routine – Climb to the Stars

Making Memories [en]

I’ve recently started watching TV series (Doctor Who!) and listening to podcasts again, partly in an attempt to pull myself out of some activities or preoccupations that were on the way to becoming a little obsessive. And amongst those podcasts I listened to recently, one episode seems to have had a lasting impact on how I view the world and life: Hidden Brain’s Yum and Yuck.

It’s funny how you don’t always realise on the moment that a new idea is going to be an important milestone in your worldview. I’ve groaned about this before, concerning podcasts. But in this case, I’m lucky, I did manage to lay my hands on the podcast to show it to you.

So, what’s this about? The episode is about food. But the idea that struck me has to do with how we “make” memories. The podcast was describing how memories of meals are created. For example, if you eat a meal of just one thing, you will remember that one thing. But if you eat the same amount of food, in the form of five different things, you will have memories for those five things. See where this is going?

It seems quite obvious, but it’s not something I had ever given much thought to. So, if I eat three slices of toast for breakfast, and put honey on all three, my memory of breakfast is going to be “honey on toast”. But say I put honey on one toast, jam on the second, and cenovis on the last: my memory of my breakfast will be much richer.

The podcast went on to talk about ordering strategies at the restaurant: do you order your favorite dish, or take the risk of trying something else? If you eat something different each time you go to the restaurant, or your favorite dish each time, you will not have the same memories. There is a tension between immediate enjoyment and the creation of memories.

In the same way, if you spend three weeks of holiday at the beach, you won’t have much to tell. But you will certainly have enjoyed each day (if you like the beach). But if you did all sorts of things during your holiday, there are certainly days where you would have had more pleasure sticking with the beach — but your memories of your holidays will be much richer.

I tend to stick in my comfort zone. I’ll order the same thing again and again. I’ll do the same thing over and over. I stick with what I know and what I like. I go to the same places. I’ve been in the same flat nearly 20 years, have been doing judo for 25, sailing for 10… I go to India regularly, but don’t really travel around or visit new places.

I had never realised the impact this way of living my life was having on the memories I am building of my life. I sometimes feel adrift in time, in some sort of limbo, and I’m now considering explicitly trying to add more “peak experiences” to my life.

Regarding food, because meal-memory seems to have an impact on whether you feel hungry or not, this insight is also encouraging me to make sure I have less “mono-meals” and more meals with a collection of different foods composing them.

Je pendule [fr]

Depuis une dizaine de jours, je pendule. Lausanne-Fribourg le matin, retour le soir. Certains d’entre vous le savez, d’autres ont deviné, d’autres encore tombent de leur chaise (mais non, mais non).

C’est très étrange après toutes ces années d’irrégularité d’avoir un horaire et une routine stables. Certaines personnes arrivent mieux que d’autres à se mettre leurs propres contraintes, et en ce qui me concerne, ça a toujours été un exercice difficile. En 2009, 2010, avant la mort de Bagha, j’y étais parvenue. 7h30 debout, 9h à l’eclau. Je crois même que je m’y suis tenue durant mon « année sans chat ». A l’arrivée de Tounsi et Safran, qui avaient d’autres horaires et d’autres idées concernant nos activités du matin (et le matin commençait tôt), ça a dégringolé, et je n’ai jamais vraiment réussi à remonter dans le train.

Jusqu’à maintenant.

Littéralement.

Je cherche encore comment m’organiser au mieux. Déjeuner dans le train? Peu concluant. Y dormir? Dommage, je trouve. Lire, laisser vagabonder mon esprit… Et hier soir, alors que le sommeil tardait à venir: bloguer!

A demain, peut-être.

Routine and Freedom [en]

[fr] La liberté, et la routine. Trop de liberté ne rend pas forcément plus heureux. Et si la liberté c'était de pouvoir choisir ses contraintes? Retour sur mon histoire avec la liberté et les habitudes.

Photo credit: Phalinn Ooi

I think about routine a lot. I spent a lot of time when I was at university trying to be free. I was quite free, actually. Habits and routine are something we can get stuck in and that might shield us from seeing things we need to see — but I naturally gravitate to the other end of the spectrum, the introspective one, the one who thinks too much, wonders too much, asks herself too many questions. It was clear to me, already back then, that routine/habits had their use: they allowed us to lighten the load of thinking and deciding when it comes to our lives.

