hired police officer in the synagogue parking lot and passing through a reinforced heavy entrance door, monitored by a congregant who must sit next to it as people seek to enter.  Other places, mostly larger, with doors leading to open space that must be crossed to reach the sanctuary, are often guarded by a uniformed officer, pistol in holster.  Some places will not let visitors past the entrance without a reservation obtained through the synagogue office during the previous week.

I miss the spontaneity.  Over sixty years, I've visited many congregations unannounced.  My classmates' and cousins' Bnai Mitzvah as a teen.  Travels for vacation or professional activities that spanned a shabbos.  Seeing a prominent Rabbi on TV and wanting to visit his shul if within reasonable driving range.  Getting irritated with my home shul and wanting a different shabbos experience.  I just went.  And as much as I've enjoyed the variations of worship and community, people have dropped in to my synagogue for a variety of reasons, always greeted as honored guests.  Our need to screen threatening people has burdened those whose entry would enhance the shabbos of the places they visit.

We serve as a useful target.  The people inside not only sustain these places of worship but maintain Jewish social organizations, stable businesses that depend on Jewish patrons, campus organizations from classrooms to Hillel Foundations, all now fair game for those seeking a statement of antagonism to Israel and to those who attach to it.  Interestingly, there also seems a curious element of sparing, though not entirely so, as the tragic shooting of a rising young philanthropist at Blackstone headquarters attests.  I've not seen Jewish summer camps, often set in remote areas, targeted for protest, even though these institutions invariably do their best to form a Zionist commitment to their impressionable children.  The medical centers with Jewish names also seem not to attract protesters toting anti-Israel placards.  Many of these places exist because that city's premier university-affiliated hospitals would not offer staff appointments to Jewish physicians.  Many of these places of Jewish origin now serve as desired residency destinations for top medical school graduates.  And Jewish people often drive wealth-creating businesses, from financial to high tech to communications.  Our financial upper crust.  The donors who make the Jewish organizational system thrive, who support Israel through donations and bond purchases, who sustain the budgets of the synagogues that now have enhanced security.  These businesses, even law firms with Jewish names on their entrances and letterhead, do not often have protesters nagging them. Boycott Dell?  Avoid Home Depot?  Hasn't happened.   The targets must be perceived as vulnerable in some way.  Or maybe not useful to the protesters.   Who is not targeted may be an important clue to reducing the threats to those Jewish organizations and individuals that are.

Approaching three years since a vicious attack on innocent individuals, complete with child abduction, hostages for barter or butchering while defenseless, displacement of people through the initial attack and warfare that followed, virtue has largely disappeared from the conversation.  We Jews have an opportunity to restore that lost element.  When Stephen Covey published his immensely popular work, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People in 1989, he opened his book by assessing two measures of success.  We can let superior tactics lead us to what we seek or we can let foundational principles guide us.  Both forms exist to antiquity, both forms have achieved successful and disappointing results.  How to attack and use vulnerable people as leverage is a technique.  It has also become meshed in principle, expressed as these people deserved it for how they treated us.  That has become the public narrative, the one that dominates social media feeds.  One that repackages repugnant as virtue, or at least the illusion of honor. For Jews, whether individually or through our advocacy organizations, to attack this directly has not worked out well.

We have succeeded as a people from the times of Exodus when our tradition establishes our Peoplehood, by a much different narrative. Our arc of success, with its fluctuations, moves ahead because we stay loyal to both our basic needs and our most noble aspirations.  The Jewish subset, whether small communities in isolation or now our sovereign nation to which we identify irrespective of where our house sits, has three basic elements.  We need a measure of safety, those basic survival needs that assure a tomorrow.  Jews historically have thrived and uplifted those around them when granted sufficient autonomy.  And once economic resources have been secured, the generosity embedded in our culture has enabled our very top talent to excel.  Jewish autonomy advances the world.  Those who snipe, those who attack do not fare as well.  That's the narrative that should dominate the modern global forum.  And it is one that we could control with some common ground rules.

