Tag: decision-making

Mevagissey #art

I painted this little watercolour picture of Mevagissey harbour back in June. I was looking to paint a picture to use for a birthday card for the son of one of my wife’s best friends, and brother to one of my elder daughter’s closest friends (by which I mean that the son was also the brother!). As it happened, a couple of months previously, his mum had seen some of my pictures when visiting our home, we got talking about art, and along the way she told us how he had surprised her by saying that when he finally got his own place to live (he’s in his mid/late 20s) he wanted to have pictures of two places that were special to him – Pew Tor on Dartmoor, close to their home in Tavistock, and Mevagissey in Cornwall.

As the date of the birthday approached I started to think of painting one of my ‘special place’ pictures for his card. The trouble was, I was faced with a choice, and anyone who knows me well will know that one thing I am not good at dealing with is choice. It’s tempting to think that choice is a good thing, and I am sure that I would say that I’d prefer to always have a choice than not, but in many ways I’d find life a lot easier if there was a little creature sitting on my shoulder, or tucked into my sleeve, whispering to tell me what to do all of the time.

Should I paint Pew Tor or should I paint Mevagissey?

I’d painted a larger picture of Pew Tor back in early March and knew that I could produce something smaller but similar that would work as a birthday card. I’d also painted various places in Cornwall as part of my Cornwall Landmarks Miniature Watercolours Series. But I’d never tackled Mevagissey… So, one morning I took a small piece of watercolour paper, performed a quick Google search for a suitable photograph, and set to work.

I like the results of my effort – the painting that introduces this post. The picture I chose was a fairly busy scene, with the quayside at Mevagissey backed by all kinds of interestingly shaped and coloured buildings, a host of colourful boats moored at the water’s edge, a pair of rather striking light-blue benches towards the right of the scene, and the bright yellow fishing boat pulling out confidently towards open waters. It was a picture that provided lots of splashes of colour that give the painting a nice sense of aliveness I think.

But, in the end, it was Pew Tor that won the mental tug-of-war that was taking place inside my head. I put my little Mevagissey picture, really just a test piece, to one side, and opted instead for the Dartmoor ‘special place’ rather than the Cornish one. If you are reading this soon after it was originally posted (on 9th September 2025) and want to see the Pew Tor picture that I ended up using, then you’ll just have to visit this site again in a few days time… because if all goes to plan I will post it here soon. For now, you’ll just have to enjoy a quick trip to Mevagissey – a perfect example of the many picturesque little harbour towns that line the southern Cornish coastline.

Running Early

Yesterday, frustrated by my inability to fit various activities into my life and by my tendency to struggle to do anything if it involves me making a decision, I came (back) to the thought that I function much better when I remove the decision-making process entirely from the equation. The specific example was fitting running into my schedule – I have a vague plan of running three times per week, two shorter runs on weekdays (most commonly Monday/Tuesday and Thursday/Friday) and then a longer run on (usually) Saturday morning. There I was, on Monday morning, knowing that I had to fit a run in over the next couple of days but not being able to decide when I would do this. Now, for me, having to make a decision like this is always problematic because, weirdly, if I am left to my own devices and am solely reliant on my own motivation to do things, the most likely outcome is that I will do nothing. Despite WANTING to do things I rarely FEEL like doing things. I have a huge amount of internal friction, or what I am now starting to think of as ‘personal viscosity‘, that resists action. All of which left me struggling to decide, struggling to plan and generally feeling frustrated with myself (as usual).

After a short period of wallowing in some kind of self-pity I was struck by the thought that it would really be a lot better if I didn’t leave myself having to decide about things and that it would be much better to decide now that I always do X at time Y. This is basically the idea of making a decision once rather than having to make similar decisions many times over. It’s not a new idea, I’ve been in this place and had this thought plenty of times in the past and, I am sure, will re-discover it again plenty of times in the future; because I know what I’m like and it would be unrealistic to think that suddenly I will make a plan, turn it into action and everything will be sweetness and light forever after.

After this re-revelation I decided that the best way for me to remove the decision-making process from my running deliberations would simply be to run everyday, if only for a mile, first thing in the morning unless there was some other specific event occurring that prevented this. The result was a ‘plan’ to run 1 mile on Mondays, ~3 miles on Tuesdays, 1 mile on Wednesdays, ~5 miles on Thursday and 1 mile on Fridays, always starting as close to 7am as possible (immediately after waking) and before I had done anything else, including eating. Then, on Saturdays, I would do a longer run (say 90-120 minutes) starting an hour after eating some breakfast which I would do first thing. My thinking was that if I didn’t have any decisions to make there would be one less barrier to me getting out and that I would have the satisfaction of always having achieved something at the start of the day. I would win a battle with myself before embarking on the war that stretched ahead of me each day. To help myself out I would have all of my running gear set up ready to put on in the morning so that again, another monster standing in the way of action would be pre-slain.

That was Monday, today is Tuesday.

It sort of worked. Actually, that’s unfair. It DID work, just not quite as smoothly as I would have liked (or imagined). I did get out for my run – a 3 mile route around local streets that I call ‘Mostly Mannamead’. It was a little slow and I was a little creaky (I’d not run for 4 days) but the run happened. What went less well is that it took me 15-20 minutes from the time I woke to overcome my viscosity and get moving and then I slipped into one of my cracks in time on my return to the house and took ages to get myself into the shower and onwards to breakfast, some writing and then into work. It’s clear that I really need to work on my transitions.

Tomorrow being Wednesday and just a 1 mile run day should be easier. I’ll set myself up in advance – running kit out etc – and I will TRY to reduce the time it takes for me to get out of the door. On my return I’ll probably go straight into breakfast mode before I have a shower. Oddly, I have no trouble eating immediately after I run (and anyway, 1 mile is hardly a run at all) and hopefully that will mean that I’ve cooled down and am ready to shower as soon as I have finished eating. Maybe, just maybe, I can get everything to fall into place – wake, run, breakfast, shower – and be able start writing (something else that I am trying to work into my schedule on a more regular and reliable basis) by 8am.

We’ll see…