Tag Archives: motivation

Life hacking my year

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I set myself some pretty big goals in 2015 and intend to make 2016 my most successful year ever. Of course, we’re still in January, so making bold statements like that before the grudging reality of the daily grind kicks in is still possible. Even so, I picked up a few life hacks last year that I’m going to carry over into this year. They apply to daily life, so they cover off all my goal types: writing, financial, spiritual, physical etc.

Top tip number 1 – the standing desk.

Several personal development pros I follow have recommended this, but the biggest influencers for me were Jeff Sanders and Michael Hyatt’s blogpost and podcasts on the topic:

7 Amazing Benefits of a Standing Desk

4 Reasons you should buy a standup desk – right now

Previously I would spend 6-8am sitting writing, 9-6 sitting for my job, then often 7-9 sitting doing more writing. That is a lot of sitting. Now I still do the writing stints sitting down, but the day is spent standing, unless I physically need to be at head office. That persistent twinge in my left shoulder has gone, along with general back pain. I’ve recently added a balance plate to keep myself moving too, rather than just standing still.

Top tip number 2 – a really good morning routine.

I’ve had a morning writing routine for at least 5 years now. Time flies, so I can’t really be sure. Over 2015 I really upped my game on this. My morning routine now includes more than just knocking out 1000 words on my latest writing project each day. It includes affirmations and journalling (my form of meditative practice). It all felt very American at first, but once I got over being all British and reserved, it’s had huge benefits. It’s a real mental health compliment to the physical health tip above. For an idea of how to start setting it up, Hal Elrod’s Miracle Morning is a great place to start (he has a pretty full on personal story to check out too).

Top tip number 3 – carry a notebook and pen EVERYWHERE

The more I did the above top tips, the more my brain seemed to become able to throw out ideas and see potential everywhere. As I wrote in my last post, I made a habit of capturing them straight away, rather than lose them or have to waste a ton of mental energy trying to remember them for later. It could be that sudden strategic insight that you needed to get a result on that big project, or it could be that you need to add cheese to the weekly shopping list – it doesn’t matter. Getting it down on paper means that your brain can then carry on being the awesome beast that it was designed to be. Field Notes have become my pocket notebook of choice, but it’s all personal preference.

Top tip number 4 – track it

Digital or analogue, tracking what you’re doing is the easiest way of making sure you’re doing what you need to do. I use coach.me and have a few habits that I’ve done so many days in a row that I will now go out of my way to complete them so that I don’t break my streak. I’ve done 10 pushups (upgraded to 20 nearly a year ago) each morning now for over 500 consecutive days. There is no way I’d do that without the app.

These all work for me, but if anyone else has any suggestions then feel free to comment. I’m always looking for ways to up my game…

Capturing ideas wherever, whenever

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Intuitively I felt like I was capturing so many more thoughts and ideas as I moved through 2015. So at the end of the year I collected together all the notebooks I had completed into one place to confirm the theory. Yep, I had indeed had a lot of thoughts:

2015 notebook stack

Because I’m a bit of a GTD fan, I was in the habit of capturing things to do the moment I thought of them, but story ideas and general everyday thoughts and feelings, not so much. I made much more of an effort to do that and it shows. I have a whole treasure chest of ideas for stories I can now return to, as well as all the highs and lows of the year that I’ve recorded for posterity.

Broken down into three notebook types:

  1. The filofax was my daily log book for 2015. For 2016 I’ll be moving over to a Hobonichi which is already proving to be an amazing experience.
  2. The large, hardback notebooks were for novel plotting and extended meditative journalling, including daily gratitudes to set my days up right.
  3. Pocket notebooks (especially Field Notes) were always in my jeans or handbag for keeping track of what I had to do each day, but also for those random confluences of inspiration that happen when I’m out and about. Now I can capture them immediately (I’m guaranteed to forget them if I put it off until I get home).

2015 Notebook collection

I made leaps forward in my writing processes and achievements in 2015 and I fully intend to keep building on the momentum in 2016. More than ever I believe the best way to succeed at anything is to just write it down!

Sugar sugar everywhere and not a drop to, um, eat…

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Since I came back from holidays (food and alcohol fest) I have been living the sugar free diet. Now that I’m in week three and can write about it calmly and objectively, rather than from a cravings hole of despair, I thought I’d give it a go.

