The Great Escape

Imagine aliens devise a trap with the lure of entertainment to draw us in, a trap in which we are instantly immobilized, our vision tuned into one direction, sedatives applied so we ignore physical discomfort.

I just lost about 4 hours to facebook video. They were riveting, amazing, adorable, mindblowing ... and time-wasting. That is not how I intended to spend Tuesday.

How does it feel? It's like eating cotton candy - it tastes oh-so-good while you're munching it, but the instant you stop, you feel like you just rotted your brain. Numb in the keyster, a little twinge in my lower back, tension in the back of my neck.

What did I intend to do? Nothing I had planned will be a tenth as entertaining as what I just witnessed ... How can real life compete with the top produced videos continuously poured into my eyes with no effort, no cost. Except my time.

How do I extricate myself from switching channels and diving into Youtube or Amazon Prime or Solarmovie?

No matter how long I "invest", I don't feel any different. Nothing has changed in my life except for the passage of time. I've eaten breakfast and drunk a cup of tea without notice, while my eyes and ears continued to be mesmerized. It's like getting caught in a force field.

How do I escape the trap?
Step 1: recognize it. Label it as a trap designed by someone else to steal my time and prevent me from tackling my own goals.

Step 2: Move. Get up. Get dressed. Meditate to clear my mind and identify the goals I choose for today. Write them down. Put the computer to sleep and set out on a mission to tackle a task.

Step 3: Set counter-traps to evade capture the next time I dare enter this room.
I'm closing all the "look at later" tabs and I've added the Block Site extension to Chrome.
Now this is cute - the default website to block is facebook :-) My redirect is guidetothegood.ca. I can only peak in after 10PM to catch Rachel Maddow ... if I really feel the need to spend a single minute more in that dystopian universe.

I've also raised my keyboard and monitor so this is a standing workstation - now I'm more inclined to *move!*
And my new personal assistant, Andy the Butler, has been warned not to notify me of new youtube videos.

I think I just eluded the Talosians!

A serving of cold turkey

So I was watching youtube while I was getting up motivation to start my day, and I found some great advice on how I'm sabotaging myself by expecting that I'll still be here in my housecoat later, which leaves me feeling defeated before I even get dressed. So that sounds like a wise piece of advice to incorporate into how I'm approaching my day ...


And that directed me to this related TEDx talk on how you can solve anything if you tell enough people, since people are at heart helpful. That feels like a nice approach to life (and I've got plenty of evidence from my last year). Another lesson to digest on how to approach life ...



But here I am at 3PM, and I'm still in my housecoat, and I still haven't meditated or even decided my game plan for the day. The shadows are starting to slide sideways across the window ledge. The temperature is just starting to drop again. There's only a couple hours til the business I need to visit today closes!

This is #$*& ridiculous!
I'm not sleeping regularly, eating healthy or accomplishing anything this week. My new jeans are already uncomfortably tight and I can barely do my coat up. I think it's time for a change - definitely some bad habits. Oh look - my doppelganger has allegedly figured out how to break her bad habit (eating chocoloate), like that'll work for me.



But wait, according to video #1, I need to reorient my expectation.  Let's try this:
I *expect* this to work. I believe I can change and this is one way to do it.
So I'm going to actually *do* what she recommends.

I'm going to set smart goals and a plan:

What:

1. reduce weight by 20# by Dec. 21 to reduce strain on joints.

2. reduce waist by 6" by Dec. 21 to reduce back strain.

3. reduce time wasted with youtube to less than 1 hour/day *immediately* so I don't get double-vision by mid-afternoon.

Why: 

I want to overcome depression so I can sleep without melatonin and not binge eat.

I want things other than youtube and food to be what drive me and make me feel good.

I want to feel energetic enough to get up and do things every day.

I want to be proud of my life. 

(and other more personal reasons.)

How: 

Start with a 30-day commitment and re-set the method then.

* switch to decaf to reduce anxiety (already done!)

* prep tasty snacks so they're easier to find and clear everything else out of sight (nearly done)

* be more active in how I do things: dance around the kitchen, run up the stairs, stand at the compute (doing that right now!)

Do the following 3 things *every day* for 30 days:

   1. every day get dressed before I use the computer room.

   2. meditate. every. morning.

   3. every day do 30 minutes of some kind of exercise.