I spent ten years at university. Ten. Being a student. Three years studying chemistry (and finally failing), and seven years in what we call “Lettres”, studying History of Religions, Philosophy, and French. One of those years was spent in India. I then spent a lot of time not writing my dissertation. All in all, I spent many years with very long holidays and a very do-it-yourself schedule. It was a good time of my life. It was difficult to see it end.

Is freedom so important to me because of this slice of life, or did I hang out in that context so long because of how important it is to me?

Over the years, I’ve realised that “too much freedom” in the way I live my days does not make me happy. By that I mean complete lack of routine. Was it the first or second summer I was living alone in my first flat? A friend had used the kite metaphor: when you’re free, you let the string out and the kite can fly far, far up high. And I had let my kites go out a bit too far. University resumed, I drew my kites in.

In 2009, it felt like I had got my shit together. My life felt “under control”, in a good way. I wasn’t scrambling after things. If I remember correctly I was even doing my accounting regularly (that’s saying something). And I remember that during that year, I had a pretty solid morning routine. I actually would set my alarm clock. I would wake up at 7:30, and at 9:00 I would be at eclau to work, having pedalled on my stationary bicycle for a good half-hour.

Then 2010 happened. During my catless year, in 2011, I travelled way too much. I made up for all the previous years of no holidays. 2012 was chaotic. All that to say I never got back to where I was in 2009. Briefly, yes. But not consistently. And I know very well how important it is for me to have routines and good habits, so it’s something that’s often top of my mind. But I find myself coming short.

Things might be changing right now. This morning I wrote my first Morning Pages. (Loïc’s fault for mentioning them.) Last week, I got confirmation that Quintus is pretty much completely blind, and so I’ve been actively thinking about how to stabilise his environment — space and time. Quintus is a very routine-oriented cat. All cats are, to some degree, of course.

Blind Quintus Taking a Stroll

So between Morning Pages, cat-related routine, no money to travel (keeps me at home!) and wanting to get back on track when it comes to physical exercise (judo injury in March and slightly expanding waistline that doesn’t fit into favorite winter trousers anymore), the time seems ripe.

I’ve also been wondering recently if I’m not sleeping too much. One of my precious freedoms is not setting an alarm clock in the morning: I sleep as much as I want/need. But I still feel tired. So I think I’ll go with the 7:30 alarm for a bit and see if it changes anything. I’ll report back.

On another note, I sometimes feel like I spent a huge amount of my time in the kitchen dealing with food. I like cooking, and I like eating. But maybe I should limit the number of times I actually cook during the day. I eat a “normal meal” at breakfast, so I sometimes end up cooking three proper meals a day. I should probably reheat or throw something quickly together for morning and lunch, and just cook in the evening.

The biggest freedom might be the freedom to determine your own constraints.

Depending on my Hearing Aids [en]

As the founding editor of Phonak’s community blog “Open Ears” (now part of “Hearing Like Me“) I contributed a series of articles on hearing loss between 2014 and 2015. Here they are.

With the early days of hearing aid wonder hearing behind me, I sometimes find myself forgetting them. The other day, it happened again. I left home and realised just in time that I didn’t have my ears with me.

I blame my morning shower. I have to wait until my ears are completely dry to put my hearing aids in. By that time I’m up and about and out of my “waking up and getting started” routine. What is the best solution to this? I definitely haven’t found it yet.

As I live alone, I rarely wear my hearing aids in my flat. I did during the first months though, to help my brain get used to them. And when I’m in public transport, I’m often listening to podcasts with my earbuds in — not physically compatible with having hearing aids in your ears too. So I don’t put them in each time I leave the flat, either.

Each time I catch myself leaving home without my hearing aids in my handbag, I turn back with this sense of dread in the pit of my stomach, imagining what would have happened if I hadn’t realised I was missing them. Today, the thought of teaching a class, giving a talk, having a meeting or just coffee with a friend without my hearing aids feels like an impossible mission. It almost makes me panicky to think about it. I find myself wondering how I ever managed to do without (and so, so much!) for so long.

