CollegeHacker, Part 1

Lifehacker is a popular and immensely useful site for people looking for "tips, shortcuts, and downloads that help you get things done smarter and more efficiently." Zen Habits, on the other hand, is about "finding simplicity in the daily chaos of our lives," via articles and tips like the ones I posted last week. Between the two of them, there's a lot of useful philosophy on how to live a more simple and effective life, and a wide variety of handy tips. I read Zen Habits whenever there's a new post and often peruse the archives when bored, and I check Lifehacker...well, actually I don't check Lifehacker that often. I usually wind up overwhelmed by all the articles they are posting on the front page and I haven't figured out how to escape that yet. Still, I have found some good stuff on there, like these recent pieces on The Cordless Dorm and the Top 10 Tools for Better Reading, Online and Off.

What I've discovered, however, is that not all of the ideas offered by these two blogs are directly applicable to my life as a college student...at least, not without some modification. That cordless dorm piece on Lifehacker is very much an exception...and not being obsessive about the number of cords on my desk, it's not hugely relevant to me. Still, I find a great deal of validity in many of the principles offered by Zen Habits and blogs like it, and have for the last two years been experimenting with how I can best modify some of those principles to suit my uniquely collegiate lifestyle. Here are some of the things I've come up with:

1) The Morning Routine. This is probably the number one case-in-point for a concept that I got from Zen Habits and adapted to suit my needs. Since I tend to go to bed rather late, I usually wake up about an hour and a half to two hours before my first class (or internship), then shower, do my stretches, eat breakfast, get dressed, and check email/Facebook/weather/Google Reader. I have grown to immensely value the chance to get my morning off to a relaxed, peaceful start, rather than jumping out of bed, throwing on whatever is closest, and rushing out the door. Since my first classes are never until 10am, it's usually only painful to do this on Wednesday, which is the day I have to be out the door by 7:45am to go to my internship.

2) Exercise. Obviously, this habit is not unique to any blog that I could point you to. Doctors, nutritionists, and many other professionals have been pointing us to the need to get exercise for longer than I could say. Leo's brand of exercise is a lot more intense than mine. I've never been much for gyms, or really for exercise in general, but I have decided to make a renewed attempt to do some form of exercise on a near-daily basis. To accomplish this, I instituted what I call my "daily constitutional," a walk around the neighborhoods near my school. A couple of days a week, the daily constitutional will consist of walking back from the Metro after my internship, but the rest of the time I walk a loop just for the sheer pleasure of this. My rule about this, though, is that I can't listen to my iPod or talk on the phone for more than a couple of minutes while walking. It's all about getting exercise and fresh air, and has become a very nice time for me to center myself in the world around me, outside classrooms and offices and the dorm.

3) Take this Sabbath Day. OK, I don't actually mean that literally. For me, Sundays are often my busiest day of the week. I am one of the planners for Sunday evening worship at the campus chapel, I sing in the choir or play my instrument, and I often help to lead the service. On top of that, there's always homework to do for the upcoming days. But what I started doing last semester is taking one day off each month to completely decompress. No homework, reading for class, group meetings-- just R&R. It's the greatest feeling in the world-- especially if you plan your life so that you can afford to take that one day off without falling hugely behind in your work (which tends to make your Sabbath Day more stressful than it's really worth).

Ten Favorite Zen Habits Articles

One of my major inspirations for writing this blog was my consumption of Zen Habits by Leo Babauta. Leo's ideas and tips have helped me along my own path toward simplifying and improving my life, and although I find that not everything he recommends works for me (after all, he's a married father of six who lives in Guam and I'm a college student in Washington, DC), many of his ideas can be adapted to suit my life better. I plan to write more soon about how I have adapted some of Leo's ideas to work for me, but for now here are some Zen Habits pieces that I regularly peruse when I am looking for an inspirational pick-me-up.

1) Handbook for Life: 52 Tips for Happiness and Productivity. Just like it sounds, this piece offers a number of helpful tips for streamlining your life, and making it happier, simpler, and more productive (three concepts that, in my opinion, are closely linked).

2) 55 Ways to Get More Energy. Everybody has those days-- or times of day-- where your energy just fails and all you want to do is take a nap. How do you get around that when you really need to stay awake and do work? Guest author Greg Go offers some awesome tips.