And lastly, I'm going cold turkey on youtube for the next 30 days. I can't actually think of a reason to use it. (A movie on Prime is ok in the evening.)

So that's it. The last youtube videos you'll see posted here for the next 30 days. Which means I should have more time to blog and do other things ;-) And I'll post a star for each goal I meet.

I can do this! It's easier than Sun Run training and I've done that 3 times. I'm getting dressed now. 

I'm starting today!

Stay tuned - keep me honest tomorrow.

A Canadian horror story II: Excavating what lies beneath

The graveyard that is the basket beneath my desk is filled with papers that vie for my attention, from insurance renewals to a "better" internet offer to a moose license application to the warrantee for my baguette tray and the manual for my new phone. Why do the ghosts of my actions haunt me with their white sheets?

Last week, I finally swept the cobwebbed carpet of receipts from my desk with my new accounting schtick. But there's still non-receipt papers that I don't have a system to deal with, invading random corners, overflowing baskets and threatening to erupt onto my carefully cleared desk. I resentfully admit that some of these paper ghosts will have a home in my space.

I realize I need a mausoleum, a near-obsolete coffin to house them called a "filing cabinet". And after to a fun afternoon thrift shopping with my neighbour, a footstool-sized filing cabinet followed me home. It's white maw holds 26 alphabetized hanging folders (now with a cushion on it so it really is my footstool). Following Clutterbug Cassandra's method (loosely), I've cleared all of the misc. papers in reach into broad categories.

Now I *did not* relabel the folders: then I would spend a month second-guessing and relabeling. I will not grant them eternal life. This is not a rigid system—instead, I cross-referenced the alphabetic folders with their contents in a Google sheet. That way I can occasionally eliminate something or replace it with a more important category. And I don't have to remember where I put my last permit or who was in that play.



Regardless: it doesn't matter how I filed them, the papers disappeared into it and I can find anything in there in an instant.

I'm happy to say some of the 26 categories are already empty—hard copies are thankfully becoming obsolete with many businesses.

And my desk is clear because folder 'A' holds the things I need to do next and folder 'B' is things I'd like to do that don't have a deadline. I only have to look folder 'A' for things I intend to do today.


The Paper Monster still lurks in boxes and baskets behind my bed, but it's ghostly minions are being exiled one by one. It knows its days are numbered.

My next trick is promoting my Android smartphone to "personal assistant".

A Canadian horror story: Digging out from under

Are you tormented by the Paper Monster? You're not alone. There's one lurking inside everyone's front door, threatening to appear at the end of a long day, or worse, just as your mother drops by. It sneaks up from behind your monitor, attacks from long-forgotten boxes and dark, dusty closets.

Years ago, I decided I wanted to go completely digital so I could banish the Paper Monster forever. So I ditched the printer. I switched everything to online billing. I took stuff into work to scan so I could get rid of the piles of paper filling boxes in my home office. I reduced my filing system to an accordion file. A little accordion file. My dream was to have a clear desk.

So after a year the accordion file filled up with old things I might or might not need to keep. I wasn't sure how to purge things, so I reorganized with a new larger accordion file categorized by month. Then I could just rotate and look at things once a year. So the year passed, and the file filled, except for the things I wasn't sure how to categorize.

Stacks of unsorted miscellaneous papers grew across my desk. Eventually, I shuffled everything into a basket for sorting later. Then I got another basket. Then I moved the baskets to another room. I didn't have time to empty a basket.

And the desk filled again. So I got a tasteful lidded box to suit my decor and packed everything on the desk into that until I could deal with them. And cleaned the desk.

Then I returned from a trip with papers I collected and the desk was covered again. So I started a new system, sorting receipts by credit card, debit and cash/gift card so I could reconcile when the bills arrived. And the stacks of not-quite-sorted papers grew under cute paperweights.

Now I'm sneezing at my desk, crumbs and dust-bunnies milling around a carpet of (mostly) receipts. *sigh* I just want to have my finances in order and whatever other paperwork an adult is supposed to manage done and out of sight. But the Paper Monster is tireless and I'm not.

In the dark of despair, I hear the voice of a friend. She tames the Paper Monster every day with her coffee - downloading recent transactions and importing them into her accounting program and throwing out the reconciled receipts. Every day. No piles awaiting arbitrary statement dates.