It makes sense, though. My brain is “less trained” in compensating my hearing loss. I have less practice. And so, when I do have to compensate like I used to, I struggle much more.

When I was in India last year, one of my hearing aids escaped my fingers as I was taking it out of its box, and it dropped to the floor. When I put it in my ear and turned it on, it was dead.

Heck. Cold sweat.

I had three weeks of travel left. I ended up FedExing the broken hearing aid to my audiologist in Switzerland, who changed a component, and FedExed it back to me. India being India, the whole thing took about 10 days. But at least I had two hearing aids for the end of my stay. Those 10 days when I had to manage with only one hearing aid were terribly annoying and frustrating. I really felt handicapped.

Every now and again, I go “naked ears”. I chat with my neighbour without my hearing aids. Yup, I can still have a conversation. That’s reassuring. It feels a bit muffled, but I can still understand what she says. When I’m looking at her. When she’s facing me. Because she speaks rather loudly and clearly. And then she says something to me with her back turned, or in a lower voice, or over noise, and I remember why I love my hearing aids, and rather than feeling dependent, I feel grateful for them.

How Was 2012 So Far? [en]

[fr] 2012, année chaotique, mais qui se termine avec un retour vers la stabilité. 2013 s'annonce plutôt bien.

A conversation last night had me thinking back about the last few years. This morning, I stumbled upon this post that I wrote end 2009.

2009 was a good year. I felt like I was getting my act together. Everything came crumbling down in 2010, my “shit year“, and 2011 was largely a year of grieving. Healthy grieving, I’d like to add. Not easy to go through, but a hugely empowering life experience.

What about 2012? Well, it’s not quite finished, though I have two weeks of Lausanne life to go before heading off to India for my annual vacation. So I might as well look back now.

2012 has been chaotic. It’s been a year of changes and uncertainty, both personal and professional. You know how at times you feel like your life or a relationship has not reached its point of equilibrium? That it’s in flux, going somewhere, but not there yet? That’s what 2012 has felt like. On a very practical day-to-day level (the most important one, actually!) I adopted two cats, lost one two months later, and brought another one back from the UK just about a month and a half after that. It may seem like nothing, but for somebody who sometimes finds day-to-day life a bit of a challenge, it was quite a disruption in my life, and whatever was left of the routines and habits I’d formed the previous years kind of flew out the window. To give just one example, I climbed back on my exercise bike for what is possibly the first time in 2012… yesterday.

In addition to that 2012 came with its lot of work changes and uncertainty: the end of a long-standing gig, two other important sources of work and revenue left hanging for quite a few months, growing dissatisfaction with the social media industry and figuring out where I want to go these next years…

All this shuffling around was taking me somewhere, and I think that with the year wrapping up, I’m pretty much there. Things are stabilizing. (Proof if needed: In addition to climbing back on my bike, I cleaned the dust webs off my ceiling again this week-end, something I’d been doing regularly in 2009 but that disappeared sometime between now and then.)

2013 is looking good — and exciting.

Variety is the Spice of Life [en]

[fr] De l'importance de varier les choses que l'on fait pour être heureux, les façons dont on s'organise, et le type d'article qu'on publie sur son blog. La routine ne tue pas seulement le couple. Vous avez d'autres exemples?

I’m in India. I’m reading “The How of Happiness“. The two are completely unrelated aside from the fact they come together to give me the title of this article.

Photo credit: Sunil Keezhangattu/Flickr

Don’t let the slightly corny title put you off as it did me, The How of Happiness is an excellent, solid, well-researched and practical book.

I don’t want to delve into the details of the book, but just share with you something that has fallen into place for me during the last week. It has to do with variety.

You see, in her book, Sonja Lyubomirsky doesn’t only go through the various things you can do to make yourself happier, or help you pick those that seem the best fit for you: she also insists on the necessity of varying the way you put them into practice.

The example that really made this point hit home for me was the one on “counting your blessings” (yes, corniness warning, directly from the author herself, but don’t let that stop you).