3) 10 Simple Ways to Live a Less Stressful Life. I am increasingly of the opinion that stress is an overrated part of life. While it has some benefits when present at a reasonable level, our normal high-stress lives are both unhelpful and dangerous. I am quite jealous of Leo, who lives on Guam and works from home, but he does know a lot about how to reduce stress from his previous high-stress job. These ten ideas are useful because they are basic enough to work in almost anybody's life, with maybe some modifications. Reducing stress is a valuable lesson.

4) 12 Ways to Decompress After High Stress. So even after reading #3, some stress still managed to creep into your life? Don't worry, it happens. It's inevitable, actually. But I agree with Leo here-- it is imperative to decompress and let your body rejuvenate after a period of insane stress. Here he presents 12 ideas on how to do that.

5) 12 Ideas for Establishing a Calming Routine. A good way to maintain calm in your life is to establish routines that help you to center yourself on a daily basis. Whether you prefer your quiet time in the morning or the evening or both, it's worth looking into.

6) Feeling Down? 7 Ways to Pick Yourself Back Up! 'Nough said. These are very practical tips for pulling yourself out of a standard day-to-day melancholy.

7) How to Actually Execute Your To-Do List: or, Why Writing It Down Doesn't Actually Get It Done. My name is Carolyn and I am a list-maker. I admit it freely. I rely on lists to keep myself organized, but for years I had issues actually doing the stuff on the tasks list. I've since gotten a lot better at "just doing it," and articles like this one helped a lot with that. Goes through a lot of the common obstacles to getting things done, and offers tips on overcoming them.

8) Let the World Pass You By. I live in Washington, DC, which is one of the biggest go-getter places I've ever been. What ever happened to just sitting and watching the world go by? Leo reflects on the same idea.

9) Sounds of Silence: How to Find Some Quietude in Your Life. I defy even Leo to try to find quiet while living in a dorm on a university campus in a city. However, I agree with him on the value of silence, and I do my best to find my quiet time on a regular basis-- usually it winds up being on a walk on side streets late at night. But without some degree of quiet, how are you supposed to really be able to think and relax?

10) 21 Easy Hacks to Simplify Your Life. Leo's written a lot of pieces on simple living, but this is probably what I would consider his "101" course on the topic. Basic and beneficial ideas to start off anybody's move toward simple living.

Whew.

Week One of Semester Two of Junior Year is complete. Based on my experience during this first week and my projections of due dates, etc., here are some predictions about my life this semester:

1) It would be most beneficial for me to learn how to read and walk at the same time without walking into stuff.

2) Even if I can't do that, I will probably be carrying a book around with me just about everywhere, on the off chance that I have a few free minutes.

3) This is because I have two classes in which I have to read a book a week. On top of three other reading-intensive (but not quite as intense) classes.

4) Seeing my friends is, once again, going to be heavily centered around eating. Partly because we all like it, but mostly because everybody's gotta eat, so meals are the only time that people can squeeze in a bit of socializing.

5) If I'm not going to be eating with a friend, I will be eating and reading.

6) Every healthy simple living habit I have developed will simultaneously be necessary and put to the test this semester. The inclination to get up earlyish, doing my stretches, eating breakfast, taking a walk almost every day, attempting to stay away from junk food, getting to sleep at a reasonable hour-- I am going to need all these skills, but they are going to get really hard.

7) Same goes for every good academic habit I have been attempting to develop over the past three semesters.

8) Planning ahead is going to be really, really important for my papers if I don't want to pull many/any all-nighters. Also if I want to maintain and improve my GPA.

9) Extra stuff-- like meetings for the USMA (the club I'm in here), applications for summer internships, figuring out housing for next year, etc.-- are all going to be really challenging. I may have to take a careful look at which are really necessary and which are not.

10) I am definitely not going to be blogging every day or even close to that. New goal: write on here once a week. It may simply be updates like this, or thoughts related to simple living that I spent part of the week musing about. But yeah...I wouldn't be looking for posts more than once or maybe twice a week, if that week is particularly quiet.

