Doing Things (?)

Currently I'm between jobs, unemployed, underemployed. I even said to someone yesterday that "my job situation is complicated". I guess it is. I currently have 4 leads and am waiting for a call back. No calls last week, but the sense of finiteness regarding spare time has been in the back of my mind. I wouldn't say that I 'wasted' last week -- I spent my time doing some things that I wanted to do (gardening, watching youtube) and not doing other things that I wanted to do (art, craft, writing). I guess I didn't feel like doing things things so much, so I didn't. But late last week I was thinking about making a list of things I'd like to have done, or at least done some work on, before going back to working 5.5 days a week.

Things that included: tidying up in the garden, finishing a craft project, having several blog posts lined up, exploring some different themes in my art. I guess I wanted my remaining time to be a bit more structured. Like writing a list of things to do each morning isn't structured enough? It would be good to actually do most of those things, instead of leaving half of them for the next day (and the next!).

I didn't think about it too much more until this morning when I was reading some stuff online and randomly happened to come across this blog post Minimalism: Time. I read a few other posts from the blog as well. The writer seems to be very young, and yet very focussed and has a lot of tools for making her life the way she wants it. I'm not sure I'd have every hour of every day day of every week planned out like in her example calendar (though I was tempted to draw up one of my own for about 3 seconds!). It did remind me however, of how much time I waste. It's almost as if the more time you have, the less you value it.

The last few months, I've been playing a lot more ipad games. Some of them get you sucked in by having timed quests, so that you need to return at regular intervals to start the next stage of the quest or else you miss out on the rewards. They can be very compelling. I've even caught myself thinking: "I have to make sure I get that Thing! It's important!" I go to bed thinking that I'm going to prioritise checking the game in the morning. Obviously, I find it fun and relaxing, and I can do whatever I want with my time, but at the same time I think there are more fulfilling things I could be doing!

There are about a billion books, blogs and articles on productivity and Getting Shit Done out there, and I've read quite a few of them. I guess this one struck me because I've been thinking about how I spend my time lately. I was also affected by the description of time as sacred -- if you waste it, you can never get it back. It also talked about alive time vs. dead time, which I'm not quite so into (perhaps if they changed the terminology?) but I do understand. It's all about productivity. Or always focussing on what you really want. Or something.

As an antidote to all this, this morning I also read Bjorn Bull-Hansen's latest blog post: The Automation Revolution. Actually, in some ways it's on the same theme -- that of spending your time doing things you want to do, and that make you happy.

So, I decided to re-visit the exercise I first did about 5 years ago, from whats-her-name of the 168 Hours book. (Sorry, too busy writing to look it up right now!) I'm going to keep a record of how I spend my time for 1 week, then analyse it and see where I can make changes. I can already think of a couple of things off the top of my head! Like changing my facebook settings so news articles aren't the first thing I see. I log on there to see what my friends are doing, not to get swept up in reading articles on the latest meme or why you should eat rice for breakfast or what horrible people did next!

Of course, observing something changes it, and if I'm already thinking of changes, then I might not want to wait a whole week to implement them and yadda yadda. But I will just continue on for today and see where it goes. Although, I have to say, spending 20 minutes unable to type because the cat was sitting on my chest was not really in my plans today...

More on 2017

In the New Year, I wrote a list of goals on my main blog (or is it my craft blog, or my hobbies blog, or my blog I don't mind the general public seeing as much? Ahdunno!). I created 9 goals, as 9 is an important number for me. Here they are in short form, to save you from having to click over:

1. Spend more time outside.
2. Share more on the blog.
3. Finish KonMari'ing my house.
4. Plan a regular yoga practice.
5. Continue my rune studies and other spiritual pursuits.
6. Spend more time doing crafts.
7. See if my sewing machine still works; if not, buy a new one.
8. Explore fashion more and take more photos of myself.
9. Play with my dolls more, and make/design things for them.