So I try it. I find the download pages for each bank and bookmark the lot as a tab folder in my browser. I get my morning cuppa and empty my wallet and ... Lightning strikes. Paper evaporates in a puff as my online banks convert them to entries in my accounting program (gnucash, if you're curious). I chased the Paper Monster away before I finished my tea!

Day 2: repeat. Day 3: repeat. My wallet stays empty. A week goes by: still empty. This is starting to feel like a habit. The swath of papers still on my desk irritates me. So I pick up a handful - and start sorting by month. I know I haven't cleared this since the Christmas trip. Oh, here's an older one. I'll set that aside.

This isn't exactly fun - boring actually. I take a little calligraphy break to make labels out of recipe cards, one for each month. (I'll only need the last few, but still, it's fun.) I lay the cards for November and December on the growing stacks of faded cash register tape. Oh, here's some from last Oct. The papers are coalescing into shifting card-capped hills. Last July appears. I break for lunch. Nearly there now - there's only the paperweight-topped piles I started for my last system on one corner - those should be from my last reconcile date. Well, back when I was emptying my wallet each week. At the bottom, like an archaeologist, I find April. It's been almost a year since this surface has seen the light of day. *sneeze*

Task done, but vaguely dissatisfying. I take all the monthly stacks and clip them with alligator clips. They fit nicely in a basket. That's for later.

Next morning: I empty my wallet and import my transactions. And recall the one cash purchase from yesterday. My cash reconciles. My tea is still warm. Sunlight appears. No paper sullies my desk.

The Paper Monster is corralled, but lurks undead in hidden baskets.

One evening, while listening to youtube, I confront the Monster. I download January's transaction logs. I set the opening balances for each account and import the transactions. I unclip the first stack in my basket. All the receipts match and are exiled to the paper bin. It reconciles to month end. That was so easy, I do February. March is already done, since I've been keeping up. Everything balances. My finances for this year are in order. My bills are paid. I'm not afraid of what's left in my accounts or my wallet.

As I glance over an import window, I notice an unexpected subscription fee for an online channel that I signed up for a free trial period and let continue. There's 10 months wasted expense. It's my fault for not cancelling, but I contact the channel and explain I've never logged in. They immediately refund 3 months just for good faith and I change my subscription to a less expensive option.

I realize I'm dealing with 4 banks, so I book a meeting to close one account. And I noticed an unexpected bank fee from January's import. My advisor says it was supposed to be free for a year - he discovers another 2 months that were charged last year. He promptly refunds those fees. I never noticed.

I'm seeing a pattern of avoidable expenses directly from not keeping my finances in order. Eventually, on a rainy day, I'll reconcile last year's receipts, to see if there are other refundable charges or avoidable expenses I can eliminate.

Now a clear desk greets me every morning. The monster has been banished ... for now.

Stay tuned for my simple solution to slay the Paper Monster, officious civic mailouts, unsolicited solicitations and miscellany, all.

Typecast

So it's midafternoon and I'm sitting here in my housecoat (still) and swearing this is the last youtube video for the day when ...
I got a notification for my favourite youtube organizer ... a short and snappy episode on "how to get your live together" in collaboration with another youtuber who's a friend with a different organizing personality. They have teamed up to present their cases for two different disorganized states.

The revelation: my fave show host, Cassandra of the Clutterbug channel, is a self-diagnosed "Type B" who needs reminders, labeled baskets, complex organization systems and external notifications to get things done. And as I listened, I realized that I have tried 

Every. Single. Thing. 

 that she suggested and it 

Does. Not. Work.

 for me. She's a "just wing it" person.

Contrast the other organizer, Laura of the How to get your s**t together channel who is a self-confessed disorganized perfectionist who has trouble getting things started and embracing "done" is the goal, not "perfect". She claims she can "tame your inner Monica Gellar to get more stuff done." 

Not to say things haven't been improving by following the entertaining Cassandra, but Laura's philosophy might be a more effective method for me.

So ... after all this "study", I've apparently been following the wrong muse ;-)

We'll see.

Time to get dressed. Check back in a couple weeks for an update. AfterI get some other projects in the can.

Are you a Type A perfect storm?

or are you a Type B hot mess?