Lululemon appears to be an athletic company of some kind, possibly focused on yoga, but they've come up with this manifesto of ideas on how to live your life. I'm not sure that I would personally go for all of them, but it's good food for thought.

the lululemon manifesto

• Drink FRESH water and as much water as you can. Water flushes unwanted toxins from your body and keeps your brain sharp.
• A daily hit of athletic-induced endorphins gives you the power to make better decisions, helps you be at peace with yourself, and offsets stress.
• Do one thing a day that scares you.
• Listen, listen, listen, and then ask strategic questions.
• Write down your short and long-term GOALS four times a year. Two personal, two business and two health goals for the next 1, 5 and 10 years. Goal setting triggers your subconscious computer.
• Life is full of setbacks. Success is determined by how you handle setbacks.
• Your outlook on life is a direct reflection of how much you like yourself.
• That which matters the most should never give way to that which matters the least.
• Stress is related to 99% of all illness.
• Jealousy works the opposite way you want it to.
• The world is changing at such a rapid rate that waiting to implement changes will leave you 2 steps behind. DO IT NOW, DO IT NOW, DO IT NOW!
• Friends are more important than money.
• Breathe deeply and appreciate the moment. Living in the moment could be the meaning of life.
• Take various vitamins. You never know what small mineral can eliminate the bottleneck to everlasting health.
• Don’t trust that an old age pension will be sufficient.
• Visualize your eventual demise. It can have an amazing effect on how you live for the moment.
• The conscious brain can only hold one thought at a time. Choose a positive thought.
• Live near the ocean and inhale the pure salt air that flows over the water, Vancouver will do nicely.
• Observe a plant before and after watering and relate these benefits to your body and brain.
• Practice yoga so you can remain active in physical sports as you age.
• Dance, sing, floss and travel.
• Children are the orgasm of life. Just like you did not know what an orgasm was before you had one, nature does not let you know how great children are until you have them.
• Successful people replace the words “wish”, “should” and “try” with “I will”.
• Creativity is maximized when you’re living in the moment.
• Nature wants us to be mediocre because we have a greater chance to survive and reproduce. Mediocre is as close to the bottom as it is to the top, and will give you a lousy life.
• lululemon athletica creates components for people to live longer, healthier and more fun lives. If we can produce products to keep people active and stress-free, we believe the world will become a much better place.
• Do not use cleaning chemicals on your kitchen counters. Someone will inevitably make a sandwich on your counter.
• SWEAT once a day to regenerate your skin.
• Communication is COMPLICATED. We are all raised in a different family with slightly different definitions of every word. An agreement is an agreement only if each party knows the conditions for satisfaction and a time is set for satisfaction to occur.
• What we do to the earth we do to ourselves.
• The pursuit of happiness is the source of all unhappiness.

Starting Spring Semester

Thus far I have been very good about my new habits-- I have successfully gotten up at a reasonable hour, always done my stretches, kept up with my nose meds, and even gotten out for several walks. The real test, however, will start tomorrow as classes get under way. If the usual tradition holds, it will be easier to stick to my good habits at the start of the semester, but hopefully I can manage to get them so ingrained that I won't lose at least the more important ones when the workload gets really crazy. Good planning for my school work is going to be key this semester as I attempt to juggle a fifteen-hour internship with a full load of classes. I am going to try to keep up with regular (at least weekly) updates to this blog, but my priorities are my classes and my health.

The last couple of days I've enjoyed settling back into dorm life and really just relaxing before classes start (although several of my classes already assigned readings that I had to work on too). Most of my friends are finally back, and it's so great to get to hang out with them. My favorite thing about living in a dorm is just getting to wander in and out of people's rooms and have extended conversations. You can't really do that in any other kind of environment-- in an apartment building, your odds of getting to know multiple other people on your floor are slim. On my floor, pretty much everyone is very friendly with everyone else. Even if you're not close friends, it's totally amicable, and there's usually lots of laughter and conversation-- sometimes too much, which gets annoying late at night or when I'm trying to work, but I am not sure that most days I would swap the camaraderie that I have here.

Habits

I am trying to institute a number of habits this semester. In some cases, they are things I fell out of doing and want to reinstate, others are completely new. It's not an inherently easy concept, instituting habits. Some people say you need to do something for two months straight, every day, in order for an action to become a habit; others say it's 30 days; others say longer or shorter. Personally, I found last year that instituting a habit of journaling during Lent (40 days) was enough to get me in the habit, but it probably depends. This morning I started the new morning routine I want to reinstate: Get up, go do my sinus rinse and shower, put on exercise clothes, do my knee exercises, eat breakfast, check email/Facebook/weather/Google Reader/Twitter/Surviving the World, get dressed for the day. A bit of an involved routine, but a very satisfying one. The trick is going to be later in the semester when life is busier and I am not able to get to bed early, so getting out of bed early enough to do all this will be harder. Breakfast is usually the first thing to go; showering and checking the computer are non-negotiables unless I oversleep.