Even as I was formulating them, I realised they were mostly to do with things I write about on my hobby blog, so I decided to use my Life Square that I created last new year to come up with a more balanced set of goals .... eugh *shivers* goals gwishes (as Havi from The Fluent Self calls them!). I made up a 9x3 grid (because, I dunno, that was just working for me at the time) and slotted the gwishes into it. Then I added in more to fill out the grid:



The 9 gwishes from my hobby blog are highlighted in green. I called it a matrix because that just sounded cool. A few of the gwishes are fairly simple and/or things I'll probably do in the next month, it's true, but I wanted to give myself a couple of easy ones. Self love, baby, self love!

Looking over it again, I also realised that nearly all of the gwishes will further ones on my 101 Things in 1,001 Days list, which is great!

Then I made an attempt to write a list of actions underneath each gwish, but my brain went Ugh!!, and it didn't happen. But I'm back again today, inspired (as I was this time last year) by the organisational prowess of Marietta of Witchy Words, as well as this article I read this morning: Why You Should Be Planning for 2018, Not 2017. Medium has about a billion articles on motivation and suchlike, especially at this time of year, but for some reason that one stuck with me. Well, it has for the last 6 hours anyway.

With both of those influences percolating away in the back of my mind, I determined to have another go at writing a list of actions that will get me closer to my gwishes in 2017. I will use all the lessons I've learned in goal-setting and SMART Thingies and blah blah to craft it. (Can I count it as working on my crafts?)

[fast forward to tomorrow]



I copied out the 9x3=18 gwishes into a new page, and made space for up to 3 actions underneath each one. I greyed out any that I don't want to start working on straight away. I took it easy, working on one gwish at a time, breaking down things into as small actions as possible, trying to make them into Complete Willingness Units (CWU) as Barbara Sher calls them. (Many people have thought of alternatives names for that concept, and I might too one day.) Actually, I'm not too sure I did so well at this part -- most of them can be broken down into smaller tasks, but at least it's a start.

The idea now is to add the matrix to my weekly routine -- the bit where I check my master list to see what I want/need to do for the upcoming week. Theoretically, that should keep things chugging along until I achieve all my goals gwishes! Part of me is tempted to pooh-pooh it all and say I can't/won't do all that. Another part of me is tempted to add more and more until it's completely impossible to achieve. Part of me is thinking, "what if I do other stuff that isn't on the list, then that stuff won't really count!" (I have no idea what purpose it serves to think things like that.) But the article I read says you really have to believe you can do things if you want to achieve them, so I'm really going to try.

So this is Thursday.

So this is Thursday. Nearly the end of the week, and only one sleep til I can sleep in. Yes, it's kind of sad that ones of the highlights of my weekend will be getting to sleep in, but we all have to start somewhere, right? Last Saturday morning I was so happy to be able to stay in bed, that I played Pocket Planes for a while, then I had a nap, then I finished the graphic novel I was reading. I was in bed til about 11.30! How decadent! Normally I'd beat myself up about it, telling myself that I was wasting the day and I had better things to do. But really, what would I have been doing? Sitting on my butt and surfing the internet and eating unhealthy food, not doing exercise or housework or anything I should be doing. I think I've been beating myself up less lately because I'm more realistic. I know that most of the things on my To-Do list are horribly overdue, but many of them are things that aren't really important, like paint my toenails. I just don't feel like doing that right now, and that's OK. I'll do it when I feel like it. Other things are admittedly more important, like exercising and keeping my budget up-to-date. Part of me thinks, "Oh well, I'll just do those things when I feel like it as well, it's no biggie". Another part of me thinks, "No, those are really important to do regularly, you should push yourself, no matter how much you can't be bothered." Either way, nothing's been getting done! Or I do something once, pat myself on the back and don't do it again. But that can't go on forever, can it!

I still feel like I'm on the verge of a change (big or not so big, I don't know). Not, like, quit-my-job big, more like an internal change. I know I've been saying that for a while, but I still feel it. For ages I've been avoiding things - I've been eating unhealthy foods without thinking about it. Exercising just a little bit each week, and telling myself it's enough. Filing away the inspirational emails from Mind Coach without reading them. Not reading the inspirational blogs that I used to read, either. Looking through fashion magazines and wishing I could wear the clothes now, and feeling bad and hating my life. I know it's going to take up to two years to get to the weight I want. The longer I put off starting, the longer it'll take til I get to my goal. So why am I putting it off?? I'm getting more and more frustrated and I really feel like something's going to snap soon. 'Snap' is probably too strong a word, but you know what I mean. Changes.