New addiction: sleep

I've gone through probably the first half of my life under the misapprehension that everything that's bad about me is a bad habit. And the corollary that I need to break those bad habits. I've learned that breaking habits is hard ... possibly impossible. Will power is fleeting; no one else cares to keep me on track; I don't care to endure the process after the first week (if that).

So I give up. I label myself a failure at another thing. I identify as weak-willed. But wait ... what about all the things I do manage to do? All the things I've learned and understand?

I'm discovering that the trick is to figure out what I need to *do* to make the change I want to see. That's about making a new habit, not avoiding an old one. I can't quit a bad habit because "don't" doesn't work. "Do" is the solution. So I need to define the habit I want.

But aren't habits hard to make? Hah! How long did it take me to make a habit of checking email on my phone every time it beeps?

Why don't I apply the things I know to the way I live? How do I turn one-time hacks into daily routines?

So let's deconstruct what a habit is:

Trigger → Action → Reward (Repeat)

("They" say it takes 21 times to make a habit. That's a myth, but it does take practice.)

• Trigger: I hear that cheerful arcturus bleep.
• Action: I pull my phone out of my pocket and swipe the notification.
• Reward: I make a connection with someone.

So Google has me trained.
(Note to self: turn off email notifications.)

What do I want to do? Let me start with health ... and that starts with getting a good sleep.
Old behaviour: staying up til I fall asleep on my keyboard and yawning all the next day

New habit:

• Trigger: schedule screen light to dim at 11 using f.lux, bedroom temperature to raise and computer room temperature to drop with my programmable thermostats
• Action: get changed into favourite cozy housecoat and turn down bed/turn reading light on
• Reward: 2 minutes with Headspace meditation as I drift off

Let's see how this works. I schedule a reminder into Google Calendar and a check-in for Day 21.

Day 1 begins now.

Your science moment: how your brain works

The Joy of Housework ... no, seriously.

I have to laugh - I'm just rewatching the Clutterbug's 5 Speed Cleaning Tips (because, well, procrastinating) and I realized ... the last tip apparently stuck to my subliminal mind on the first viewing.

I live alone, which means I don't have to worry about anyone judging my housekeeping. And yet ... I *still* feel ashamed about that it wouldn't meet my mother's muster. Most of the time, I feign disdain, but that disillusioned feeling is triggered anytime I invite someone in.

But I think I finally found the cure. Last week when I was hosting a group meeting, just when I was starting to sink into the paranoia of juggling real meeting prep with reorganizing and sanitizing my entire house, it occurred to me that no one else was going to look at the floor. No one else was going to look into my kitchen sink and tsk tsk. No one else cares.

So I changed my rationale: I started cleaning to make myself feel relaxed and content in my own space. And because it was just for me, I focused on the things that turn my nose up.

Step 1: My bathroom sink looked so scummy that I didn't even want to stand there long enough to floss. So I quick-cleaned my spa from the top down, using one spraycleaner and one microfibre rag that went straight into the washer on hot. (And a bit of t.p. to wipe the under-lid parts of the toilet.) That's counters, sink, door handles, light switch, tub edges, baseboards and toilet all in 5 minutes.

Step 2: My stairs were collecting dirt in the corners, my entry is streaked with dried salt from outside and my kitchen floor could support a family of mice. So I swept and mopt (that should be a word) to bring out the shine of the stairs my Dad built with me, de-crumb the kitchen and de-salinate the lino in my entry. One soft broom, one damp microfibre mop pad sprinkled with a bit of washing soda. That's office, main stair, front entry (quick pass thru living room) to kitchen all in 5 minutes.

Step 3: My stainless kitchen sink—what a misnomer—is boring and stained. So I pulled out my new spray-snozzle tap, rinsed the crumbs into the drain baskets and emptied them into my compost bin, loaded the baskets into the dishwasher, and erased a bit of rust and scum with a quick pass from a potscrubber. The final touch: I dried the sinks with a quick swipe of the dishcloth so they looked shiny and new to me. Tops 2 minutes.

Now I feel content in my own home. And a little house-proud. I'm daydreaming out the window instead of feeding the critic in my head.

The guest review: "Your house looks like I imagined your house would look. It looks like you - quirky!"

That's seriously satisfying :-)

Finally, 10 minutes on youtube that actually improved my life. See, procrastination is good ;-)