My name is LaVonne Ellis, and I am a former radio news anchor and director. You may have heard my voice sometime in your childhood if you grew up in Las Vegas or San Diego or, if you’re barely out of your teens, Minneapolis. I also worked for a radio network for a few years, and was thrilled to know that space aliens listening to signals from Earth might someday hear me. I am not kidding. I really thought that. [Who knows, someone out there could be listening right now to something I said twenty years ago. That thought still tickles me.]
But now, I am a blogger and a voice coach. And I have always been a complete flake.
This site was inspired by a brilliant post by the remarkable Sonia Simone called, The Complete Flake’s Guide to Getting Things Done. I read Sonia’s post one day and thought about it as I went into the kitchen to fix myself something for lunch — and realized I had a sink full of dirty dishes to deal with first. I was hungry but couldn’t fix anything to eat until I washed them, not a new experience for me. I was disgusted with myself. Again.
What I need to do, I thought, is start a blog about getting things done. And use it to work on all these different areas where I have problems with getting things done.
Because pretty much everything in my life is affected adversely by my flakiness.
That’s it!
It was a Eureka moment. I knew I had found my subject. I’d been flailing around for years, trying to decide what to do with myself after my radio career had ended unceremoniously in 1999.
I’d planned to write a book of memoirs, and blogged faithfully for a year or two, but ran out of things to say. There was the alternative health news site, the Obama fansite, and the blog about WordPress that lasted exactly two posts. I’d even gotten all worked up about becoming a speech coach. That fizzled too. [Oops, changed my mind. Again.] (And again.)
It was embarrassing.
But now I knew I was on the right track. I would at last be able to admit honestly that I am a Complete Flake and no longer feel the need to hide it — as if everyone around me didn’t already know.
I didn’t choose to be a flake, although I made certain choices long ago that eventually became bad habits. But my essential flakiness, I believe, is something I was born with. If you want a diagnosis, it’s called Attention Deficit Disorder. I prefer the term flake because it doesn’t medicalize the problem. Drugs are not an option for me. [Well, not until marijuana is legalized — but that wouldn’t help my flake problem, not at ALL — so never mind!]
The point is, I won’t be able to transform myself into a non-flake just by reading books about getting things done and organization and decluttering. Even a rigid program of following their advice would never change the essential nature of who I am. Nor would I want it to.
What I do want, and what I hope to share with you, is a way to live better. I want the calmness and serenity that comes with living simply, cooking a healthy meal without having to clean the kitchen first, being able to find things when I want them, not getting lost on the Internet or Twitter when all I set out to do was check my e-mail. I want to go to sleep with a feeling of accomplishment instead of wondering, Where did the day go? I want to feel well rested, healthy, strong, and able to do whatever I choose to do when I choose to do it, without self-imposed obstacles in my way.
I guess that’s what it would feel like to be a non-flake, isn’t it? Well, I’d like to know what that feels like.
So, in spite of loud protests from my obstinate subconscious, I have embarked on this journey of self-improvement I call The Complete Flake.
Yikes.
