Tag: productivity

Life and Health

5 Lessons From Life…So Far

insidethemessylife

I will be turning 42 this year and while I might be the answer to “life, the universe, and everything” this year, I definitely don’t have all the answers but I might have some.

Photo by Angèle Kamp on Unsplash

I honestly don’t know what the definition is of “mid-life” anymore since our life spans have steadily charted in the upwards trajectory for the past few centuries but i have come to a place in my life where I have enough time to look back at the past with some fond reminiscing about “in my day” but still enough to look forward to see the future with wonder and possibility (I hope…it’s getting a little dicey out there).

Photo by Fabio Comparelli on Unsplash

In my almost 42 trips around the sun at this point I have come to a few understandings:

  1. “Be yourself, everyone is already taken” but don’t forget about everyone else. Who knows where this quote actually originated from and I think there is some truth to being yourself. We have to be ourselves — so dance to the music in the grocery store or wear the clothes that you were “TOO” whatever to wear when you were younger but in the journey to become the women who wear red hats with purple dresses (or whatever old ladies that have stopped giving a f*** about other people’s opinions do) don’t forget that other people exist and our survival depends on what we can accomplish as a community. No one exists in a vacuum or on an island. I tried to act as if I did for a great many years and sometimes I still fall into those patterns but as my hair has started to change from brown to gray I’ve realized that I need help from other people and they need help from me. We are, after all, in this together.Spend time wisely but waste time just as wisely. Our society generally does not encourage rest. It’s getting better because we’re at least talking about it but the conversations around rest seem highly performative and privileged. We need to talk about what rest really looks like and FEELS like. For me, sitting and binge watching an entire season of something in a night or two may look like rest but at the end of the day it doesn’t actually feel restful. Rest is not just supposed to be escapism or numbing; it is supposed to be an activity that feels good. After two episodes in a row or mindless doom scrolling I can start to feel the difference in my body and mind when I tip the scales from rest to numbing. Find what that feels like in your body and notice what rest feels fulfilling and rejuvenating and what just feels like wasting time. For me, nourishing rest looks like writing, reading, and walking in nature — after those activities I feel refreshed and ready to go back to the “real world”.Move — your body will thank you for it. Start somewhere no matter how small. Our bodies were designed to move. We survived because we could hunt and run during the heat of the day when other animals were resting. Doesn’t matter if you can only do 5 minutes — start somewhere and keep it up. I am starting to feel my warranty running out and I am cursing my younger self who didn’t find a way to stick with any of my activities. I am starting to feel the aches and pains in some joints from a body that has carried too much weight and not been utilized properly. I’m trying to roll that clock back a little bit and I’m making progress but if I had just developed habits and routines instead of berating myself I would be in a much better place now.Keep exploring and gaining knowledge. In this day and age we have information at our fingertips through the internet, podcasts, books/audiobooks, magazines, apps, etc…. Take some time every day/week/month to step outside your comfort zone and learn something. In this global world our focus can be so small (see number one). By taking some time to read news from another country (I like BBC or Al Jezeera) or listening to podcasts about all the things you didn’t pay attention to in high school (don’t worry, I didn’t either!) this wide, beautiful, wonderful, and oftentimes difficult world is open to us. And we should experience it.And don’t worry about the mess — you’ll always make another one.

As I round out this trip around the sun I still have time to “live deliberately” because I know that, for better or for worse, I am on the other side of the hill at this point. 

I am starting to see the end of this tunnel called life and when I’m done I want to live a life that makes my daughter proud.

Here’s to the next leg of this journey!

Life and Health, Tips and Tricks

Why The Pomodoro Technique Works…In This House

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Photo by Aron Visuals on Unsplash

When the world turned upside down in March 2020, I was one of the millions of people (luckily) sent to work from home with really no guidance or structure. If you’ve been a reader for a while, you’ll know that I am a high school science teacher by day and it’s a career, despite its challenges, I really enjoy but in March 2020 the regimented and controlled flow of the day was thrown off its axis and now I was at home. The guidance of what we were supposed to be doing, lessons we were to be delivering, or how we would interact with students was a constant change and everything was different.

