Your Work- (or Non-) Week at Its Best

I am a young 24-year-old living in Los Angeles. It occurred to be quite a while ago that not only do I have a very long while before I even have to think about dying, but that I also know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. This was a very harsh thought since my life practically revolves around knowledge and having an understanding of the world around me. Not only this, but it seems that I have a major list in my head of things I should have learned by now, either through school or just in general. Obviously, having these ideals is somewhat unrealistic, but that is the nature of who I am- I set up unrealistic goals and by attempting to achieve them, I end up accomplishing more than I ever thought I could because of the way I organize my time. I then look back and think, hey, it's not perfect, but I'm a lot farther than I was when I started.

So what does this have to do with anything? Well, life is too short to be worrying about what you aren't. But I do know that for me personally, I tend to accomplish things a lot more when I have no time to do anything. Meaning, when there is pressure on my schedule (usually from working for 8 hours a day), I find it's easier to  say to myself, "Sonya, you don't have all day to read through the 2,000 blogposts on your RSS feed today (or ever), but you DO have 15 minutes while your chicken is baking to look over your favorite ones," than to try to read through all of them in one day. Essentially, I won't get anything done if I have a whole day because I try to knock something unrealistic out.

YOU HAVE TO MICRO MANAGE. Setting up a big goal is great, but it's important to break it up into something manageable.

I decided today that I'm going to set up a weekly schedule to achieve small portions of my goals. Some of the things I have in mind are learning french, drawing, yoga stretching, pull up bar workouts, and watch movies/tv shows for Pop Culture reference. Since these are long term goals and don't have any particular moment where I want to say stop (yet), I am going to allocate a little time each week to ensure I at least do some of it consistently.

As of right now, I am working 10 hours a day doing freelance work (including travel time and lunch). So that takes up a chunk of my time. I am also cooking for about 1-2 hours when I'm at home, but I can multi-task. I need 8 hours of sleep. That leaves about 4 hours a day to get something done.

I think it's necessary to do stretching and some exercise every day to compensate for the sitting I have done in the past. We converted our desks at work to standing and I have a standing desk at home, but because I don't have time to be more active (going hiking every day, bike riding, etc.), I feel it's necessary to do these daily- or at least on weekdays. I think I will do 15 minutes of yoga stretching, and 15 of the pull up bar.

I tend to fall asleep when I watch movies late, so I have decided to start them at an earlier hour, so around 9-9:30. I will do that twice a week. Since the movies and TV shows will vary in time, I won't schedule anything after that just for the sake of finishing something. I can enjoy the rest of my night reading or doing something I feel is necessary.

I'm going to start off slow with French and say that I for sure need to work on my listening skills the most since even after I learn a phrase, I don't recognize it when it is said to me for the most part. So For this month, I'll focus on finding relatively easy podcasts and youtube videos with French in them and listen to something and write down as many words as I can recognize. If there is a way to double check my work (like subtitles or a manuscript), I'll look at that afterward. I'll come up with more exercises as I go along. So an hour, 3times a week so as not to burn myself out.

And for drawing, I would like to practice consistently, but again, don't want to burn myself out. I'll choose a topic and just draw what I feel like for the night since I'm just starting, and then I'll refine some exercises once I get comfortable. I'll pull from books, Google, and DeviantArt to start since not having any inspiration to draw was the primary reason for me not learning to draw sooner. Gotta keep the inspiration up! So I'll do something similar for drawing and french on the same nights so that I can do them more often (woo! efficiency!). Here's what my schedule looks like once I plug it all in!

Probably doesn't look like much, but think of it this way. If you already allocate time specifically FOR something, I feel you are setting yourself up for success. Also, look at the education model (one of the few good things that actually comes out of public school systems). Even in Elementary school, there are certain times laid out for certain subjects. The kids don't get bored with Social Studies ALL DAY and they keep the subjects frequent enough to actually help the kids retain knowledge and get into the habit.

I think this will work very well for me personally. And when my schedule changes, I'll just allocate more or less time to each subject, depending on how much focus I need on it.

TADA!

Now go make your own or come up with a system that works for you ;)

Life is too short to not be proactive.

Paleo - How It Changed the Way I Think

About a year ago, my brother and I were having a discussion. I confessed to him my unhappiness in my health and how I cannot for the life of me figure out how to exercise without getting bored or frustrated. If you are unaware of my past, I played softball until freshman year of college and have had coaches telling me to "condition" and lift weights on a dime. I never really liked the idea of working out for the sake of working out. So we were bouncing ideas back and forth, and he eventually told me about this Paleo thing. I believe this was the exact video he showed me, and I consider myself to be a pretty intelligent person... so it made sense. The root of everything seemed to consistently come down to nutrition. Everything.

Here I am a year later, having done relatively extensive research on lifestyle diets and, tried and true, Paleo is the one thing that has worked. Now I won't say I'm any expert, nor did I do nearly as much research as some of the other folks out there, but my goal was to find something that worked FOR ME nutritionally so I could focus on other things. It's taken me almost a full year to figure out how to change my lifestyle for the better, and here are some findings I've observed:



Problem? My decisions were made based on my emotions when I consumed more dairy, grains, and some starches. I had to cut those out in order to have a clear head and not snowball into 3 weeks of fast food. One craving would lead to another and another and another until my immune system would weaken to the point of me getting sick or unable to recover quickly from an injury.

Solution? Trust me... cutting it out is the only way you're going to get over it without any amount of guilt, worry, or shoulda-coulda-woulda-thoughts hanging over your head. There are chemicals released in your brain when eating these foods and they will literally cause an addiction- similar to heroin. Rehab is the only answer. Period.