In Other News....

Last night I had a really strange dream. I dreamed that I visited a Japanese style bathhouse. It was a mixed one for men and women. I don't know if mixed ones even exist any anymore - since the U.S. entered Japan in the 19th century, they decided that mixed bathing was wrong and dirty and made all the bathhouses build separate sections for men and women (even though it was not perceived as sexual at all by the Japanese). Anyway, so this bathhouse was a mixed one. And I want to stress, there was nothing sexual at all about it. So I went in and started doing my bathing business, and there were 2 guys in there. It all just seemed completely normal and I felt fine. I even got into a chat with one of the guys and we talked about all sorts of stuff, including body image. I found out that he had a lot of the same issues I have - it was really interesting to find out that someone who was so different in many ways, could have the same feelings and worries. I felt really relaxed and was having a nice time talking.
Then some more people entered the bathing room. About 10 people entered all at once, and even though the room was quite large, it felt really crowded all of a sudden. The new people were a mixture of men and women, and all of them were young and fit. I suddenly started to feel really self-conscious. I couldn't help comparing myself to them (mostly the women, but also the men as well with their fitness). I stopped chatting and couldn't think of anything to say. All the negative feelings I have about my body just flooded in. It was overwhelming and I just wanted to get out of there. And that was how the dream ended.

It was a pretty depressing dream in the end, but I think it was one of those dreams that's trying to tell me something. You know - stop comparing myself to other people; stop beating myself up; find ways to love and accept myself; seek out people with similar issues. All that jazzy.

I was going to write a long section about why this just seems impossible right now - with work being so busy and feeling so stressed and tired, it seems like a hard slog. But I'm not going to, because I guess I know deep down inside that it's all just a bunch of whingeing excuses. I've always tried not to make excuses - or at least face up to what they really are when I find myself doing it. Regardless, I don't have time to think about all this right now. I'll sit down on the weekend and really think about it, and draw up a plan of the things I can do, the steps I can take.... Will take?? I've done more than enough over-sharing for a Thursday.

Surprise!

It's been a while, hasn't it? I try not to be the kind of person who apologises for not posting for ages on my blogs - especially this one where it's my personal blog and I can not post for as long as I like, darrrrrnit! There just haven't been any health/fitness/food/weight-loss related things to talk about. i.e. I gave up.

No, it seems wrong to say that. I was on a hiatus (much as I hate that word, it describes the situation pretty accurately and I can't be bothered looking up thesaurus.com right now!). For a long time I was pretty sad and frustrated: I want to do things differently, but nothing is changing. People say to me, you need to change, you can't just sit back and expect things to change around you, it needs to come from inside you. But I felt like I was empty, there was nothing inside. I got sadder and more frustrated. I felt very tired and run-down. Not a cold or anything in particular, just didn't feel like doing anything. In bed at night, trying to get to sleep, my heart would pound and I'd lie there for ages, trying to relax enough to sleep. Even a double dose of my herbal sleeping tablets didn't help. My exercise sessions dropped from 3 days a week, to 1, to none. I felt even more sad and frustrated that my goals were slipping away. I kept telling myself to do the things I needed to do, but it just didn't happen.

Then about a month ago, I was at the chemist getting a replacement bottle of the herbal sleeping tablets. Right next to them on the shelf was a bottle marked 'Mood'. May assist with stress, anxiety and sleeplessness. I bought it on impulse. It sat unopened on the coffee table for about a week, until Husband said, "have you started taking those yet? You really should start taking them". A mini wake-up call. I started taking them. I started feeling better. I felt happy again for the first time in weeks. I stopped obsessively thinking about the things that make me anxious. I no longer beat myself up mercilessly about the things I wasn't doing that I was supposed to be doing. It didn't feel like a struggle to leave the house and be in public. The twice-weekly visit to my barista was fun and chatty instead of awkward and painful. Nothing actually changed, I just felt better about everything. I feel like things could happen. Which is something I haven't felt for a while.
How strange that a couple of big pink pills can change what you're thinking and how you're feeling. I almost can't believe it can be true - was it just a coincidence? - but I guess it must be true.

