Thursday, 3 October 2019

Post-holiday round-up

I've been flat out for the last three weeks, wrapping up work before my holiday, then prepping for my holiday, then going on my holiday. But! I did continue to use my planner. I have a lot of catching up to do now that I'm back home, so I'll leave the update here for now!


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Wednesday, 11 September 2019

My [69420 F] accountability blog [.75 NB] is even more powerful than I imagined

I knew holding myself publicly accountable would really help me stick with this planner-using thing, but I'm still kind of stunned that we're now 2/3 of the way through the year.

I honestly feel I wouldn't have achieved nearly so much if I hadn't been using this planner - and I wouldn't have bounced back and continued using the planner when I had sick/mental health days if I didn't have the innocuous but still-present knowledge that I would have to post my planner photo at the end of the week.

Of course it's only working because I still hold myself to that habit of posting the photo. But I've built a system around my strengths and weaknesses. Tweeting? Oh yeah, I can do that. No one on Twitter is holding me to this schedule, but it's enough.

I'm sure I'm repeating myself constantly in this blog, but that's the great thing about it. It's not made to entertain other people. It's all about reinforcing my good habits and good ideas. And exploring those through every possible permutation I can is really good for solidifying those habits and ideas. Along with clarifying to myself how I feel about them, what works, and what doesn't.

Finally recovering from the flu, although I've torn an intercostal muscle from all my coughing - for most of the week below the muscle just continually hurt, now it only hurts if I engage the muscle by coughing, sneezing, hiccuping, laughing or uh... moving. Hey. It's improvement, and I'm happy with that.

Wore mascara to a client meeting yesterday and within an hour it had started to melt. I don't wear makeup often but this was a pricey one... is there such a thing as a mascara that can survive our spring weather? If it can't handle 25C I shudder to think how it would be when it hits 40C. Anyway, glad it was bright enough I could leave my sunglasses on rather than displaying panda eyes... next time I might just skip the mascara entirely. It's just, I want to appear as professional as possible, but... panda eyes definitely isn't going to do that, so I might be better off wearing foundation and nothing else. Though foundation starts to melt fast too. Sob.

Anyway. I'm back to doing my freelance work now that I'm well enough to handle it. And spring might be bringing makeup-melting powers but it's also bringing welcome sunlight and killing off any remaining things that might want to attack my immune system... so I welcome it with open arms.

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Monday, 2 September 2019

Am I still sick? You bet!

Another x2 update because: yup, spent the last two weeks sick as well.

I did start to get better from the flu at the end of the second week, but then after a few productive days it was like I got hit with a brand-new strain that I had zero resistance to, and I just went tumbling down again but _worse_. Like, the first two weeks I could have maybe called a head cold - sore throat for a day or two, stuffy head plus headaches, trouble thinking and mild fever for the rest.

Whereas The Flu Round Two was very definitely a nasty flu - have had a sore and swollen throat for the entire duration, a mix of chesty and tickly continual coughing, blocked ears, even _more_ trouble thinking, unable to sleep because of nose blocking up and throat welling up = breathing sucks (plus the coughing waking you up).

Really frustrating part is I (pulled? tore?) a muscle in my chest from coughing so much on Friday, and now every time I cough I get a nice sharp pain in my side along with the normal coughing pain. I'm thinking maybe the muscle really is torn given three days later its still happening...

So, yeah. Hasn't been a great fortnight for productivity. Though I'm proud that I still managed to achieve some things over August despite spending the whole month fighting off various viral things. July had been a fantastic month for getting stuff done, so that softened the blow for August a little at least.

While I'm starting September while still fighting off the flu (though I seem to be on the mend again finally, coughing less every day) I'm pretty hopeful about making progress on my games, freelancing and other projects. I've set my targets for the month lower that I normally would to reflect that I'm starting weakly (and I'm not going to be available to work towards the end of the month for various reasons I'll go into once that time comes, so that cuts into my doing-stuff time too).