The time span of March 17, 2020 until June 17, 2020 was a free for all as far as how to organize my day and still attempt to connect with kids during this difficult time. I worked hard on preparing and delivering lessons that were easy enough to do without my supervision but interesting enough to not just feel like busy work. I sent emails to students and their adults trying to stay connected; sometimes my work paid off and sometimes it fell flat but during that time frame we were trying to survive. During that season, I realized how the structure and routine of the school day with set periods I was teaching and set periods I was supposed to be accomplishing prep work or grading really kept me on task and organized so I searched for a way to recreate that structure at home even though I was basically left to my own devices and often in the house alone since my partner was an essential worker allowing my daughter to stay in daycare and me to keep working without losing my mind.

It was during the spring of 2020 that I discovered the Pomodoro Technique; originally described by Francesco Cirillo and named after the cute kitchen tomato timer he used to delineate work and break. Since discovering this technique myself, I’ve read more and more research about how “microbreaks” are really important to overall functioning and productivity both from a mental and physical standpoint. Now I’ve tried to implement it in my classroom especially since my district has lengthened the class period and I have seen it work for myself, my kid, and my students.

The basics of the Pomodoro Technique is that you work for a certain period and then you’re able to take a short break — this cycle is called a “pomodoro” and after 4 of those such pomodoros you can take a longer break. I almost never make it to 4 pomodoros because I’m either finished what I needed to work on at home or the period has ended at school but you can accomplish a lot in just 1 or 2 of these cycles. The “perfect” pomodoro is usually 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of break but I usually use 20 minutes of work and 5 minutes of break.

Flash back to the Spring of 2020 when I implemented this technique for myself to continue trying to do my job in such a way that I had never tried to accomplish it before — lo and behold I found it worked; it kept me on task and working on my to do list often completing all the things. The key to the work period though is to cut out distractions. For me that meant putting my phone on do not disturb or airplane mode so it wouldn’t constantly suck my attention away. I also installed impulse blocker and pomodoro browser extensions so if I needed to work online, I wouldn’t just be able to go check what social media or deals on Amazon for “just a minute.”

Photo by Nubelson Fernandes on Unsplash

It is these “just a minute” distractions that ultimately made the to do list take a lot longer to accomplish or make it harder to focus and understand what I’m working on; by constantly diverting my focus to something else it takes me ANOTHER minute to reorient myself to the task on hand.

When I’m working on crafting a project or lesson plan, I even close out my email at work because I can’t afford the constant “ding” notification because the noise itself is enough to through my mental train off the track even if I don’t go check that email.

I also started implementing this at home with my daughter when it came to cleaning or doing anything she fights me on. I ordered a sixty-minute time timer (I also ordered a bigger one for my classroom) and I’ll set it for 15 or 20 minutes. If the time timer isn’t handy, I’ll use a timer on my phone or even the sleep timer on her radio to measure it. We’ll do something for x minutes and then she can take a break. Or I’ll play with her for x minutes and then she plays by herself.

In my world it works beautifully for all ages. I get more accomplished in a focused 20 minutes than I get in a distracted hour and I often find that I’ve completed all the to do list items with time to spare.

It’s amazing what cutting out the constant distractions and interruptions can do; by giving myself the structure and I know a break is coming relatively soon so I don’t even feel like I’m being deprived of all the “fun”.

Part of being successful for me has also been to use technology to help me not just to hurt me. In my experience, many people bemoan the distractions but don’t use the tools available to help manage them so here is a list of my favorite techniques that help:

1. Tomato Clock (Firefox) Browser Extension

2. Impulse Blocker (Firefox) Browser Extension

3. Forest App (App Store and Google Play)

4. Actually closing down my email

5. Quality Time (Android App) — this is really great for setting and forgetting times when you want your phone to be unavailable you can also set this through the “digital wellbeing” settings on some phones (I have it set to lock my phone from 5:30p-8:15p for family time and 9:15p-6:00a for bed time and get ready for work)

We decry the digital connected-ness because our nostalgia takes over and it was so much “easier” to get things done or focus on the task at hand before all these distractions but on the flip side, we revel in what the digital age has brought us in the ability to connect across time and space or to see, experience, and learn things we never have before. I believe the way forward is finding the way that blends the nostalgic, rose-tinted glass look of the past with the possibility and opportunities of the future. The phones and technology are here to stay so finding the ways to work WITH them instead of AGAINST them is an important part in crafting the future we want.