Firstly, the motivations. A dear friend is on her second go round with cancer, and diet has become a significant thing she can positively influence, in amongst the traditional treatments. Cutting out sugar is the key thing. Which sent me down a huge rabbit hole of how it all works.

For those of you who know me, the fact that it is the latest diet espoused by a TV personality is more likely to make me disbelieve than anything else. But I’ve been looking at a ketogenic diet in relation to other serious diseases, so I knew there was some significant merit in reducing carbs. Cue me reading books and scientific papers about human biochemistry and the way our body uses and responds to sugar. Fascinating stuff, even if I have become a conversational bore.

So, after two weeks, here is my experience:

  • For those not on the diet for medical, disease fighting reasons, you don’t have to eliminate all sugars, just fructose
  • Good luck doing that, because everything is packaged by the title ‘sugars’
  • Fructose makes up half of sugar as we know it (the good ole white stuff) so the easiest way is to avoid anything with added sugar
  • Good luck with that too, because sugar has been added as a cheap filler to just about every product that gets made, even the savoury ones and especially the ‘low fat’ versions of things
  • Unlike other energies, fructose isn’t recognised by our self-regulating mechanisms, so it goes straight into the liver where any excess (which happens after a surprisingly small amount) gets pumped straight into your blood supply as fatty acids (nice)
  • The headache was worse for me than the cravings – three days of constant dull thumping until I came through to the other side
  • The promised bright side: resetting my body so I eat when I’m hungry and stop when I’m full (no more calorie counting) and no need to go to the gym to attempt to burn off fat – yay!
  • The downsides – restaurants are a pain, but I’m a good old fashioned meat eater, so a plain steak and jacket potato are easily allowed for a nice night out

Christmas is coming, so there will be a few treats in the coming weeks. I’m not foolish enough to think there won’t be. But the reality of reading the latest research (and the horrendous flaws that made up the current guidelines) has made me want to give it a shot long term, rather than doing it just because of Davina grinning from the front of her latest cookbook.

The importance of finding peace

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Saying things have been crazy lately is an understatement. I know everyone in today’s world feels overwhelmingly busy most of the time. I’ve spent years putting systems in place to allow me to manage multiple products and still be uber-productive, but even I have had several moments of complete overload. I already know my yearly review of 2015 will be quite something.

Even my morning journalling, a time solely dedicated for quiet reflection, has been interrupted by a compulsion to check my phone, having random ideas that need capturing elsewhere and, quite frankly, the fidgetiness of a five year old.

It kind of defeats the point.

But the absence of peace and stillness has made me realise how important it has become to me. Not to sound like some hippy white person trying to be an eastern self-styled guru, but there is so much to be said for the practices of mindfulness and gratitude. Of just being in the moment and being part of the world around you. Of being able to appreciate an autumn sunset, rather than just whizzing past it on your way to somewhere else.

Lake Windermere

It has been manic, and there is more to come. Nanowrimo is coming up and I have six days to complete it in. This is not one of my crazy, self-imposed deadlines and I’m certainly not going to try and beat last year’s three day completion, but I won’t actually have access to my computer from day seven. So it’s either type or fail and I’m not the kind of person who relishes failure.

But it seems to me that in order to keep moving forwards, one needs to be intentional about standing still. About appreciating where you are and where you are going rather than just charging forward blindly. Life is about progress, but not necessarily about speed.

It will be over before you want it to be anyway, so don’t rush to a final location that may not really be where you ever dreamed you would go.

Making Notes: Emerald of Chivor

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It’s no secret that I find any creative project starts out best when I put good old fashioned pen to paper. The majority of my first drafts are then created in Scrivener, but I’ve never found that plotting and discovering characters really comes alive if they’re not discovered on paper first.

Most people have creative slumps. I know authors, actual real life get paid to write books for a living people, who have found themselves with writer’s block. There are so many ways of getting out of it, but one of the things that works best for me is to find a really engaging tool that makes me want to write something – anything – down. That can be pen, paper or ink. As long as it’s decidedly analogue, I’ll give in to the temptation to try it.