I think it's better to set myself less challenging goals for this month, so that I can achieve things and not feel too overwhelmed while I get my momentum built up again. Hopefully by October I can ask as much of myself as I did in July - and achieve it, again.

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Friday, 23 August 2019

I have been sick for the entire month of August: the musical

Welp, here's a 2x check-in given I was too flat out last week to do a post:


I thought I was finally recovering from the flu this week but then on Wednesday it came back with new exciting awful symptoms that have stopped me from sleeping.

However in good news being sick for three weeks straight means I've finally read all of Homestuck from start to finish. Been meaning to check it out for about seven years so there you go. I finally did it.

Dave, Davesprite, Davepetasprite, Karkat, Nepeta and Kanaya are my fave characters. My top ships would be Davesprite/Nepeta (in an AU where she doesn't die and Davesprite winds up on the meteor too I guess) along with Davekat, RoseMary and Davepetasprite x basically any non-evil character... yes you're hanging off my every word I can tell. Oh, I also really feel for Hal, Dirk had all the power in their relationship and it's no wonder he acted out a little because of it.

I'm really enjoying a fanwork called TLCstuck, that essentially is a re-write of the Homestuck ending that gives the sprite characters more closure IMHO... I felt really bad for Davesprite in particular, along with Hal, and this version of the ending gives them opportunities to reconcile with their counterparts way more:
Anyway no one who knows me should be at all surprised that my top two characters are the goofballs that are deeply depressed on the inside. That's my weakness.

Gonna tag this with book recommendations in the sense that I do recommend reading the comic. It's a fun ride with some excellent characters.
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Sunday, 4 August 2019

Hello, and thanks for all the pathogens

Gotta love when people with the flu show up to a social event, and a couple days later you've mysteriously contracted the same illness. Especially great when that illness hangs on for 5+ days (I started to feel myself succumbing on Tuesday, full-blown by Wednesday, and it's still hanging on today (Monday)). Good times.

As such I didn't achieve a huge amount this week, was barely capable of holding up my DS let alone stringing together coherent ideas. That said, I made great progress in my Pokemon X replay. And even got a couple Yakuza 0 hours in when the painkillers were working (the TV is so often being used I don't often get chances to play my PS4).(Almost like I need... a Switch... [gazes soulfully out the window towards a hovering mirage of the new Fire Emblem game]).

Managed to put together my monthly projects plan for August all the same, so today I'm dragging myself through some tasks despite still being pretty flu-laden, and hopefully once I've shaken the flu off I'll have another productive month. July was actually my best month yet for completing important tasks, even though I spent the last week of it sick, so I'm hoping to continue the upwards spiral.

Only going to include the first tweet below, the second has my health diary in it but it was mostly yoghurt and crackers due to me being sick most of the week. Although I am proud of the fact that I did 2.5 hours of brisk walking over the weekend just to get some exercise even with flu-brain/body.

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Sunday, 28 July 2019

Brain rebooting

I struggle to focus my brain a lot of the time - it's very easy for me to get lost in tangents. One thing I've really noticed helping me is making sure to 're-set' myself to start my day.

I know dreams are meant to be the brain's way of processing data taken in from throughout the day, so maybe one reason why I have more focus issues is my insomnia cutting down my dreaming time? Sounds kinda believable, but... pretend I placed a shrug emoji here.

Re-setting my brain isn't a guarantee of success, but it does up my chances. I don't think the things I outline below will necessarily work for everyone; we each probably have our own highly specific re-set switches we need to hit. Nothing in mine is particularly outrageous, but, sometimes I've read about other people's morning routines and thought 'that sounds ridiculous' or 'i tried that and it had the opposite effect on me' so - take all this with a grain of salt. Maybe even ten grains.

What I find works for me is as follows. Generally in this order, but it can change day to day depending on other factors:

A warm drink in winter, and either a warm or cold one in summer

For me, this is usually coffee. I honestly can go weeks without caffeine and I'm fine, I don't seem to really have a dependence on it. But something in my hands while I deal with being awake is good. I'll probably play a mobile game and fuss over my cat while I drink.

