Spiral Findings

learn, share, grow

Pomodoro

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I recently came across the idea of the Pomodoro Technique after a nice conversation with my new friend Xandra.  She and I were chatting and somehow we came upon the idea productivity/distraction management tools.  She had recently read the book and recommended it to me.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find it any of my local libraries, and I didn’t want to buy it because my stash of books is overflowing my bookshelf as it is.  Fortunately, after some creative googling, I was able to come across a link for a paper written by the author about the technique.

The biggest reason I’m interested in this technique is because it has a method for handling distraction.  There are any number of distractions in our lives these days that take away our focus from the task at hand.  I wonder how much time I’m wasting because I just have to check Instagram again to see if anyone likes the photo I posted this morning.  Can I just focus on the thing I need to get done?

The Pomodoro Technique seems to be able to provide a framework for this focus on things you need to get done without sacrificing your distraction twitch;  it structures break time into your schedule so that you can quench that feeling you’ll just explode if you don’t check your Facebook feed.  The other interesting thing I’ve found is that it helps you to quantify how long a given task will take.  With the other tools I’ve been using, breaking down of tasks hasn’t been something I’ve done and I think it might be useful.

I’ve yet to finish reading the paper.   I expect to add an update to this post when I finish reading and implement the parts of the technique that I find the most applicable.  Provided, of course, that I can focus long enough to do that!  🙂

UPDATE:

I’ve adopted a system that used the Pomodoro Technique, Getting Things Done, and the Daily Docket.  I’ve found this super helpful in my attempt to plan my days and focus on the work at hand.  Even when I’m not very motivated, the Pomodoro Technique helps me to focus on the task at hand, even if just for a short time.  I use Getting Things Done to capture all the things I need to do and that provides the fodder for my pomodoros, and it’s sorted by the context I’m in at the time.  One thing I really enjoy is that you don’t use the Pomodoro Technique for your free time, which makes sense, but was important for me because sometime I even try to structure my free time.  Lastly, I use the Daily Docket template I’ve modeled after the one I found at the Art of Simple page to plan out my days with intention; the main benefits I gain from a daily docket is to understand my three main tasks for the day, what my commitments are for the day in the form of meetings and appointments, and how much time I have left to do other tasks.

Food Journal

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I started a food journal recently.  I’ve done a few of these over the last couple months.  The first time it was just to see what I was eating so as to understand what types of proteins, carbohydrates, etc. I was ingesting.  It was eye-opening because I had recently learned that carbohydrates generally break down into sugar and I was eating a LOT of sugar.  It’s something really interesting to try if you haven’t already and I recommend the following resources:

  • Watch the movie “Fat Head” and/or check out the blog associated with the movie
  • I used the iPhone app MyFitnessPal to track my food.  It has a good library of foods so you usually don’t have to customize any food entry – something always pops up, and it also synced with the food diary functionality within the Fitbit app.

Just knowing what I was eating was half the battle of making a change in what I consumed.

The new food journal is a bit different.  I record the food I eat, but I focus on what I’m eating and the ingredients that make up that food, not the quantity.  This has been equally eye-opening.  I first got the idea for this when I heard an interview with Andrew Olson, the proponent of the One Ingredient Chef.  He looked into what comprised of the food he was getting at a local sub shop, and noticed that the banana peppers weren’t just banana peppers; they actually included 10 different ingredients.  The whole sub included about 100.

So when I started this journal, I was trying to figure out if there was a food or a preservative that was having a negative impact on my health.  I started to wonder, what is the reason to put thiamine mononitrate, disodium phosphate, and any number of things I can’t pronounce in my food?  I presume there is a reason, and it might have something to do with preserving the food.  I was much happier eating something that said on the package that it was: almonds or butter (contains milk), partially because it required me to write less down when I did my journal, and secondly because I knew what I was eating.  I might have to give some of these one ingredient recipes a go!

It is an interesting experiment to try – what are you eating?

Less

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I don’t need all the stuff I have.  I don’t need that bike in my living room that I rode maybe a handful of times over 5 years ago and moved across the country, to yet again, collect dust and not be ridden anywhere.  In fact, I kind of regret the reasons why I bought it in the first place.  I’ve been reading a lot about minimalism.  Although I’m not sure I can label myself as minimalist, I can definitely see the value of the idea of living more simply.  With less stuff, less processed foods, less distractions and more things I really want to focus on in life.

So, I’m going to do a little experiment.  I’m going to start getting rid of the stuff I don’t need anymore.  I’ve already taken at least 10 boxes of stuff to my local donation center this year, but there is so much more that I don’t need and I can donate.

And just so I have a little accountability, every time I get rid of something, I’m going to post a picture of it on Instagram.

If your curious about what types of things I’ve been reading re:minimalism, here are some links that inspired my transition:

Advertising

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I’m not all about advertising.  I think it makes sense to connect people with things that they need and build a genuine relationship between the provider and the user.  Over the last few months, I’ve been paying extra attention to how many different ways I get bombarded with advertising.  It’s a wonder any of us have any discretionary income because we are told to buy a new car, get that specialty luxurious spa treatment, go to this restaurant tomorrow, and make our teeth whiter with this toothpaste, all before we get out of bed in the morning.  It is really exhausting when you start paying attention to it.  Not to mention the message it sends that we need more stuff or aren’t good enough the way we are.

For your convenience and mine, there are no ads on my page.  I did sign up as an Amazon Affiliate, so if you see a hyperlink for a book I mention, it links right to Amazon where you can purchase the item.  Should your heart desire, feel free to use those links if you are interested in those products.

For those of you who have websites of your own, I recommend looking into Amazon’s program.