So without further ado, my latest inspirational find: J Herbin Emerald of Chivor:

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This ink has taken the pen world by storm and from the moment I saw the samples coming out, I could see why. That sheen! That colour! The hints of red were more intriguing than the flecks of gold. All better than I can capture on an iPhone, but I refuse to buy a better camera for the sake of doing blogposts. Anywho, I needed to go back to an old project and work out some knots that were bogging the whole thing down. So, with a trusty NockCo DotDash black pocket book (I’ll definitely be telling you more about those at some point in the future) and a TWSBI Eco 1.1 Stub (again, a pen worth knowing about), I started to tease apart the strands of my story to work out where it was going so spectacularly wrong:

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This is where having such a fascinating tool to play with comes into play. I was so distracted by wanting to put words down, to try and create the different flow using the stub nib, that I worked out what was annoying me the most without even thinking about it. I was too busy thinking about how there were differences when you shook the pen up a little first, how the red wasn’t as strong in my sample as I’d seen in some others and not about the fact that it was a point of view issue I was having.

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So, for me, it’s a big thumbs up for Emerald of Chivor. I want to use this so much, I’ve already decided that tomorrow it will be part of my morning pages routine. I think that J Herbin have got this one right (being the fourth in the series of inks using this gold flecking), and so far I haven’t had any issues with it clogging my pens. That being said, I think it definitely needs to be used with at least a broad nib if you want to get full enjoyment out of it.

Feel like kicking your creativity old school? Then this might not be the cheapest place to start, but it gets a huge thumbs up from me.

Emeraldofchivor

Holiday Guilt (don’t worry, I don’t have any)

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Anyone who knows me, or has read this blog fairly often will know holidays are pretty much my favourite thing. Coffee probably just about pips them to the post, but it’s a close run contest.

So why do many people feel holiday guilt? I’m not setting that up as a question I’m going to answer by delving into the depths of the human psyche. It is a genuine question on my part. Why do people look forward to, plan for, then go on holiday and take with them all the things they’ve been talking about escaping from?

I guarantee there are people here who’ve made a work call today, despite saying they weren’t going to. Or checked their emails, despite promising their significant others that this time they really wouldn’t.

I’m not talking people who own their own businesses and are the last say when it comes to making an emergency decision that could make or break the company. I’m not talking about people who are doing their dream job (such as writers or artists or crazy code writers) for whom a holiday is just a different way of experiencing the thing they love. I’m talking about middle management and mainly routine emails and calls.

My rule has always been that I will not take my work phone with me. From the moment my out of office goes on, all communication with my day job ceases. For the past 7 years, since the concept of being available 24 hours a day became something of a thing, it has been the one compromise I refuse to make. When I say that my employers can’t pay me enough, I mean it. The value of that time away is beyond monetary value for me.

So, no guilt. The world will go on without you. The job will actually be better if you return refreshed and capable, rather than only marginally less worn out, but with a tan. Research shows that taking a break will be of benefit in just about every way.

Ask yourself, if you can’t let go of the phone, what is really making you check your emails. Micro-management? Lack of faith in other people? Lack of faith that you’ve done what you were supposed to before you left and a ball has dropped? Or are you just addicted to the rush of getting email notifications, which is some bizarre chemical response the human brain has for some reason. Evolution needs to fix that one pretty damn quickly.

Whatever it is, give it up. Look around you. Take into account the things that matter most. Your family. Your friends. Your health, both physical and mental.

And for those of you getting all judgemental on me for taking the time out of my break to write this post, of course I scheduled it. Fingers crossed I’m actually lying in the sun now having a cocktail, watching the world go by.

Finding my inner calm

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One of my goals for this year was being able to meditate for 30 minutes. I am nothing if not ambitious. I think the most I achieved was 4 before getting completely frustrated and distracted. Oh, and really, really uptight and anxious.

I’m pretty sure that’s not what’s meant to happen. It was certainly not what I was hoping to get out of it.

Then I had an interesting conversation with someone at work who pointed out that feeling the state people (other than me) achieve while meditating is more to do with being in the state of flow, rather than specifically being able to put your ankles on your hips and say ohhhmmmmmm.

A lot of people get this state from running. That’s never worked for me either. The only thing I get from running is aching hips and a weird heart rhythm for the next three hours. Again, not relaxing.

That’s when I heard that people were using Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages principles to not only become creatively unstuck, but also to get that sense of peaceful personal insight that comes from meditation. I took one look and realised I had the four things needed to make this engaging for me:

  1. Plenty of attractive notebooks
  2. Even more pens
  3. Even more inks
  4. Also some coffee and candles to create a bit of ambience and a sense of ritual.

