3 Habits That Made My Life Organised During The Pandemic
Relax Early Morning Instead of Night
This corona pandemic is having a major impact worldwide… or in fact, I should say people-wide. See, there is a difference or at least I see a difference - “worldwide impact” reflects more on companies, countries, leaders and other big things that have an impact on the economy, inflation, etc. On the other hand, “people-wide impact” is reflected in each person’s life, rich or poor, healthy or unhealthy in a direct way…I hope you got the gist!
All of us are dealing with corona in our way and so am I. Being an AI engineer in a multinational company, does not change the fact that I am not nervous about my job and future. But there are a few healthy habits that I recently adapted, that are helping me in keeping my life organized during this pandemic.
I was in “Kurzarbeit” for about 45 days in the last 2 months. In German, Kurzarbeit basically means shorter or lesser working hours. However, for me, it was no work i.e. 0 hours for these 45 days but thanks to the labor laws in Germany, I was still getting paid partially. During the beginning of these 45 days, I was actually a little worried but mostly happy and excited since I will be having so much free time and will not have to worry much about my salary. So, as usual, I planned to binge watch lot of movies and TV shows.
After a couple of days of watching a complete season of Money Heist and two movies, I came across some videos and articles on Youtube and Medium. The focus being productivity, time utilization, and more similar ideas. And this arose 2 questions in my mind: -
- What did I always plan to do? — learn a musical instrument, caricature drawing, planting, some personal machine learning projects (to say the least).
- What was the reason I did not execute them? — NO TIME.
As expected, I planned to change it but isn’t it always the same? You get the motivation, you change your routine, do it for a few days and then you come back to the same old habits — watching Netflix. Why?? Over-commitment.
Therefore, I did not do that, instead, I learned to change only the direction of my 3 poor habits into healthier habits, that is gradually leading me( still ) towards a better lifestyle.
1. Relax Early Morning Instead of Night
“Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise”. This is what we learn since our childhood. But by the time we grow up, we add few more things. For example : Read 30 minutes book every morning or exercise every morning. Thereby, increasing our expectations, improving our morning productivity etc. BUT, what about waking up early!! That is not the task in our mind anymore. We forget, this whole productivity comes after you achieve that first task. And by setting such high goals every morning, one basically feels more stressed the previous night.
To solve this, I took the inspiration from James clear ’s “Atomic Habits”. I planned to implement this tiny habit of waking up at 6 am and nothing more. What I used to do before going to bed, watching Netflix, videos etc. I will do the same thing, but in the morning with my Indian chai. There is no pressure of being productive here in the morning. RELAX in the morning instead of night. Do whatever you feel like every morning, with only 1 task in your head, the previous night - “wake up at 6 am”.
I did this and am still doing it. I have watched Money Heist like this. But after few initial days of waking up at 6 am, at first I watch an episode of Money Heist and after that a video of Henry lab on YouTube which basically discusses 1 machine learning research paper in each video. There was no force, no planning, it was probably a feeling of becoming more productive or probably guilt that I am wasting so much time in the morning. It was not the thing in my head the previous night and I even did not ever decide which paper I will listen. It happened automatically just by waking up.
To start with, don’t plan to wake up early morning and do something productive, just wake up and do whatever you feel like.
2. Scheduling (Roughly) Next Day
Everyone says this, make plan, prioritize your work etc. It is pretty common, I know. I am not saying the same thing. Well, not exactly. Just stay with me. I started writing my daily schedule every evening for the next day (because morning needs no stress!! ) and to be honest, I was writing everything, which TV show I am going to see at what time, when I was going to cook, when I will play game etc.
Everyone have some expectations, have their own desires of becoming healthier, famous, organized and more. But most of us end up watching movies, long calls with friends, hours on Internet doing anything but constructive. I want to learn about AI more, but there was no plan for reading or learning involved in my schedule. By writing my schedule everyday, I can visualize my expectations vs my reality. I want to read research papers (expectation) but I am feeling like watching a movie or another episode of some TV show (reality).
This was one of my initial schedule for a day. From 11:30 to 1 p.m, reading a research part felt like a forced entry. And it was!!!. My expectation and my reality does not match. And it becomes more concrete when I can see it with my eyes too. There is feeling of guilt that I am not meeting my expectations and not including anything productive during the whole day.
Guilt (negative motivator) of not fulfilling your own expectations or desires — that’s what make us do things in the first place. Your expectations with yourself and guilt of not doing it, will make you do stuff. And by putting it down somewhere, will make you realize it because now it is visually out there too.
After few days, that’s how it started changing. First adding just exercise and then slowly and slowly more stuff. I had not planned this but every evening when I start writing this, it some how feels right. It started giving me satisfaction that I am moving towards my expectations and not wasting my complete day (at least). Here’s how I can sum it up.
Prepare a schedule by writing everything you feel like doing, Guilt of expectations and wasting your own talent will make you write and do productive stuff automatically.
3. Chop down your big plans!
This is one of the things that I learned during the scrum process in my work. Basically the idea is to chop down the major projects and goals into smaller tasks. And using it in my personal life helped me a lot, specially along with point number 2.
Here’s a personal example on it:
GOAL: Grow microgreens with an artificial light.
Any knowledge: none, never did any planting
Tasks:
- Read about artificial light
- Read about soil required for herbs and microgreens
- Buy seeds
- Buy artificial light……
From reading about lights to ordering stuff from amazon, write down everything and put it in your daily scheduler from point 2. Defining and planning these small tasks helps in defining the task size too, and thereby helps in scheduling better.
Just like every tiny change in your habits take you one step forward, every tiny task in a day will start making you feel productive every single day.
These were the three tiny healthy habits i.e.
- Waking up at 6 am
- Writing my schedule the previous evening
- Chopping down plans into smaller tasks.
that helped me in running my daily life during this pandemic within my control and stay more organised. I believe it was time that I realized these habits and inculcated them.
“They say, timing is everything. But then they say, there is never a perfect time for anything.” — Anthony Liccione
Start these 3 habits and start feeling much more productive in couple of months OR if you are like me, then you will have 100 more tasks in your list even after already finishing 100 tasks and you are still super MOTIVATED.
