Getting Geek : Start Your Day With Creativity for Non-Morning Persons

Good morning!
Not really...

Every morning, I do my uttermost best to make breakfast a pleasant experience. I know very well that it is THE most important meal of the day, however, since I am not a morning person, eating does not feel appealing before 8AM.

To compensate for my traditional (bad) mood, I try to keep myself busy with other things while chewing my oatmeal and sipping some coffee. In my search for productivity, I discovered that there is nothing better to do than to kick-off the day with creative thoughts.

Getting Geek : Start Your Day With Creativity for Non-Morning Persons

Shout Out Saturday : The Blogs's Edition

This week's shoutout will be focused on great blogs I have been reading lately.

Since I decided to get more consistent about blogging, I have been dedicating part of my free time to reading other articles out there. I will already say that this is not an extensive list. There are way too many great entries that if I wanted to share them all, it would simply be impossible. So here I will be sharing (only) 5 of my favorite ones. More will come in the future for sure. Let's get started!

Shout Out Saturday : The Blogs' Edition

Friday Five : Five Reasons to Plan Ahead

How is your Friday so far? Even though I am on vacation for a couple of days, I woke up early this morning, went to the gym after breakfast, did some shopping, headed back home for lunch and now, I am writing this blog before starting some chores. 

Did the things I mentioned above just happen? No, not at all! Yesterday, I took time to carefully plan everything I wanted to do today. Since I am involved in many activities in addition to common responsibilities like work and family, I need to optimize my time as much as I can to be efficient.

Taking advantage of the lovely initiative from Courtney, Mar and Cynthia, I will be sharing my 5 personal reasons why I consider it important to plan your day in advance to accomplish the most out of it.

Friday Five: Five Reasons to Plan Ahead

How you can make it work for you

Last week I wrote about how I get things done in my life. Those were general rules that I have in mind on a daily basis. They allow me get a lot done within the limited free time that I have. And more importantly, without exhaustion myself.

Each person is different and each moment in our life may require a different approach. We have to keep our eyes and mind open for the need of changes and not to be afraid of jumping in if necessary.

Personally, I prefer to use applications and keep most of my stuff online. This way I can check all my appointments any time, anywhere. When you plan ahead it becomes crucial to have as much information as possible at hand. If you need to make changes in your schedule, you will not have to guess anything. It is all there and you can (generally) drag them from one day or time to another to have them rearranged.

With that said, I still keep a paper agenda with me for the times I have bad connection and cannot go online. Even though I should have 4G by now, I feel lucky when I have connection sometimes. 

Tracking my workouts prevents me from getting stuck in plateaus.

So what do I keep track of?

• Appointments (professional and private)
• Projects (professional and private)
• Goals (professional and private)
• Groceries
• Workouts
• Meals

Appointments

Whether it is a meeting in the office or an appointment with my hairdresser, I write it down. As a rule of thumb, I keep my professional schedule on the agenda from work, and my private ones, electronically. Double booking oneself or forgetting a call is not a pleasant experience and it can spoil your day or even your career.

Projects

I am always working on something. I love sewing, knitting, reading and taking pictures. That in addition to my hobbies and regular chores. To avoid losing sight of deadlines, I make notes about everything. Ideas do not come at predetermined times. Wow-moments can hit you when watching TV or when you are stuck in traffic. You do not want to miss them!

Goals

All the time and energy I invest in my projects and plans cannot be in vain. Many times we are so busy "surviving" that we forget the meaning behind our actions and the reason why we started them in first place.

No matter how much you enjoy the race, remember what you are expecting to accomplish with your efforts. Otherwise, you will not be able to measure your progress. Set goals for 2, 5 and 10 years from now and record them. You cannot get anywhere without a destination.

Groceries

Because of the limited hours of shops and supermarkets here, we buy our groceries on Friday evenings and Saturday afternoons. Therefore, I must keep close track of all ingredients I need to buy for the week in advance. If I miss something, I will have to change my meal plan and it can damage the balance of diet. If you are an athlete, you surely understand I mean.

Workouts

The only way to improve your physique is by breaking plateaus. If you are a runner, it means running faster or longer. If you lift weights, you want to go heavier and have more intense sessions. How can you remember where you were at if you do not write it or input it somewhere?

Meals

After spending more than year following no-brainer diet plans, suddenly I was confronted with having to put my own meals together while keeping a balanced intake. Needless to say that it sounded pretty scary to me in the beginning (I'm a no-cook) and it is still a challenge to keep them varied.

However, when I started putting a schedule together, things got much easier.

When it comes to choosing the tools to use, have your personal preference in mind above any fashion or tendency. At the end of the day, it has to work for you. It might be flashy, cheap, expensive, cool, whatever, but if you do not feel comfortable working with it, it will be a wasted effort.

As mentioned above, I use both applications as well as paper tools to get organized. The more centralized your lists are, the better. And that is the main reason why I go online. However, I do not want to be in the dark if I run out of battery or a server somewhere around the globe goes down.