First, the test groups who were asked to write down the things they were thankful for 3 times a week ended up seeing less improvement in their happiness than those that were asked to do it only once a week. Doing it only once a week makes it more of an event and keeps boredom/immunisation at bay.

Second, even then, Sonja Lyubomirsky invites the reader to not do it in the same way every week. By writing, by conversation with a friend, upon certain occasions, about certain areas of your life, or in yet a different manner, so that it remains a meaningful practice. (Page 97, if you want to look it up directly.)

This immediately reminded me of a flash of insight I had one day walking in the mountains around my chalet. I can’t remember exactly when it was, but I can see the road I was on and I remember the insight quite clearly.

Update: I found the article I wrote at the time, it was in 2009!

I was thinking of the different ways in which I had got organized, and how I seemed to become “immune” to a given method after some time had passed. The flash of insight was this: “maybe I just need to keep on finding new ways of getting organized.” I brushed off the idea, because it wasn’t comfortable, and wrote it down to the need to have different techniques for different contexts. For example, there are times when I’m more stressed than others. Times when I have more work than others. Times when I feel productive, and times when I need to kick myself down the two floors from the flat to the coworking space to get to work. Even my recent musings on freeform versus structured work go in that direction.

But in fact, I was right. Just like it’s important to vary “happiness activities/techniques” to prevent habituation (or worse, boredom), I think it’s important to vary one’s organization methods. Or at least, for me, it is. And it could well be because there is a “happiness” component for me in the act of getting organized. I like the feeling of being on top of things, of finding solutions to be productive despite my built-in procrastination engine, of learning how I function, of coming up with strategies to prioritize and get things done. And maybe — maybe — for me, trying to find one method that I can just stick to is a big mistake.

Another area I’ve recently connected “variety is the space of life” to is blogging. I’ve been hanging out with the communication team at Wildlife SOS these last days, volunteering a bit of my time and expertise to help them make better use of social media.

As I was inviting them to vary the type of article they publish on their blog (at the moment, almost all the stories are animal rescue stories), I realized that this was another example of this theme at work: “variety is the spice… of reader engagement?”

Even if as a reader, animal rescue stories are my favourites, I will actually enjoy them more if they stand out against other types of articles. And for another reader, the favourites might very well be “behind the scenes” articles or “get to know the team” ones.

By publishing only one type of “top post”, one turns it into the “average post”. Add a sprinkle of intermittent reward to the mix, and you’ll probably positively influence the way readers perceive your content. Isn’t it more exciting to head over to a blog which might or might not reward you with a new article, which might or might not be the type that moves you most?

Now think about relationships: don’t we say that routine is the biggest love-killer? Oh, some habits are nice — but you also want new stuff, changes from the habitual, different way of being together and relating to one another. Surprises. The unexpected. This is nothing new.

So, let me summarize. Variety is the spice of life. Not only should you flee excessive routine in your marriage or relationship, but also in the following areas:

activities that make you happy
how you get organized (work, and probably life too)
the kind of content you publish on your blog

Can you think of other areas where it’s a little counter-intuitive, but it actually turns out to be really important to add variety to the way you do things?

Weekly Planning: Weekly Routine? [en]

[fr] Je réfléchis à un rythme pour mes semaines. Même si elles se suivent sans se ressembler, certaines choses se répètent de semaine en semaine. J'en suis ici: lundi, courte journée consacrée essentiellement à m'organiser et à planifier la semaine, et à faire un sort à autant de tâches routinières que possible. Mardi, journée bureau. Mercredi, journée bureau ou meetings suivant les besoins. Jeudi après-midi, workshops ou meetings. Vendredi pour m'occuper de ce qui a passé entre les gouttes durant la semaine et faire des tâches "légères" (annoncer et promouvoir Bloggy Fridays et autres p'tits déjs, mettre le blog de l'eclau à jour, compta, paperasse, socialiser en ligne, mettre à jour ma présence sur les réseaux sociaux, etc...)

Attempting to plan my weeks has left me wondering if I should try to settle into some kind of weekly routine — especially when a week like last week comes up, where I realize that I have only one office day planned for the whole week, and on a Friday.