Update:

So far I haven’t gotten good traction using the Amazon Affliate program because I don’t have tons of subscribers, which is totally fine with me,  but doesn’t help Amazon so we disabled my account.  The links I provide will no longer be connected with my account – just regular, plain ol’ links.  It’s probably better this way anyway.  🙂

What’s in a Name?

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Hi there!  A few people have asked, so I thought now is as good a time as any to provide some background around the name of Spiral Findings.

I’m huge into note-taking.  I love new notebooks and pens.  Office supply stores are my favorite kind of store to visit.  I was reminded of this love while reading Gretchen Rubin’s book The Happiness Project where she remarks on her passion for note-taking.  I can totally relate!

Learning for me always involved some version reading or learning something from a teacher and taking notes off that information.  Without this note-taking, I was never able to grasp the concept completely.  The process of capturing that information on paper made the knowledge stick.  My endless supply of colored pens  made the process of note-taking so much more fun and definitely served the purpose of keeping me awake in the more uninspiring classes.

Another inspiration for the word spiral came from an interview given by Theresa Schwenkler in her Year of Enough series.  One of her interviewers mentioned this concept of spiral learning.  They talked about how unlike learning math or english, other types of learning were not as linear, and in fact were somewhat spiral in nature.  Once you learn how to add two numbers, you know how to do it; however when you are learning things about yourself or perhaps about your spirituality, how you wanted to live your life, or what types of relationships you want to have, or any number of more complex topics with a noted human component, there is more of a peeling of the proverbial onion that happens.  In some cases, you may learn something out of one relationship, or repeat that experience for many relationships, until you learn from it.  In my research, I came across this article on the spiral of growth which helped me learn about this concept.

So this blog is really a place for me to share some things I’ve learned (and probably taken some notes on) with the hopes that it might be helpful to you.  Its also a lot more structured than the hours of conversations I’ve had with friends about these topics.  I think the content for this site will probably be around things I’ve learned about work, productivity, and living deliberately.  I intend on linking to sites that helped me along in my process of learning.

Thanks so much for joining me on this journey!

 

Mirror, Mirror, What’s my Passion?

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Having recently discovered minimalism through The Minimalists, starting with the blog and then following with a number of their books, I started to really internalize the ideas they had about living life intentionally.  Living intentionally meant focusing on 5 core tenets that bring them happiness and fulfillment: health, relationships, growth (which I interpreted as learning), contribution (giving), and passion.

I get the first 4, but passion…well that one threw me for a loop.  What’s my passion?  How do I go about finding it?  Can I ask some proverbial mirror on a wall what my passion is?  Do I have one or many?  Is my passion what I do for work or is it what I do outside of work?

So then, I did what any rational person would do – I researched as much as I could about the concept of passion.  The internet is wonderful for that kind of thing 🙂

I found tons of articles referring to Steve Jobs, information about how to sit and meditate on my passion, to regress to my childhood and see what inspired me most and maybe that was my passion, then I found an article by Cal Newport referring to passion which cited a video by Mike Rowe from Dirty Jobs.  This one stopped me in my tracks because it talked about how maybe we don’t have a “pre-existing passion.”

So, maybe we don’t have a pre-existing passion?  For whatever reason, I couldn’t stop with that answer to my questions about passion.  So, I did more research.  I came across this post by Marie Forleo about finding your passion.  Stop searching for how to find your passion, and just try things.  Do you feel inspired, excited, engaged by what you are doing?

I think there is definitely more to learn about the concept of passion.

 

Presence in Meetings

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Photo Credit: Craig Garner, Unsplash

Photo Credit: Craig Garner, Unsplash

Early on in my professional career, I was very fortunate to have a great manager who taught me the ropes of our specific business and more generally how to work effectively.  One of the most important things I learned from him was to shut my laptop, turn off the email notifications on my phone, and to pay attention when I was in a meeting.

There is a reason why you are supposed to be in this meeting.  If you are in a meeting, then be there.  If you have something else you have to get done, then excuse yourself and go do that thing.

Now, I know this isn’t always the case.  We’re often called into any number of meetings that probably don’t require our presence, and its up to us to decide what the most effective use of our time is.

However, if we’re supposed to be in a meeting because the topic needs our input, then close the laptop, put the phone down, turn the email dings off, so you can truly focus on the topic at hand and get it done.  It will make for less distraction for you and the other people in the meeting AND most likely shorten your meetings altogether because you aren’t constantly diverting your focus to other topics.

Paper versus Electronic Notes

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Alejandro Escamilla via Unsplash

Photo Credit: Alejandro Escamilla, Unsplash

There is something about sitting down with a piece of paper and a pen, and physically writing something down that has a different feeling than taking notes electronically.

I started using a popular note-taking tool for taking electronic notes on my computer or mobile device.  I found that I just wasn’t able to retain the information the same way as if I wrote it down by hand.  It was so much easier to take the notes electronically – I can type a lot quicker than I can write, but there was something lost in the process of hearing or reading the information, and then the process of internalizing and transcribing it that caused me to miss the message that I was trying to capture.  It became less about internalizing the information, and more about just capturing it for review later.  Often that “review later” never happened.

I started reflecting on this when I found Susannah Conway’s site and flirted with the idea of taking her e-course Journal Your Life.  By simply watching the video and reading about her experience with journalling, I remembered how therapeutic it can be.  I picked it up again – electronically and on paper.  The same philosophy I found worked for me here as well – journalling on paper versus electronically had such a different feel to it and it served the purpose of being mindful about what I was writing.

Everyone processes information differently, and I still value having an electronic location for to-do lists and for my calendars, but I’m realizing that there is value in having an old-fashioned pen and paper when processing or internalizing is necessary.  And its so much more fun when you have tons of colored pens, new notebooks, and fresh clean sheets of paper to use!  🙂