Shower

I think this one would apply to most people. I feel more alert after a shower, and just less lethargic in general. I bet cleaning my teeth in the morning would help with that too, but then it'd make my coffee taste awful, so...............

Dress nicely and Do Face Stuff

I think everyone knows at this point the psychological effect of changing clothes/wearing 'work' outfits. It's like a mini shower. And the Face Stuff is just doing basic grooming things... apply tea tree gel to any pimples, apply toner, serum and moisturiser... just basic skincare routine stuff. Like another mini shower for my brain.

Don't check social media until you've planned your day

I used to check my Twitter TLs and discord when I got up in the morning, kind of like the millennial version of reading the morning newspaper, but I stopped doing that several months ago and it's helped a lot. Checking my social feeds just introduces too many variables and ideas into my brain before I've had a chance to mould my expectations for the day.

Update my 3-year diary

I have a Midori 3 year journal. It has space to write 2-5 sentences about your day per page, and you share the page with the entries for the same day on the other two years. I started keeping it early this year and I'm interested to see how it goes. Writing a couple lines about the day before definitely helps my brain. Somehow.

Read my weekly plan

This is different to the day planner I post photos of here. I have charts on my wall for tracking my goals for the year, my goals for the month, and my goals for the week. It's kind of an excuse to have lots of cute stickers, but look, it works. 

At the start of this year I filled out a Kikki K 10 year planner (similar to this). I also then broke my goals for the first year into 12 month blocks, which became my yearly sticker chart. Then at the start of each month, I check the yearly sticker chart, and make a monthly one. I make a weekly checklist at the same time. It's the weekly checklist I review at the start of my day. I grab a couple tasks out of it and put them into my work planner (not posted here) and my daily planner (the one I post here). There's a lot of overlap between those two, but the work planner tracks my Big Project Tasks and my daily planner is more a 'don't forget you have an appointment, need to do laundry, and need to do a task for Big Project 3'.

This is a system I've evolved over the last two years, and it works for me, but it may or may not work for you.

Re-set the house while listening to a podcast (must have at least two presenters)

This means: put away dry dishes. Sort out dirty ones. Put on a load of washing. Take anything still on the floor and put it away. Make sure working areas are free of clutter. Open the curtains. Basically, make a working space that feels neutral (as a freelancer, I work at home).

Podcasts (the need for two presenters is so that I'm listening to a conversation, not a presentation) give me some Social Energy that makes me feel comforted while I'm setting up my space for the day, without distracting me the way social media posts would.

Do one small task while listening to isochronic tones

This would be something like: send out invoices, reply to business emails, write weekly blog post etc. type of tasks. Very simple things that don't require high levels of skill. The isochronic tones seem to help smooth down the edges of my thoughts. Lately I've been using this video a lot as my bgm.

Once I've achieved that last thing, generally my brain is in a much more positive and focused state than it would otherwise be. So after this point, I can start tackling harder tasks!

One thing I struggle with is re-setting after I've had a break and checked social media (which I don't want to cut out entirely, given it's the easiest way to keep up with friends). Often after a break, especially one with Twitter/Discord, I find myself vague-ing out again. So I probably need to start doing a smaller version of my re-set routine after breaks, maybe just the isochronic tones thing again.

Also, it's worth noting I've only been able to develop this routine after becoming a freelancer. This all would have been impossible for me while working my previous 9-5 job. It's one reason I really want to succeed as a freelancer - I just find office jobs so constantly distracting and discombobulating. I can never work at full capacity the way I can at home.
As far as the health journal goes, it should be pretty obvious to anyone who read it that I'm a grazer, haha. I really struggle to eat what most recipe books etc classify as "one meal". It's much easier to eat very small amounts throughout the day... I much prefer the "five small meals" approach instead of "three medium sized meals". I also struggle to eat before lunchtime... honestly if I didn't worry about the impact it'd have on my health I'd probably just drink coffee until 2pm every day.