One thing I need to do in advance is plan my office and meeting days. Sometimes they are decided for me: a client wants me to come and give a talk on this or that day — well, that makes it a meeting day. But most of the time, I get to choose. So, which choice is best? What are the best days of the week for me to stay in the office, and what are the best days for me to be running around or seeing people all day?

Though my professional activities vary a lot for week to week, my personal ones are pretty regular. I finish early on Mondays and Fridays to go to judo. My Monday mornings and Thursday mornings are usually booked. I sing on Wednesday nights, or go sailing in summer. People from the coworking space often go out to eat together on Wednesdays.

There are also professional activities that I do or want to do each week: plan my week, for one. I’m the editor for a couple of blogs, and I have the choice between scheduling publications for the whole week at one moment, or publishing day-by-day. I write my column every week (on Sunday, so far). I want to write a few blogs posts every work, do some research, work on my business development, keep up with administrivia, and of course do my client work.

So, with all these different activities, and different types of days, maybe there is an optimal way of organizing my week.

Here’s my thinking so far (and many thanks to Suw who patiently listened to me thinking all this out loud over IM).

Planning my week is something, I realized, which can take upto half a day (scary!) because I’m still learning how to do it. It often involves rethinking priorities, doing a mind sweep (or an inbox sweep) to capture stray tasks that have slipped through the cracks, and sometimes dealing with actual emergencies. As I write this, I realise that my “plan my week” moments have a little “GTD weekly review” ring to them. They aren’t the weekly review, I’m aware of that, but there is some kinship.

I guess in an ideal world I would plan the next week on Friday afternoon, and make that a proper weekly review too. Unfortunately things do tend to crop up during the week-end, and I’m usually pretty tired by my week on Fridays, so I’m not in an optimal state of mind to be doing something new and a bit challenging.

As my Monday mornings are spent out of the office, and my Monday afternoons are pretty short, “Monday” actually turns out to be a good day for me to plan and get organized. Of course, if it doesn’t take the whole afternoon (which I hope!) I will get other things done — but I’ve learned it’s better to plan larger time slots than tight ones.

So, there goes my Monday.

Friday is another interesting day in the week: business is slow on that day, and meetings tend to happen earlier in the week. I’m tired (everybody is). Traditionally for me it’s an office day, and a rather quiet one: not many phone calls, not many incoming e-mails. If my brain is still functional it’s a good day to get things done, but most of the time it’s just not that productive. It’s useful to have it as an office day rather than a day full of meetings or errands, though, because it serves as a safety net to catch any emergencies that might not have been dealt with during the week. When I plan my week, I don’t usually *plan* to do much on Friday, apart from do the stuff I didn’t manage to do during the week.

Ten days ago, I was thinking about the type of activity that would be suitable for a low-energy day like Friday, and actually came up with quite a few ideas:

announcing events and promoting them (Bloggy Friday, eclau breakfasts and apéros, etc…)
updating blogs, mailing-lists, Facebook presence for my various projects
social media gardening: LinkedIn, Facebook, and all the rest
uploading photos
updating WordPress and plugins
trying out new toys or services (light research)
pruning my task lists (another hint of “weekly review”)
dealing with administrivia and filing paperwork
catching up with the week’s invoicing, accounting, and payments
getting back to people and socializing online.

A lot of these activities are actually more important than they might seem at first glance, and therefore they tend to slip through the cracks, grow hair and legs, and turn into scary emergency-monsters after a few weeks or months.

So, let’s say I declare Friday a “casual office” day, to catch up on the leftovers of the week and do the above. That leaves me with Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Tuesday is a great office day. I have nothing planned in the evening, so it really gives me a clear day to just get on with work. Wednesday is also a good office day when I’m singing, as I can hang around until 7pm, though not so great when I’m sailing, as I’m likely to head out around 4pm. Thursday is usually only half a day, but will turn into a complete day similar to Tuesday in a few months’ time.

So, for the moment, it looks like I’m going to declare Tuesday a regular office day, Thursday afternoon a regular meeting/workshop time, and Wednesday will be office or meetings, depending on whether I have more “office” client work or more “meetings” client work.