Things stalled a bit when I got an actual cold last weekend, which resulted in my having to take 2 days off work last week. But! I didn't let it get me down. Normally I'd be all wah, wah, but I used the days off to actually rest and do some relaxing things like watch a movie, listen to my relaxation app and do a face mask treatment. And I hardly felt guilty about it at all. It was pretty nice, considering. I felt mostly better by Friday.

A lesson in why you should take your tablets!-
I was a bit slack with taking my tablets over the weekend, and I skipped my mood ones for a couple of days. Never do that again! I slept terribly last night, I was awake half the night with my heart pounding, and woke well before the alarm so hot and sweaty. I felt so wretched and frustrated, I was late for work, I feel so tired today that I could just about fall asleep at my desk. I haven't felt this way since, geez, before I started taking the tablets! Don't get me wrong, I don't think they're the perfect solution or anything, but they're helping me at the moment.

Anyway, that's probaby enough over-sharing for one day. Hopefully I'll have some reports about actual stuff soon. Meanwhile, here's a pretty picture of something nice:

Thinking

Yesterday someone at work found out that it was my birthday and in the afternoon my workmates rushed out and bought me some flowers and chocolates! How absolutely lovely! I was so embarrassed and so pleased. Having only been there 3 months, it really made me feel like I'm appreciated and I'm starting to fit in. Then last night Husband made me a delicious meal, and I got lots of messages wishing me a happy birthday. Even though I didn't do anything above and beyond the ordinary, it was really lovely. I spent most of the evening just relaxing, and did a little bit of craft. Nice.

Today I'm really tired. But I know why - I haven't had my juice! Since we got the juicer, Husband and I have been having a glass in the mornings before work. We've been adding a little protein powder, aloe vera juice and olive leaf extract. Protein gives you energy, aloe vera soothes my colitis, and I can't remember what the olive leaf is for right now! All I know is, on mornings when we don't drink the juice for whatever reason, I'm dead tired all day. When I do drink it, I feel pretty normal. So yeah, go the juice!

I also weighed myself this morning - bad idea! Guess Easter's caught up with me. I don't wanna talk about it! Time to examine my habits again and make an effort to change them. To wit -
1. often very busy at work in the afternoons, not paying attention to whether I'm hungry, therefore I'm usually starving before I'm even halfway home and I'm raiding the cupboards as soon as I get home;
2. usually exhausted after work, with no energy for exercising;
3. not paying enough attention to what I'm eating and what's in it, especially at home and on the weekends;
4. not exercising on the weekend, the exact time when I have plenty of time and scads of energy; why am I not taking advantage of this?? answer: because other activities are more compelling (i.e. I'm lazy!);
5. staying up later than I should because I'm not sleepy at the right time, and/or taking (herbal) sleeping tablets to help me sleep;
6. letting negative thoughts take over my life and affect my behaviour/enjoyment of life;
7. a few other personal things which I'm too embarrassed to reveal here.

Interestingly, I'm more than willing to list what I don't like about my current routine, but now that it's time to figure out how to change it, I'm stalling. Ah well, that's always the way, isn't it? It's not because I can't think of what to do. It's because I don't really believe I'll go ahead and do it. I can't count the number of times I've made resolutions, drawn up goals, created timetables and schedules and lists of rules. And I've never stuck to any of them! Not for more than a few days/weeks, anyway.