One thing is clear, though-- I am going to have to be quite disciplined this semester in order to get through. I have a full load of challenging classes plus a 15-hour per week internship, so the need for good work habits (and the ability to work in short bursts whenever I have time) is probably going to be key. I already have several assignments for this first upcoming week of classes; arguably these assignments (readings) are probably not urgently necessary, but I have found myself to do measurably better when I do most of the readings for a class. I count them as needed, until it's absolutely necessary to skip a reading in favor of a graded assignment. Any suggestions from my readership on how to cope with the classes + internship load and stay relatively sane would be most welcome.

On the Road

Just a quick note tonight because I am wiped. I don't know what it is about traveling that is so exhausting-- after all, unless you're the driver you really don't DO that much-- but I am always tired after a day on the road. And today was a very long day-- starting at 6:30am when I woke up to get a drive to catch an 8am bus that took me to an 11am train. I found the train to be a very peaceful way to travel-- much more leisurely than almost any other form of transportation, I think. Something like what cars might be like if you could get up and move around, and if you didn't get stuck in traffic. I enjoyed the chance to get a different viewpoint of the route down to DC-- the Rhode Island/Connecticut/New York coast along what I presume was the Long Island Sound was particularly beautiful. Train travel gives one the chance to think, or to just relax as I was able to-- spend the day reading, sleeping, listening to music, watching The West Wing, just watch the world go by. Those types of peaceful Zen-like moments will be few and far between now that the semester is starting up, and I really enjoyed the opportunity today. I'm not sure that I would want to take the train between DC and Boston that often-- it is a VERY long trip-- but I'm glad I did it this time, and it's a nice option to keep in mind for the future.

As Time Goes By

Today was my last day at home (in New Hampshire) during this break. I spent the majority of it running errands and visiting with people, so it was busier than the days have typically been. However, I did have the joy of visiting with two longtime friends and their children (woah!), and of hanging out a little bit in my two favorite businesses in town. Adelle's Coffeehouse and the Silver Moon Creperie are by far the restaurants that I frequent most often, and each has its unique vibe and atmosphere. I have no particular problem with chain restaurants-- I often go to Applebees or the Olive Garden or Friendly's-- but I like the individuality of these smaller businesses. Plus you can't replace the connection that develops with the owners and/or employees when you visit often.

It's become a bit strange, though, the way in which time goes by so fast. It's never struck me quite as much as it did today. I guess it's easier to tell when the measuring stick becomes your friend's babies. The last time I saw Baby Noah and Baby Artemis, they were approximately 6 months and 1 month, respectively. Artemis in particular was TINY. When they're that little, it's easy to tell that a great deal of time has gone by, and it blew me away. Just another one of the hazards of having two homes-- when you aren't in one of them, life keeps rolling along, and unfortunately you miss out on certain things. Things that you can't replace with a phone call or really any amount or type of technology.

Winter vacation never feels quite long enough, but my bags are all packed so I guess it's about time to sign off from this side of Boston/New York City for a while. It's time to get back to the routine (and rat race) of the District of Columbia, and put some of my mental preparations and New Year's resolutions to the test.

Traveling Light

One of the first things I realized when I decided to go away to college was that for the next four years of my life, I would have two quite tangible homes. True, one was (and is) in a dorm with several hundred other people, and I would have to wear shoes into the shower, and the quality of the food would be debatable at best, but it's a kind of home all the same. And the concept of having multiple homes remains quite bizarre in a way, even two and a half years into this whole college experiment. I'm used to going back and forth now, used to almost never having all of my belongings in one place, used to spending lots of time in airports and train stations as I attempt to get from one place to another.

