I've been amazed over the last three months or so, about how well things get done when I'm not trying hard. Just about every day during 2004, I've done what I felt most like doing. And I've gotten more accomplished than when I was setting a lot of clear, specific goals and planning how to achieve them.
I used to try various ways to get myself to follow through and get things done from my lists. Or I'd schedule time blocks, set up a routine. These methods worked to some extent, but there was a lot of friction, resistance, and downright unhappiness.
Bossy Cathy: "OK, now you've gotta do such and such. It's very important. Do it now!"
Slave Cathy: "Aw, I guess. All right. If I really have to." (She can't really make me, can she?)
As part of my effortless slide into effortlessness this year - life has been quite different. No alarm clock. I wake up when I wake up. In the morning I do what I want to do. After a while I may want to do something else so I do that. At the end of the day when I'm really sleepy I go to bed.
It's an extremely complicated system, as you can see.
My partner has been telling me for years that this would work. But I didn't believe it. Robert Genn went through similar experiments with time management for years, then ended up with the same effortless system. In The Painter's Keys he calls it "the Joy mode."
That's a good name for it. Mostly I've been full of joy this year. There have been some days when I pushed myself around and got miserable, but most days have been free and wild and wonderful.
I'm a lot less logical now in the order in which I do things. Or perhaps I should say, that the logic is a different kind of logic. The order emerges from the inside, instead of being imposed from the outside.
It makes no sense to say something like "give effortlessness a try." Trying keeps it away. "Give effortlessness a chance" says it better. Or - give joy a chance.
4:42:01 PM 
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