My number one tool is Google. I use not only Gmail, but their Calendar and Google docs. To keep my partner updated of my schedule, we adopted Cozi. Their system is user friendly, available for both IOS and Android phones and tablets and in addition to a family agenda, they also offer to do and shopping lists as well as a recipe book. For my workout and meals, I have recently adopted BodyMinder. I was still struggling with a method to use for my training and intake journal and it is proving to be a great alternative.

Cozi and BodyMinder are two the tools that I use.

These are just examples of some of the tools that I use. There are other great ones out there for all tastes and preferences. So before choosing one, the first step is to ask yourself what you need to start with. If you are not accustomed to writing things down, do not expect you will get everything tracked at once. It will just create unnecessary stress. Take one step a time. Pick the aspect you need to improve most and work on it. Once the first barrier is broken, the rest will be piece of cake.

Get others in the family involved. Kids may work with stickers, for example. Working together will surely make it a fun experience. How about a vision board? Or a board on the fridge? Be creative!

Once you are into it, you will see how much more productive you have become. And if by any means you do feel at ease with the way you chose to do things, do not be afraid to change. You will only succeed if you use the right method. If you have to do some monetary invest, think of the return you will get by getting your time managed better.

You already have something going on. Awesome!  Let me know what tools you use. For what do you use them? I would love to learn from you too!

Thank you all for stopping by and I hope these tips can be helpful somehow. Success and see you next time!

How I get things done

Recently, I was chatting to two friends about life stuff and they asked me the magic question: "How do you find time to do everything?". Sincerely, the answer is quite simple : planning.

Let's start with what they meant by 'everything'.

I have a full time job. My hours are flexible and if you are a workaholic too, you know it generally means long days. It is true that since I got really close to exhaustion two years ago, I keep overtime to a minimum. Still, I am not the kind of person who can easily 'turn off' together with the work laptop.

Work look

Outside office hours, I dedicate as much time possible to my passion. Fitness is a very important aspect of my life and it embraces much more than the time spent in the gym. It is the morning cardio, the food preparation in the weekend, planning workouts, etc.

I also love networking, social media, I collect Dollfies (beautiful Japanese dolls), love gaming, do house stuff, have long calls with my mom who lives in Brazil, have a cat and spend time with my other half. It is true that I do not have kids, however I am not the kind of person who can sit still for a long time anyways. 

So how do I do it?

First of all, I have my priorities. Focusing in 'one thing at a time' allows me to get more done with quality than I would by just jumping back and forth. It is true that things come up here and there, but you have to keep in their importance in mind. Evaluate the situation. OK, it might be urgent, but do you really have to drop the email you are writing? Or can you even do it later today? Sometimes, asking such a simple question can facilitate your planning a lot.

Secondly, I free my head by noting absolutely everything I must know or do. I may use colors or symbols as visual aids, but I do keep a record of the smallest appointments and set reminders whenever necessary. Having it all in my head would only increase the chances of missing 'something' and tire myself in the process. For the most part, I keep an electronic calendar, but I also have a small notebook in case of emergency (battery of smartphones generally goes down when we most need them). Try to have it in one place: grocery shop, to do list, bills to pay, etc. No need to waste time looking for anything.

Finally,  I am realistic about my day. I would love to restart running (it has been 3 years already!!), go back to Japanese classes and train BJJ again; just to mention a few. Unfortunately, a day only has 24 hours and I must sleep for at least 7 of those if I want to function properly the day after. While the first point was related to prioritizing your to dos and activities, this last one is about your life in general. So many times we allow our calendars to be double booked even though we know that we cannot be in two places at the same time. Don't do it with yourself.

Saturday bulk cooking: trying a new recipe

Take time to reflect about your schedule and evaluate how you can implement these steps on a daily basis. After that, it is time to choose a means to keep track of schedule. Do you prefer a paper agenda or do you choose to keep things electronically? Do you want to separate your private from your professional appointments? Would you like to share it with someone else, like your partner? Plan it in your head. Do not focus on how others do, but find a system that fits you best.

And then comes the moment of putting it all into practice...

Remember to save yourself some free time. We are not machines, we need down times to recover. The more rested you are, the more productive you will be. In addition, expect the unexpected. There are only a handful things we can totally control in life. The rest, just happens. You can leave home on time to go through your emails before a meeting, but get caught up in traffic. You do not take your gym bag with you thinking that you be able to stop home first, but then a call takes longer than planned. The weather is really nice outside, but you have to hit home earlier because you just brought one meal with you. These are obvious obstacles, but there is also getting sick (or having someone sick in the family), a last minute appointment, or anything else that might force you change your plans.

Accept that you are not in charge of every single atom of the Universe. Get organized with the things you can control and be flexible with the rest. Enjoy the time that will free that you will find by managing your time better.

Fitness is a passion to me, but there's more in life than training.

Do you also plan your days ahead? How do you do it? Share your tips and feel free to share your comments and ask questions. I would love to hear from you too!