However, I'm determined, so I'm going to force myself to come up with at least one solution for each of the above problems. Think of it like a brainstorming exercise.
1. get a supply of muesli bars or something and, earlier in the day, put one in a visible place as a reminder; get a selection of convenient healthy snacks that I can grab and eat at home, healthier versions of what I normally crave.
2. go for walks at lunchtime. sure, the exercise isn't as vigorous or lengthy as it could be, but at least it's a start.
3. prepare ahead of time for meals on the weekend, just like I prepare for the working week. Go to the supermarket a second time on Thursday or Friday so we don't run out of fresh food by the weekend. I have more time to cook on the weekend, so make it fun by trying out a new recipe or ingredient.
4. this is a hard one! perhaps concentrate on more interesting exercises rather than just walking (hello kinect!) Turn it into something fun like a shopping trip or take my camera if going for a walk. Give myself a treat (though it's hard for me to think of treats other than food). Make a rule that I can't go on the computer until I've exercised. (Actually that works better than you might think for me, because if I've already exercised then I don't have to feel guilty. Maybe a little emotionally unhealthy, but if it works, right? hmmm)
5. re-training myself to go to bed earlier through persistence. Setting the DVR to record interesting shows so I'm not tempted to stay up later. Using meditation techniques so I'm more relaxed around bedtime.
6. being more mindful of my thoughts and countering/questioning them. Reminding myself when I'm in a sad mood that it's OK and it will pass. Using meditation to help with anxiety.
7. hopefully some of the things in point 6 and other positive changes will help with these things. (I know I'm being vague, but I don't care!)

Tonight I'll have another look at this and see if I can condense it down into 2 or 3 of the most helpful and do-able changes.

New Things

Yesterday I made a shiny, fancy banner for my blog! Right up the top there! Isn't it pretty? It's an indicator that it's really time to get serious about things.

I read this article in The Age online this morning. The title caught my eye: "This much we know: there's fat chance of staying slim". Of course that would catch a person's eye! It's saying that people can't lose weight and keep it off, no matter how hard they try?! But the article itself isn't that sensationalist. It's by a historian who's written a book on the history of dieting. It looks interesting. There are some interesting snippets of historical information from the book. Did you know that the ancient Greeks practiced bulimia? Edwardians were really into laxatives? And of course, the diet industry is just a sham run by rip-off merchants.
The conclusion is - it is possible to lose weight, not by dieting, but by incremental lifestyle changes and an emphasis on health and fitness rather than pure weight loss. It's not new, but it's a good reminder at this time of year, when rash resolutions and giddy goals are flying around left, right and centre!

In Related News ...

Speaking of goals....
I've written a list of 10 goals for 2012. The ones relevant to this blog are:

[3.] Get enough sleep and water.
[4.] Complete the Bed to Couch exercise programme.
[8.] Do a meditation course.

I try to bear in mind the SMART goals formula when I'm making plans for myself. What am I going to do? How am I going to do it? How much is enough?

I've already taken steps (baby ones!) towards some of the goals.
[*] Get enough sleep and water.
I should say: by 'enough' I mean 8 hours of sleep and 2 litres of water. To start with, I set a reminder on my daily to-do app to drink 1 litre of water per day, for the next 2 weeks.
[*] Complete the Bed to Couch exercise programme.
First step was finding the spreadsheet on my computer! Second step is writing out all the levels as I'd only planned out the first 3 previously.
[*] Do a meditation course.
I'm waiting until next month to start looking into this, as courses don't generally tend to start this early in the year. I've put a reminder in my to-do app to do this.

I may or may not post regular updates on my progress, depending on how I feel.

Later That Night

I've had a few drinks now, so naturally what I'd like to do (aside from making impulse purchases online) is to expand on my list of goals things I'd like to improve on. That's always fun on a Friday night.

* exercise more. set goals to work towards.
I feel like I've been trying to do this already for years! Like every time I take one step forward, I immediately take two (or more!) steps back, due to being sick, spraining my ankle, being crazy-busy all of a sudden, etc. etc. Then other times, admittedly, I don't do adequate exercise because, well, playing on the internet and reading just seem like much more fun. It's so much effort. But, as I acknowledged in discussion yesterday, the first step is the hardest. The more I do, the easier it'll get. (And the more I'll be able to do for the same amount of effort - which is the point after all!) I just need to take the first step. Of course, rationally, I'm fully aware of the benefits of exercise and want them. But in the meantime, somehow I need to find the belief in myself somewhere that going for a walk is more fun/entertaining/all-around-good than reading my favourite blogs. Right now, I'm not convinced. I'll have to think on it some more.