Packing up tonight to go back to DC, I am surprised (and a bit ashamed of myself) for all the *stuff* I have accumulated over the last month of break. I realize that most of it is somewhat necessary-- I had to go shopping to build up a wardrobe appropriate for my internship, attire that unfortunately needs to go beyond my usual preference for jeans and a t-shirt-- but the fact that packing it is amounting to a cardboard box (which I am shipping), a suitcase, and a backpack still seems a bit much to me. Since I have only carried a backpack and duffel bag on my last couple of trips home, I have learned the immense value of traveling light. I really like carrying as little as possible; admittedly, it's having my belongings divided between two places that currently allows me to do that. But I appreciate more and more that owning less-- and carrying less-- makes life less stressful. As Leo wrote over at mnmlist, there is a "true cost of stuff" beyond what you pay when you purchase it.

Since I am in the process of downsizing-- which in some ways requires as much mental effort as physical-- it's helpful to me to envision a life where I can truly say I place a higher value on experiences and people than on things, and to picture myself traveling light, no matter whether I am going on a walk around the block or a trip around the world. Traveling light means not having to stress out because you place a low enough value on your stuff that it's not worth worrying. It's a mental benefit of a physical act, and I think it would be well worth it to reach that point.

A Time to Vision

I've noticed a trend over the past couple of years at college, but especially since last summer: I spend a lot more time looking ahead and planning during my vacations than I do during the school year.

This conclusion is perhaps fairly self-evident. Naturally I don't have as much time during the school year to look farther ahead than the next month of my life. Once the school year gets kicked into gear, I'm always having to work on the next assignment, go to the next meeting or class, write the next paper. This is not really a situation that's conducive to thinking about what I want to do in the future, beyond the classroom. I barely have time to complete necessary applications on top of my regular work levels, let alone contemplate and plan as I would like to.

That situation has made my vacation time incredibly valuable to me, but has also somewhat increased the stress levels. I enjoy having the chance to sit back, put my feet up, and think about where I've been, where I am, and where I'd like to go, but then I have to combine that with actually making some concrete plans and...well, welcome to adulthood, I guess? My vacations have become a mixture of long-term visioning (what might I be interested in doing after I graduate, etc) and medium-term planning (where am I going to live this summer and next year).

I sometimes wonder about the impact of this need to plan ahead on my ability to live in "the now." I try not to let it take over too much, because I am a firm believer in not letting my mind get too far ahead of my life. I know too many people whose brains are already in law school or at their future company, and I wonder how much they are really enjoying where they are right now. I don't really know, but I have to speculate about how much it's really possible to be present and appreciate where you are if you are constantly looking toward the next thing. For myself, I like being an undergrad, for all the stress that can go along with that. So I take this time to vision and plan, because it's necessary and, admittedly, quite pleasant. But in a way, I am looking forward to getting back to school and diving in to the routine-- and I aim to be present enough to appreciate the first of my last three semesters of undergrad.

Selling Yourself

Today I worked on editing my resume. I would really like to get an internship in DC this summer (okay, actually what I'd like is a job, but we take what we can get), and the application for the first one is due midway through this month, so I figured I'd better dig in and start the process.

While doing so, I started thinking the same thing I do every time I have to work on my resume or complete an application: I hate this process. The whole rigmarole around getting a job or an internship just seems absurd to me. Not entirely because I hate talking about myself-- I mean, let's be honest: I write a blog, so obviously I am okay with talking about myself. But I dislike the culture that surrounds it. I dislike the culture that says you should always look and act your best because you never know when you might meet someone who could offer you a job. I dislike "networking" to get a job instead of meeting people for the sake of the pleasure of human connection. I dislike the focus on what you do rather than who you are.

Think that's a bit of an extreme perspective? Maybe. A resume is supposed to be a brief summary of your qualifications for a given job, a summary of your experiences and skills. I can acknowledge that there is a place for that, given that an employer has a right to be interested in what your background can bring to their company or organization. I just can't help thinking that the resume hype among my generation may be leading to a mindset where what you do IS more important than who you are. I've known many millennials who do public service of varied sorts. Some do it for the benefit it brings to humanity or the personal satisfaction it brings them or out of a sense of religious conviction or civic duty; others do it to pad their resumes. Because, of course, their future goals depend on it-- colleges and companies might "look for that."

When doing a good deed becomes more about a line on a resume than helping other people, there is a problem with genuineness. It's the same with anything else you do-- extracurriculars, academics, service, worship, whatever. If you're not able to be genuine when you do something and then you add it to your resume, you're just selling yourself short.