Problem? Whole Food is too expensive and fast food is cheaper. True Facts. And I'm on a budget.

Solution? Well for me, since I'm Freelance for most of the year, this was a tough one.

#1- I basically started out with little to no money for groceries in the first place, so my only solution at the time was to spend ALL of my grocery money for the week at the Farmer's Market and literally have no choice but to cook at home. This can only work for so long, as I got more hours, and eventually a more generous paycheck at a new company.

#2- For this scenario, since I still had money left over that COULD be used for bad food choices (in case of a craving emergency), I started investing in things for cooking. I would save up for a trip to Whole Foods and get Coconut Oil, Almond Milk, Garlic, Lemons, and other random things that most people who are health conscious and cook a lot should have in their kitchen. Investing in the process really got me to invest in the good food. I started making it less convenient to go out because I had no reason to not stay in.

#3- This is a branch off of 1 and 2... I have now finally figured out a budget that works for me. My solution now (since pinching pennies isn't too much of a problem ATM) is to just go weekly (sometimes bi-weekly) to get veggies, fruit, and sometimes meat. I found out where the local Farmer's Markets were after I moved, and I made it a point to try to make it every single time. Constantly having food available at home and readily available to eat when I was hungry made it more convenient to stay home. YAY!


Problem? My decisions were made based on convenience. It was more convenient to stop and get food on the way home than sit and cook dinner for an hour. It was more convenient to take out Rice-a-Roni than to make something from scratch. It was more convenient to snack on something that was pre-packaged than to cut up some veggies I had stored in the fridge. All of these things led to poor decision-making, even when I didn't have cravings.

Solution? First of all, I threw out anything that wasn't ideal out of my cupboard (ok, I gave them to my room mates as to not be wasteful). Whenever I had a moment (either I was bored or in between tasks or needed a break) I would check out what I bought at the Farmer's Market and figure out how to make it more convenient. Let me explain. If one of the reasons I didn't feel like eating carrots was because they had dirt on them still (fresh picked!) and weren't of convenient size, I would cut them up and prep them for the week. Boom. Same with meat- I would pick something from the freezer and put it into the fridge so it would start defrosting. How guilty would you feel if you took the time to go to the Farmer's Market and pick out these items only to spoil them because you chose to go out three times that week? Guilt-trip FTW!


Problem? Networking basically requires you to go with the flow and go out to eat every once in a while (so does having close friends as room mates).

Solution? I'm still getting the hang of this one. I try to not pick fast food and persuade them otherwise (usually works in some cases). If fast food is the main choice, I choose to fast and just go along for the trip. Fasting is NO PROBLEM when I've been keeping up with the ideal lifestyle choices. My blood sugar is fine (my hypoglycemia is under control), I am deaf to the calling of the fast food because I've had none to cause cravings, and I still get to hang with the people who are going. If a decent restaurant IS the main choice, it gets a little tougher. You have to worry about contamination of gluten (it is not against health regulations to cut bread and then cut fruit with the same knife), whether or not the particular ingredients are ideal (not as picky as grain-fed vs. grass-fed, but instead being able to identify if one ingredient can be substituted or removed), and lastly, the awkward moment of asking the waiter these questions AND being "that guy" among your friends or acquaintances. So, I just make the best decision I can with what is there and try to pick something with the least amount of impact if something does go wrong. Usually a "side" of something and a plate full of veggies and maybe some meat is the best way to go (and delicious!). If all else fails, I order the minimum and fast. Again, no problem there.


Problem? I don't didn't know how to cook.

Solution? I read A LOT of recipes and grab tips-n-tricks from different sources. You'd be surprised how many people don't know how to cook an artichoke properly or why their gravy isn't thickening. Alternative cooking ingredients act very similar to the SAD (Standard American Diet) ingredients. Almond flour still expands the same as wheat flour when baking biscuits. Coconut milk will still create a saucy texture for your gravy in place of milk. You can still cook meat with coconut oil and not burn the pan because you didn't use vegetable oil. Also, Trial-and-error was a huge thing for me. There were times, I admit, that I completely screwed over an entire meal for one reason or another and went to Jack-in-the-Box because it was 10pm and I still had no dinner. But that was then. I have learned the basics enough to cook a decent meal, and I have even gotten compliments!! AND I try to pick up new ingredients or cook a new recipe at least every week, so I'm constantly learning things to improve my techniques and understanding (and make it taste better, of course).


Problem? I don't didn't exercise enough.

Solution? Actually, this one is still not ideal. But, I have found that as long as I walk around town, go on a bike ride, hike every few weekends, and sprint at the beach when I feel like it, I am still losing weight. I haven't set up a routine because I have no routine schedule ATM, so I'm just enjoying things and not forcing myself to do anything I don't feel like doing. I take every opportunity my friends give me to get out to walk around, and I make sure I PLAY whenever I can. Here is a great video on why I prefer play over hard-core exercise. I may start BJJ or something else once I can afford it, but for right now, I'm happy getting out and doing whatever the day presents as an appealing option.



So, to conclude, this post is not me trying to convince anyone of any particular lifestyle. This is simply to get those gears turning in your head to observe behaviors in your life that need to be hacked. How will you change your lifestyle in order to feel, look, or perform better? Why are you not achieving your ideal nutritional goals every single day? What small things can you do RIGHT NOW to ensure your success for the future when those decisions aren't easy to make? Like I said, it's taken me a year to come this far, and I still have micro-goals I want to accomplish. But at least I have set myself up for a healthier life, and I can start to focus on other things. That was my plan all along ;)