My exercise is going well, as of Saturday I've also introduced a new Saitama-inspired routine to my existing powerlifting/tai chi/walking exercises so hopefully that'll help round out my overall exercise routine.
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Monday, 22 July 2019

But wait, there's more (pages)!

So this week I tracked my health - food, exercise and any notable physical symptoms like low blood sugar dizziness etc. Well, I tracked pretty consistently up until Friday night, then I got a little shaky.

But considering until this point the longest I've managed to track my health is a day, that's pretty good. Essentially, this accountability posting method made me five times more successful than I was any other month this year!

So, even though it's a pain to include extra pics in the weekly-check-ins (less space to show off the pretty planner in the thumbnails, o no) I think it's worth continuing to do this.

Like with my planner, I'm trying to be as open as possible, and only censoring stuff if it's particularly sensitive info, like a friend's address, or my dentist's name, etc. It DOES feel weird sharing this much with other people, but again, the knowledge that potentially someone could click on the entry and read it does make me feel more motivated to stick to my plans and update properly.

On the weekend/Friday I really think my biggest stumbling block was just lack of sleep. We've had a ton of late nights recently, and whenever I stay up really late (say past 1am) even if I sleep in for the appropriate number of hours, I think I don't function as effectively during the day, afterwards.

I also tend to crave sweet foods when my sleep is disrupted or too-little, which tends to mean calorie-dense, nutrition-sparse foods, which is kind of the opposite of what I'm going for... so I really need to focus on a better sleeping pattern this week, I think. The amount of exercise I got was good (it usually is) but the junk food I had on Friday night and the icecream I had on Wednesday afternoon probably cancelled it out... if I'd slept well, I think I probably would have had less of the junky stuff on those two occasions.

There's a few things I'd like to achieve with my health log... increasing my awareness of the shape of the day and the impacts of various things (like sleep) on my behaviour and symptoms is important. In more concrete terms, I'd really like to drop a dress size this year. Size doesn't have nearly as much to do with actual biological health as many people think, and I do support body positivity at every size. Shame has never, ever made me lose weight - in fact, shame often has had the opposite effect, making me stay at home, and not look after myself. All that aside, losing a dress size this year would be nice. I have a very short neck, so even if I'm underweight by BMI I kinda have my chin connect to my neck with a diagonal line rather than a very well-defined jaw that tends to be seen as more attractive. But at least if I'm on the lower end of the scale, the shape of my face is more prominent despite the short neck. So, yeah. Honestly, my reasons are more for vanity than health, because I think my physical health is actually pretty good. Always good blood pressure, etc etc. The only things I'm low on are vitamin D and iron. I mostly just want to drop the dress size so that my jawline is more prominent, and I'll be able to wear more brands of clothing.

Well, also if there's less fat over my muscles, all of my weightlifting tone will be more prominent, which would be nice. My quads are amazing, but unless I tense my leg up, they're not so obvious. The muscle I've built on my back also isn't so obvious right now, but if I drop a dress size, I could show it off a little more. Ultimately, I'd like to get down to a 72cm (28.3 inch) waist and stay there. That's more just a single dress size away, though. For now, just a dress size will do. I have a 'true' hourglass figure, so my bust and hips are both ten inches wider than my waist at any size, and that means I'm bustier than most clothing brands allow for at my waist size. So, a smaller waist = smaller boobs too, so I can then buy clothing that fits my bust (and I can just wear a belt or take stuff in so that it sits nicely on my waist). A 97cm / 38.3 inch bust is still not going to fit into some clothing lines (particularly ones from Japan/China/Korea) but it'll at least fit into all Commonwealth/US label clothing. At the moment my bust keeps me out of a lot of stuff even though the waist will fit...

Anyway. Those are my reasons for wanting to drop a dress size. So the health diary will hopefully help with that, along with helping me track cause/effect of some digestion issues and whatnot. Ideally I should be able to lose a dress size by the end of the year.
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