Mondays are there to plan the week and get as much of my regular tasks out of the way. Friday is there to catch up on the “overflow”, deal with emergencies, and “casual” stuff. I’ll continue writing my column on Sundays.

What’s important to note though is that this is the framework. Many of my weeks will not work out like this — just like my days don’t always follow my daily routine. But having this framework is going to allow me to plan ahead better, I think.

Do you have some kind of weekly routine, or do you just go from week to week and deal with them as they show up?

L'importance du temps structuré [fr]

[en] I've realised that I feel better when my time is at least somewhat structured, so I need to figure out how to manage my "free time" (when there is lots of it, like during this staycation/holistay) a bit differently than "not plan anything and see what I feel like doing".

Ces derniers mois, et je dirais même cette dernière année, j’ai fait des progrès énormes en ce qui concerne la gestion de mon temps. Par cela, je veux dire que j’ai cessé de courir, cessé d’être aussi stressée, cessé de jouer toujours toujours toujours les pompiers. J’ai une vision assez claire, sur le court terme, de ce que je dois faire, je le fais, et en grande partie grâce au fait que j’ai maintenant un bureau séparé de mon appartement, j’ai aussi récupéré mes soirées, mes week-ends, et même des mini-vacances au chalet.

Bref, ça va plutôt bien et je suis très contente de moi.

Par contre, je remarque pendant cette période des fêtes, où j’ai décidé de lever le pied et de prendre des “vacances à la maison”, que si j’ai bien réussi à trouver un équilibre durant ma vie “travaillée”, ce n’est pas si simple pour le temps de loisir. J’avais d’ailleurs déjà constaté ça, à plus petite échelle, lors d’un ou deux week-ends très très tranquilles.

Je me rends donc compte que j’ai besoin de structurer mon temps (jusqu’à un certain point!) pour me sentir bien. Ça ne veut pas dire que je dois faire en sorte d’avoir un “programme” qui remplit ma vie du début à la fin, mais les longues journées de “libre” qui se suivent, ce n’est pas top non plus.

Tiens, c’était déjà pas top durant les longues vacances d’été interminables quand j’étais enfant.

J’ai aussi appris à quel point il est important pour moi d’avoir un minimum de routine dans mes journées.

Du coup, je réalise que j’ai besoin de gérer légèrement autrement mon temps de loisir, et de m’éloigner un peu du “je ne planifie rien et regarde d’un moment à l’autre ce que j’ai ‘envie’ de faire” — ça marche pour une journée (le week-end) mais pas pour bien plus longtemps que ça.

Solution? Pas encore tout à fait trouvée, mais j’y réfléchis, c’est la première étape!

Getting Back on the FlyLady Wagon [fr]

[en] Après un peu de relâchement dû à une période de gros stress, j'essaie de me remettre en mode "FlyLady". Routine du matin et du soir, 15 minutes de débordélisation de l'appart, etc.

Earlier this year I discovered FlyLady and immediately started following some of her advice, quite successfully. I went through a phase of feeling really on top of my life: I had an eye on my finances, I was sleeping, eating, and exercising sufficiently, I had quite a lot to do at work and I was doing it well, and my flat was getting uncluttered, 15 minutes at a time.

Then I went through a hectic few days applying for a consultancy at the UN, being interviewed for it and completing an assignment (which I overdid). I dropped everything to get it done (the deadlines were short) and I realized recently that I never quite managed to regain my balance after that.

I’ve been feeling an itch to get things back in shape these last weeks. I still clean my sink every evening (almost) and make my bed in the morning, but a lot of the rest of my morning and evening rituals has gone through the window.

Here’s my plan:

– morning: get up, 30 minutes on the exercise bike, shower, get dressed, breakfast
– evening: clean sink, plan the next day

Next things I’m going to add are:

– 15 minutes of uncluttering per day
– regular book-keeping (have to figure out what frequency is good, but I suspect once a week or a fortnight)
– plan my laundry days better to include time to put dry clothes away the next day
– regular creative writing slots (50 word stories etc)
– regular “self-promotion” project slots
– weekly “quick flat clean”

(Not all in one go, of course, but those are the next goals on my radar.)