Survival forms the base of Maslow's pyramid of basic needs.  The security measures of our synagogues and Jewish institutions appeared before the Hamas massacre.  October 7, 2023 served more as an inflection point.  It removed taboos, changed the attackers from fringe loners at the social margins to a more mainstream group of people with a future.  Students of selective colleges must have had something attractive about them to impress the Admissions Office.  Their professors who teach them the historical and social justifications for what they now promote have PhDs and have gone through Search Committees to get hired.  The Never Events of massacre get transposed to a historical timeline.  Our perceived victimhood justifies shifting who the victims are.  That's never a favorable narrative.  It also may be one that the Jewish community cannot effectively repel.  So we put our own masks on first.  Guard our gathering places, become less visible, buy pistols for our homes and cars.   And turn inward by inviting unengaged Jews to seek refuge, and maybe advancement, within our established institutions.  That requires no public presence.  We also have our measure of overt advocacy.  Enforce laws that already exist when an attack occurs.  Create new laws to discourage hostile mobs from harassing Jews or anyone else.  Exposing wrongdoers creates either celebrities or martyrs.  "If I am not for myself, who will be for me?" our sage Hillel asked.  Protect ourselves..

The more neglected narrative may be our internal success.  Those with their fists in the air, the sign carriers, the trolls on the internet don't achieve what we have and don't prioritize the dignity of people the way we Jews have.  Our hospital wings have Jewish names, not Islamic ones.  Civil rights legislation in the 1960s served as a branch point for Jews along with people of color.  We moved ahead without the special compensatory or remedial program.  That's where our opponents are, people who could have done better than they did over those decades but pursued getting even.  The Jewish narrative does not exploit victimhood.  Certainly public support for a Jewish state gelled after an attempt at genocide, the real thing, not the usurped canard we see on our news feeds now.  But the nationalism that gives Jews our place was embedded with national movements before that, whether the breakup of the Ottoman Empire or dismantling of colonial domination of Asia and Africa.  Our narrative needs to be a common one.  And we know who opposed this.  The same Islamic populations that used terror as a deterrent, engaged in their own inept warfare multiple times, had alliances between totalitarians, including within their own caliphates.  That's what they are.  That's not what Jews are or what enabled our communities to forge ahead with commerce, science, and agriculture.  We are the world's winners.  We earn what we amass.  That's our story.  That's our contribution.  It may or may not be our attraction.

In order to fulfil this vision, I think our internal institutions need to be more welcoming in an unconditional way.  That is not what I've found over the years.  People point to titles, whether the organizations, their officers, or their benefactors.  While boundaries are an integral part of Judaism, leaving people on the sidelines or ignored is not.  Too many slights to too many people.  Invitations to engagement too restricted.  Easy to understand why touting institutional success sells less than it could when the sensitivity promoted by Dale Carnegie and other success-by-technique advocates has not become part of the foundation.  We've all encountered folks sitting alone in a crowded room with nobody approaching them.  And then we have people not even in the room.  If we hope to promote community and success, our best public face, we need to start by being fully welcoming to each other.  

And at the apex of our internoal growth we need to allocate for a veneer of excellence.  Innovations on a scale that our detractors cannot duplicate.  We've accomplished this in the financial realm.  Our talent writes books and essays that will survive them.  Perhaps we as a Jewish civilization have tolerated misuse of that excellence more than we should.  The IDF is effective, for sure, but not always functioning beyond public reproach.  The Israelis we support create for themselves decent places to live, without taking ownership of public and private damage that the expansion has caused.  Within American Jewish institutions we don't always value those of unique talent.

Multiple elements:  safety, widespread achievement, sensitivity, boundaries, value of excellence beyond our own interests.  That's a lot we could sell.  In recent years we may have gotten too defensive, letting our critics control the public face of Israel and the global Jews who see the sovereign Jewish state as an extension of the autonomy in other settings that have uplifted not only ourselves but other cultures in our midst.  Sometimes the best defense is an offense, a proactive expression of our story that our critics cannot control.

Staying Gracious

Tough couple of days.  My Jewish world mandates two fasts that I observe.  Yom Kippur in the fall serves as a climax of the calendar.  People gather in large numbers to plod through the designated Machzor.  Hundreds of pages get recited.  We hear a male choir, expert prayer leaders, Memorial for the Departed, finally reaching the very end when everyone can resume eating.  Despite the thirst more than hunger, I find the Holy Day and its requirements engaging.  By the shofar's sound marking the conclusion and a nibbble set up by the synagogue's Sisterhood, people seem satisfied with their accomplishments.

Tisha B'Av, which occurs in mid-summer, also has a fast which I do my best to observe.  I do not find the day particularly engaging, though synagogues and organizations try to make the observance meaningful.  There is some liturgy specific to this day.  While YK is more programmed, Tisha B'Av seem's more an Insider's Job with just a handful of invited participants, a sameness with a more difficult fast.  In my working years, I had to conduct my usual professional activities, with the food deprivation detracting from performance, or at least I thought it did.  In more recent years, I stay home, read a few things or watch fragments of video presentations about the lengthy history of Jewish tragedies, but mostly suffer through the fast until the end.  Due to the calendar, breaking this fast occurs close to bedtime, which means eating when I would normally have finished my calories for the day.  Physically I feel sore, sufficiently famished to make mental activities underperform, and anticipating some carryover to the following day or two.