Operation: Compact Disc

Last summer, I launched a major clean-out and decluttering attempt in my bedroom at home. It was fairly successful-- at the end of it, I hauled out three or four boxes worth of papers, plus more full of knick-knacks, and donated or sold a small stack of books. But twenty years worth of clutter does take time to fully sort through, and so I have opted to continue it a little bit during this winter break from school.

The targets: my knick-knack shelf and my CD collection.

Operation: Knick-Knack was easy. I've accumulated a number of small porcelain objects through the years via gifts from friends and family members, and I realized that they were all doing nothing but gathering dust. Meanwhile, there were too many for me to really enjoy the ones that had the most treasured memories attached to them. So I went through the shelf and pulled off all but the ten most important, and added them to the giveaway (or throw-away) box. I've never been able to do this so easily before. I think I've finally come to the point where I'm realizing that memories don't need to be attached to stuff...and it helps that I have very limited recall of most of the stuff I am getting rid of anyway.

Operation CD, on the other hand, was a bit more complicated. Confession: I am a serious musical addict. I love playing and listening to most genres of music, and my iTunes library currently holds over 15 days worth of songs. Before the days when iTunes was my primary music player, though, I collected CDs. Some came from my parents, some were gifts, some I purchased...but eventually I built up an incredibly substantial library. I should have counted, but I suspect there may have been over 100 compact discs in my room. Until yesterday, the cases filled up one CD tower, one set of three drawers, a box, and multiple stacks around the room. The CDs themselves were housed in four full CD wallets.

Clearly, even the things you love (books, music, movies) can become clutter. CDs are no longer my primary means of playing music-- I really only use them in the car. I also didn't necessarily like every, or even most, of the songs on many of the CDs I had. Some of them I don't even know how I obtained. And while it's nice to have the physical copies of the CDs (especially in the event of a hard drive crash), there's a point where you just have to say 'enough.'

So yesterday I decided to significantly reduce my CD collection, which took four stages:

1) Go through each CD wallet and sort the discs back into their original cases.

2) Decide which CDs to keep. Criteria: I must like at least three-quarters of the songs on the album, and be inclined to listen to the CD in the car. Not very scientific, but effective.

3) Sort through the CDs that I am getting rid of and rip the ones that are not on my hard drive onto my computer. Just because I don't want to keep the CD doesn't mean I don't want a digital copy of the song!

4) Put the giveaway CDs in a box and hand off to my parents. They get to decide the next step for the discs, since a lot of them belonged to them to begin with.

OK, so maybe the last stage is a bit of a cop-out. But I'm okay with that, partly because I've achieved my goal to get the CDs out of my room, and partly because they are a lot more attached to some of those discs than I am. Hopefully I can encourage them to reduce their own collection to one that really matters to them, but that's not my call to make. Meanwhile, my room looks a lot better and I can start looking for my next de-cluttering mission.

Starting Thoughts

The start of January at the start of a new decade seems like an appropriate time to start a new blog. Whether or not it is really appropriate for that blog to be about my search for simplicity and productivity remains to be seen. As a millennial (a person born between 1980-2000), I am growing up in the US in what seems to be one of the most complicated eras in human history. Consumerism remains very high, in spite of the recent recession. More products pop up every day, many to help us deal with malfunctioning *other* products. The Internet is consistently throwing out new opportunities and websites-- ways to promote ourselves, ways to keep in touch, ways to occupy our time, ways to sell and buy things, and more.

I love the Internet, and I love many things about the world in which I live. Opportunities abound in this kind of environment, and there is no reason not to keep in touch with the people you care about. But all this comes at a cost, too-- a cost to simplicity and to genuineness and (if you are not careful) to real productivity.

I am here to write about my own struggles against those costs. I want to find a way to combine the best of the age I live in, with the best of values from the past. I believe it is possible to go beyond consumerism and web dependency without going incommunicado and becoming an ascetic. It's called minimalism, and the point is to get rid of the clutter that detracts from the things we truly love.

I've already done a bit of writing on the topic, which can be found under the "Simple Living" or "Productivity" labels on my other blog. I would also encourage regular perusals of Zen Habits or a similar site for inspiration beyond what I write here. Others have been seeking much longer than I have, and it is from them that I chiefly draw my inspiration.