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So I decided to give it a go.

I started on the 6th July. Since then I’ve got through nearly three A5 lined notebooks (think moleskine, although I’ve discovered that a Leuchtturm 1917 is much better in terms of paper quality and features. Especially when using my current favourite fountain pen and ink combo, the TWSBI 580 1.1 Stub nib with Iroshizuku yama-budo). Turns out I’ve got a lot of thoughts going on.

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The benefits have been pretty significant. I make sure that I start each set with three gratitudes. Not just in a list form, but really describing what I’m grateful for and why. After that, it’s whatever springs to mind. It can be positive, negative or just really, really boring.

Even though I’ve only been doing it for just over a month, I’ve already found I’m calmer and less responsive to external stress when it happens. I’ve become better at creative problem solving, both at work and play. I’ve become more willing to trust the universe, or whatever it is out there. Slowly, I’m becoming more accepting of myself. With that, comes a growing confidence too. Those last two points are a much gentler curve, but there is progress now where there used to be none.

So I’ve redefined my goal. It is no longer meditate for 30 minutes, but instead 30 minutes of daily meditative practices.

Sometimes, it’s about walking the road that’s right for you, not the one most travelled.

Life, Death and Achieving Goals

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So, I have once again committed the cardinal sin of the aspiring author. Neglecting my platform building yadda, yadda, yadda. But now, as the crazy months of summer begin to fade, I thought it would be a good time to return. Because this week has been about reflecting on life, acknowledging death and celebrating achieving goals.

It is important, for this first time in my life, I am seeing these things and being grateful for them in a context where it’s not all about me. Yes, the past few months have been crazy, but that is because I have spent so much time helping other people do what they can to live out the best life they can offer themselves. My own dreams and aspirations certainly haven’t been on the back burner, as I’ve actually continued to be consistent about getting up at 6am each morning and doing my 1500 words. I’ve even taken the plunge and started submitting again. But I am also starting to appreciate the joy that comes from building a close network of strong relationships where everyone is invested in giving each other a hand up when they can.

sunsetAnd this celebration of living a good life was brought to a poignant reminder this week when I attended the funeral of a friend who had finally lost a long battle with a brain tumour. It was my first humanist service and it was quite beautiful. The clear emphasis on celebrating life rather than mourning and resenting death seemed so appropriate. Never ever had I seen her complain about her lot in life or do anything other than live each day to the very best of her capabilities. People always imagine they will be tirelessly strong and positive in these kinds of life-altering scenarios, but few actually are when the chips are down. It was an inspiration to see; even though it took death to make me really aware of it.

Finally, in the spirit of appreciation, my sister has achieved a goal she has been working towards and I am so proud of her. Not just for the success, but for the completion of such an immense task in the face of odds which would make a normal person throw their hands up and walk away. The outcome is fantastic, but for me the privilege has been watching her take the journey and letting me walk with her some of the way. When she cracks open a bottle of champagne tonight, I will also raise a glass here, no doubt in the direction of the old man’s urn on the windowsill there, because I know he would have loved the chance to be as proud of her as I am.

Jack of all trades, master of some

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I’ve come to a bit of a realisation. For most of us, specialism is dead.

I’m talking in a work sense here, rather than anything else, although I do wonder if the same principles apply. Sure, some roles will always be very specific. I mean, you don’t want to be operated on by someone who ‘dips in and out’ of being a surgeon. But in the fast paced world we are now living in, even those with a specific craft or skill will need to adapt quickly to ever-changing scenarios.

For the rest of us, everything is now fluid. Core skills (literacy, numeracy etc) will probably always be required at the heart of most roles. But now there are other important skills that need to be brought to the workplace: flexibility, innovation, creativity, persuasion and a learning mindset. It can be bewildering, but I also realised something great:

For those of us who have never wanted one of those very specific, narrowly defined roles, this is the best time to be in the workforce.

Because there will always be something new to jump into, if you see the opportunity and take it. I have an English degree and my masters was studying Critical Theory. Strangely, neither of them appear at all applicable to any of the jobs I have held, yet they have been the foundation of everything. Communication and appraising a scenario, seeing a problem and defining a resolution is a great thing to be able to do. And, if you’re prepared to learn a little code here, a little statistics there, then top it up with a hefty dose of project management, you can play the game in just about any industry.