And that's what happened.  It was not a total punt of a day.  I slogged through a few valued initiatives.  Reduced exercise but not zero exercise.  Read most of the things I us.ually read each day, though attention and ability to retain and respond clearly impaired.  I took my scheduled medicines without water.  The higher efforts, though, clearly needed to be postponed to a time of restored capabilities.

My reset day has arrived.  This being a recovery day from my treadmill schedule, I opted to treat myself to breakfast out during the time I would be walking at the machine's pace.  Not easy.  Sleep disrupted but I forced myself out of bed as at the clock radio music appeared.  Dental hygiene.  Then downstairs for what has become my daily starting mug of water, skipped the day before due to the fast.  The cafe would supply the coffee that usually follows.  Quick chores:  empty the recycling into the bins awaiting pickup later that morning.  Add some trash to another bin.  Water a plant.  Retrieve the newspaper from the end of the driveway for my wife's convenience.  Go out or pop a keurig pod into the Mini-Express?  I put on the same shirt and pants I had worn the day before, different shoes, and returned to the car for my treat away from home, still struggling with even those minimal efforts.

I chose old reliable nearby cafe.  When I eat there alone, I take a seat at the counter, usually the farthest from the entrance.  To the restaurant's credit, they generate enough favorable morning experiences to attract a lot of patrons most mornings that I've been there.  I had to settle for the stool nearest the entrance, which at least spared me having the Trump advocacy emblem in my line of sight.

This being a family enterprise, the owners or relatives greet me.  It has an open kitchen where the cooks all seem to be Latinos, a capable kitchen staff.  The servers got new T-shirts.  Cafe Logo in the front, "I stand for the national anthem" in block letters on the back.  I do too, being rather grateful to the opportunities that America has created for me, but we likely differ on our obligation to acknowledge and remedy some of the untoward parts of our national history.  

I still had not consumed any coffee for the previous 48 hours.  A man in a black version of cafe T-shirt, an older fellow, came over to my stool, confired that I wanted to eat at the counter, then brought me sizable mug of coffee with pods of half & half and synthetic French vanilla creamer in a small bowl.  He handed me their standard menu, where I picked out the vegetarian options and sorted out how much I was willing to spend.  He brought over a set of utensils wrapped in a napkin, along with a placemat.  I turned the placemat over from its advertising side to its blank side, then took out a pen from my pants pocket.  I had writing initiatives intended for the day if my mental acuity recovered sufficiently.  I jotted a few thoughts, not many, but topics that could be expanded.  The woman serving the customers came over next to take my food order.  I pointed to my preference.  She noted that I had come during their special hours so I could get the same thing for a dollar less.  I selected my eggs preference and rye toast.  She took away the menu, while I sipped coffe and struggled to convey the contents of my brain to the blank reverse side of their placemat.  I made little progress, but could tell that caffeine deprivation had started to ease.  She returned with my platter, which contained scrambled eggs instead of the over medium from the order. She noticed this error before me and offered immediately to have the kitchen make a new platter.  Scrambled eggs would be fine.  I squeezed some ketchup in a broad ribbon along the edge of the home fries, something this cafe makes better than any other local place I've sampled.  Then the toast came, already buttered, though with additional spreads to apply myself, which I did not.  and a refill of coffee.

Eggs with runny yolks as intended would have been preferable, but I thought it better to accept their busy day with its snafus.  I took my time.  Some hot sauce would have added to the experience but I neglected to ask for this with the coffee refill.  She brought the check while I was still nearing the end of my plate.  I opted to pay cash, as they discount this.  Between my wallet and coin purse, I found four one-dollar bills to leave as a tip.  Then at the cash register I handed her a twenty, which got me just over $9 in change.  Replenishing my wallet's small bills would come in useful.  I drove home, this time exiting quickly from what is often a difficult left turn from their parking lot to the road.