* tackle cravings when I get home from work. eat a healthier/smaller snack.
I've managed to successfully kick the habit of eating chocolate at work after lunch. Even when I'm really stressed out. Yay Team Me! But now I feel the need to tackle my after-work craving. When I get home from work, I just want to sit back and relax, sometimes with just a cup of green tea. Other times, when I'm a bit - or very! - stressed, I have cravings for things like: cheese, meats (ham, salami, etc) or sometimes nuts. Last night's leftovers! Boy says - you're probably craving protein, just have a glass of milo or milk with protein powder instead. I say - are you crazy?! They don't taste anything like cheese or ham! Why would I want to eat those?! So, like with the chocolate craving, I need to think of a suitable substitute that passes enough for the real thing to fool my body. Or perhaps stock up on some small, low-fat snack packs to start with, and go from there?

* eat a healthier dessert or none at all.
Another food-related issue. Soon after dinner each night, I get a hankering for something sweet. It's a habit, I guess. If I put a bit of effort and forethought in, I have something nice and fairly healthy, like yoghurt and tinned fruit (in juice, not syrup, of course!). If I don't put in the above-mentioned, Boy and I end up eating any number of less healthy things that we have kicking around the house. Especially this time of year, when our Christmas hampers have arrived. *sighs* So it seems the solution here is a bit of pre-planning and a bit of mindfulness.

* find ways to de-stress effectively.
Yah, well! I'm finding this harder lately. Since I moved house. The bath here takes half an hour to fill, plus it needs cleaning beforehand as the washing machine drains into it and it constantly gets dirty. And it's much shallower than the old one so my tummy and legs poke up out of the water and get cold. So having a bath is now annoying instead of relaxing. So I switched to having a nice, hot shower instead. But now that's become an annoying exercise as well. A problem has developed with the taps, and no matter what I do, the water temperature is either a bit too hot or a bit too cold. No in-between! And when you do adjust the tap, the new temperature takes about 30 seconds to come through, so you start to think - perhaps I didn't turn the tap far enough, so you turn it some more and suddenly it's freezing! Unbelievably frustrating. So the old relaxing hot shower with a nice-smelling shower gel is beyond my reach now, too. I'm not quite sure what to do. I'm still having showers about 50% of the time at night, and trying not to let it get to me. I take comfort in two facts I read recently: 1. cool/cold showers make you burn more calories as your body is trying to keep itself warm, and 2. apparently it's better to have a warm/cool shower (rather than hot) just before bed as, if your body overheats it keeps you awake. Plus I still get to use the yummy shower gels. So yeah.
And plus trying to meditate again would help a lot too, I think. For a while I was managing to meditate a little. In discussion I was given a suggestion to try for 30 seconds at a time. That amount of time isn't daunting at all, and I was managing to do it just fine in bed before going to sleep. So perhaps it's time to revive this.

* go to bed earlier and get enough sleep.
So many benefits to this, yet so hard to convince myself to just do it instead of watching the last half of My Strange Addiction! Then of course I always regret it the next morning, drink an extra cup of coffee, and tell myself I'll go to bed on time the next night. And the cycle repeats over again! Again, a little mindfulness would probably help here, too. Thinking about the big picture. Sleeping is pretty good, after all. It's the getting-up bit afterwards that's a little sucky!

* be more mindful of negative thoughts.
I've already been doing pretty well at this lately, I've realised. I just need to keep going! I've been teaching myself to say, "no, I deserve better than that!" It's not often that I truly believe it, but it makes me stop short and think about what I've been thinking or what I've been about to do. So I'm not there yet, but I'm definitely on the way.

I've gone on a bit, haven't I? But I guess that's what you do when you're a bit drunk ;)