Being a Jack of all trades is no longer a bad thing.

7 books that changed my life

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how I just haven’t been reading enough. It is one of my goals for the year, but in amongst everything else it just seems to keep slipping. I find myself really struggling to get into anything new.

Which led me to pondering the question of which books have really touched my life. Perhaps if I can understand the things I’ve loved in the past, it will help me better choose what I want to read now. Once I started thinking about, it was tougher than I thought it was going to be. After all, how do you define such an impact? In the end, everything I selected met the following criteria: I have read them multiple times; they led to me doing something new or different and when I think about them, I instinctively feel they are comforting and familiar.

Only one on the list is non-fiction, so I’ll start with that.

David Allen, Getting Things Done

Perhaps this is the book that has had a direct impact on my daily life more than any other. I read it at least twice a year. I fall off the waggon about as often. But since I first read it, I have been able to organise my life and achieve way more than I would have otherwise. It allows my brain to feel less frantic in the work world, which is a gift in itself. Mind like water is still the goal.

Aiden Chambers, Dance On My Grave

I remember getting this book from the library when I was about thirteen or fourteen, venturing into the teen section. I didn’t really spend much time in the teen section as I moved straight to adult fiction fairly quickly. Yet this book about crazy, unpredictable, teenage love and the lengths it will make you go to when you lose it, opened my eyes. It also gave me the defining moment of what I wanted to have done after my own death, because I thought how useful:

“popped into the burning fiery furnace and reduced to manageable proportions, to whit: five ozs of fine grey ash, suitable for the making of egg timers”

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Perfect writing, and memories of eating mint matchmakers at Christmas while reading story after story. I still do it most years. I’ve always been a little bit in love with the Holmes of the books, rather than the caricature of TV and film (Jeremy Brett excluded, obviously).

C.S Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia

I am forever grateful to my parents for buying me the complete Chronicles of Narnia as a box set.

Still right here on my bookshelf

Still right here on my bookshelf

Mainly I’m grateful because I read The Magician’s Nephew first rather than The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, so the magical wardrobe made entire sense to me. I’ve been getting annoyed with people who haven’t ever since. It was probably this that gave me my first love of fantasy and the concept that reading could make you escape into another world. Probably still couldn’t read the scene where Aslan is killed without crying, either.

Anne Rice, Interview With A Vampire

A quick jump into much darker elements of fantasy. My Dad had a copy of this on the bookcase and it was probably the first of many things I read when I was too young. There were pretty strict controls over age appropriate TV in my house growing up, but books were (mostly) fair game. If anything, this book taught me the importance of voice; the narration throughout this book feels so authentic, you feel like you are there.

Barbara Vine, A Fatal Inversion

Interestingly, I think I watched the TV series of this before the book. Certainly whenever I read it, I picture the actors, even though they don’t really resemble the descriptions in the book. That being said, I have honestly lost count of the times I have read this. There is no doubt it influenced my dreams for impossibly long, hot summers and aspirations of freedom. Not murder though.

Mostly.

Michael Connelly, The Poet

Finally, this book was a gift for my 21st birthday. By then I was neck deep in an English degree and books had been sucked of all joy. I really didn’t enjoy reading at all. I couldn’t just read any more, I had to analyse. It was a bloody awful time. Then my Mom & Dad got me this book (have you got the sense yet of how big a thing reading was in my house growing up?) and it had nothing at all to do with anything that could be related to a course. It was a modern thriller and a way back into enjoying crime. I read it in more or less one sitting. It made me remember why I loved reading for reading’s sake, not just to pass an exam. It also got me back into enjoying crime fiction and mystery after a time away.

So, I’ve just taken that trip down memory lane and I’m not sure if it helps or not. It certainly doesn’t narrow things down to author or genre. I suppose I’m just looking for characters I can engage with, voices that are authentic and plots that I can’t predict. I’ve also realised I’m in much the same slump as I was back at university. I spend so much time editing these days (both work and personal) that I feel like I’m just seeing the words, never the story itself. It’s probably going to take a really good book to shock my brain out of that state again.

I just hope I find it soon.

Anyway, I can obviously recommend all of the books above if you haven’t read them already. If you have anything that you think can break through the ice in my brain, then leave a rec in the comments and I’ll gratefully take a look.