The morning's experiences had transitioned me successfully through a few important branch points.  After a physically and mentally tough day with sleep disturbance and not much residual hunger, I really did not want to arise on time.  Still, I did.  Restoring a part of my morning routine, that cup of water, retrieving the newspaper, dental care, morning pills all fell into place.  No excuses to skip any of them.  I did not want to get dressed and drive off.  Coffee at home would be fine.  But I had set this AM breakfast out as the transition from a day of fast to quiet time to think while eating something more nutritionally substantial than my usual coffee.  Despite not really wanting to go out, I put on the easiest clothes and headed off.

Once there, challenged by my inability to create on the back of their placemat, a food order delivered in error, looking at two dog whistle T-shirts from people who likely have a different worldview than me, I kept myself maximally gracious, as did the two servers with me.  They served me promptly, offered immediately to correct errors, offered to save me a little money without my asking.  I can stand for the anthem with them, as I should, then we each cast our ballots in secret.  Will they turn in their Latino cooks when ICE agents take off their masks to eat what they have ordered?  Hope not.  Think not.  And maybe the patrons won't let them.  The cooks, order error aside, demonstrated their worthiness in the cafe's kitchen.

Being gracious has not always been my default.  I have to work on it sometimes.  Today, when opportunities might make antagonism defensible, I stayed accommodating.  The day should go better from that starting point.

Protecting Prime Time

Like most people, or maybe not, my usual days divide into segments.  The majority of people, certainly me until retirement, had fixed obligations.  We needed to check in at work by a certain time and make provisions to get there.  Some people returned home with predictability.  To keep in good form, we needed to allocate sleeping and wake hours, often aided with an alarm clock.  Once at work, many of us had assigned tasks that did not take into account our natural rhythms, those parts of the day when alertness or creativity peaked while other hours were better suited to activities that required little input from our highest CNS centers.

In retirement, most days belong to me.  Over a short time, I've learned to restore structure that my work obligations once imposed.  Awaken at a fixed time every morning.  Avoid my bed thereafter until a specified time each night.  Lights out at a predictable time, modified to my wife's needs.  I can create environments at home.  My Space designed for focus and comfort.  Bedroom kept as dark as possible every night with a little coolness to enhance sleep.  

Between wake and sleep, many other activities appear.  Exercise on schedule. It traditionally has been what I make excuses to avoid, so that gets a priority right after coffee, even though it requires little mental agility. I remember to take my twice-daily medicines if I set the pills in my line of sight to where I will be, usually at my laptop sipping coffee in the morning or in the kitchen preparing supper in early evening.  Stretching at midday.  YouTube and reading after supper.

Other tasks occur less often, though still scheduled.  Weekly YouTube video created every Monday afternoon.  Weekly aspired task list done at my desk first thing Sunday morning, then selectively transferred to a magnetic whiteboard on the refrigerator.  Weight and waist measured every Monday morning, then recorded to an Excel sheet.  Shabbos dinner needs two minitasks:  defrost meat Wednesday afternoon, defrost minichallot Thursday, and one larger task, cook in time for sundown.  Every Thursday morning while my wife attends to one of her ongoing projects away from home, I tend to clutter in our family room.

All these items get done.  Most are finite.  Most are stand-alone, at least superficially so, though exercise fits into a grander aspiration of continued health and stamina.  Timing adapts to a blend of convenience, avoiding excuses to shirk what I should do, a desire to feel accomplished at the end of each day.

It comes with its downside.  Some highly prized aspirations such as expressing myself, engaging with others, and grappling with ideas, attending OLLI classes depend on my daily rhythms.  The brain has its best times for thinking abstractly, learning new things, and converting concepts to words that can be shared.  I think my optimal mind time fits with the majority, peaking at mid-morning with secondary surges with my first cup of coffee and an hour after supper.  These are the times to seek cognitive flow.  Too often, though, this time gets pre-empted.  When it occurs, distractions too often interrupt those demanding efforts.  Moreover, I'm not entirely certain when my mind functions at its peak.  Maybe when I am exercising, but changing the exercise slot risks not doing it.  For sure, the sorting of family room papers competes with mental prime time because I can count on my wife being away while I work on this.  A better approach, I think, one partially initiated, would be to isolate mental time and creative time just as I do the smaller chores, and as I do when I create my weekly YouTube video.  9-11 at my desk, first half hour thinking on paper, the rest expressing new thoughts and editing old ones.  Then a second effort after supper, 7:30-9PM.  Less TV, or maybe more rationed TV.  Big chunks of protected time for the projects that require undivided attention.  Without getting into my often challenged attention span, the scheduling that I've done the last two years has turned out well.  I need to implement more on a grander scale.  And take advantage of what nature set as cycling abilities.