🐢 I took it terribly slow this week. I focused on reading and resting. I didn’t play any video games and I didn’t watch anything. I worked a bit on our ancient map puzzle.
☀️ Summer is here! We had a heat wave and humidex reached 40 °C for most of last week. Then it rained almost the whole weekend, with heavy thunderstorms on and off. I’ve never seen such a humid “tropical” weather like this around here.
👟 We went running once, on a day that was not raining but it was 34 °C 🥵. We did 6Km, at a slower pace of 7:15 min/km. It was too hot!
📝 My partner wants to get more organized, and he asked me to help him setting up his GTD (Getting Things Done) system. Finally! I was so happy! I gave him the books, we watched some introductory videos together, we read the first chapters of the GTD Workbook, we did a mind sweep together. He’s a notebook guy, so he’s implementing it on paper. So cool ! 🤗
🤯 Explaining GTD made me rethink a little bit about my system. It’s still in progress, but I want to simplify a few things. Food for thought.
🌳 We visited a friend in Quebec on Sunday. He lives by a lake, and I spent some time reading my book with a nice view and sounds of water, birds, and ducks.
📖 Books: I’m all in romance mode right now, I finished the second one of the “Uptown Girls” series, and I jumped to another one by Tessa Dare. I will continue reading “System Collapse” soon.
An afternoon by a lake somewhere inQuébec
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Post 17/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
✨ I went to Scintillation this weekend! I took the train to Montreal (which I love) and spent 3 days immersed in conversations about books, stories, plots, writing. I had a great time! I added some books to my TBR list, such as: “The Princess Bride” by William Goldman, “The Lifecycle of Software Objects” by Ted Chiang and “Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language” by Gretchen McCulloch (who was there at the convention and moderated some funny panels, she is awesome!). There was also an interesting panel about Dante Alighieri and his masterpiece the “Divine Comedy” as seen as a speculative fiction work. And so much more!
🏛 Also in Montreal I spent some time at the Grande Bibliothèque, browsing books and comics, reading in a comfy chair and just being amazed at the size of that library. I love that place!
📖 I started reading “System Collapse” on the train, the latest book from the Murderbot series by Martha Wells. I remember really enjoying the previous ones, but this one didn't seem to catch my attention that much. I stopped halfway through to give it some time. Most scenes are action scenes, and it was exhausting to read. I'll see if I'll get back to it.
🎭 And when I stopped reading “System Collapse” I knew I wanted something light and interesting, so I started the second book of the Uptown Girls series “The Prince of Broadway” by Joanna Shupe. I read 20% in only one sitting. It flew by! That is a clear indication that my reading mood right now is: light and fluffy! 🩷
📺 I started watching the docuseries “The Ascent of Woman” by Dr Amanda Foreman on Curiosity Stream. I didn’t know that the first written record of mandatory use of the veil by women was in the Code of the Assyrians circa 1450 BCE. The first episode covers ancient civilizations, and I also wasn’t aware of how ancient Greece women lacked all rights of citizenship. It was not cool to be a woman back then.
📌 Cool Online Reads:
Mental Yoga: Lovely post about slowing down. I was way more “agitated” before I knew yoga, and I can look back and tell the difference before and after yoga became a part of my daily routine.
👟 Running 7Km is my new normal now. It’s a huge improvement from last year! 🤗 I can comfortably run this distance. But I only ran once this week, the other days were all walks because we had this constant start-stop rain going on most days.
Jun 04, 2024 => 7.17Km – Pace 6:43 min/km
👔 I attended a company general meeting where we go to this conference room to hear the latest news of our area. I've always felt out of place in these meetings because it's a LOT of people and it's noisy and overwhelming. But this time it was not so bad; I was better prepared to socialize and before I got exhausted, I slipped away to take some quick breaks. It also helps that I know more people now: project managers that I deal with regularly over the phone or virtual meetings and it was nice to say “hi” in person.
📖 I took the Saturday to read. Really, I didn't touch my computer, I was away from my phone for hours and I just leisurely read all day. I had tea and snacks and lunch. It's been a while since I haven't paused like that to read. It helped that I was reading a romance novel that I couldn't put down.
🧠 I'm rethinking the way I use the Internet. I realized that if I'm bored or stressed out I will jump on the Internet and search for quick dopamine hits. I wrote about how I feel hacked and it is something more people experience. I believe less is more. Curation is key. I’m still thinking about it.
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Post 13/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
📖Reading: I started a Book Club read which is a Norse-Mythology-Viking inspired fantasy. The tone is not really appealing me: it is a dark and gritty world with bloody vengeance themes. Maybe I won’t finish it. I’m also reading Scott Pilgrim and a couple of romances.
👟Running is going well. I’m being able to increase my distance without any physical pain or bad side effects. It has been awesome! And I did the 10K Run for Women on Sunday, I broke my record! First time running 10K in a long time !
May 29, 2024 => 7.22 km – Pace 6.53 min/km
May 31, 2024 => 5.87 km – Pace 6.51 min/km
June 2, 2024 => 10 km – Pace 6.42 min/km (Race – Run for Women)
I discover so much about myself when writing, so even when I have stopped blogging for months at a time, I was always writing. The moment I stop, the demons creep in.
The main reason is that writing has a cleansing effect on me. When I’m not writing in one way or another, it’s like a clogged drain pipe on the verge of bursting.
📆 I’m being consistent with my Monthly Plans using the Rocketbook Fusion Plus. It’s nice to note down all the events and deadlines coming up. It makes me feel less anxious.
Goblincore is an internet aesthetic and subculture inspired by the folklore of goblins, centered on the celebration of natural ecosystems usually considered less beautiful by conventional norms, such as soil, animals, and second-hand objects. — Goblincore – Wikipedia
Some images from the run: it was a nice location by a lake; a beautiful day and I’ve never noticed this sculpture on the right before, so I had to take a picture!
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Post 11/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
😊 This week just flew by! I thought about how well I'm feeling now if compared to the weeks after I got COVID back in March. My energy levels are back to pre-pandemic levels and I'm sure getting my iron infusion has helped a lot.
📝 I am still not sure what got into me that I wanted to change my to-do app to Todoist. I had this plan that I would use it for 90 days to really test it out, but I couldn't stand it more than a couple of days. I think it was the whole overhead of setting it up and wanting it to behave like Nirvana. Lesson learned: it's easier to just use Nirvana than bend something else into being Nirvana-like.
🔔 Still on the productivity tools arena, I realized that I was neglecting the Reminders app in iOS. Sometimes I want to set up a reminder and doing it with the Outlook Calendar is not quick and easy. But using the iOS Reminders app is way simpler!
👟 Next Sunday I'll do a 10Km race “Run for Women”! And talking about running, this is my log this week:
May 20 => 5.15Km
May 23 => 7.15Km
May 26 => 9.15 Km
🎧 I listened to this Cal Newport podcast: EP. 299: OUR LOVE/HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH PERSONAL PRODUCTIVITY and in the Deep Dive segment he talks about the 20-year personal productivity history and what were the books that captured each “trend” throughout the years. From Stephen Covey's “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, to David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” to Jenny Odell's “How To Do Nothing”, among others.
🎮 I'm still playing Stardew Valley very deliberately and I've made a breakthrough! I finally managed to get a furnace, to turn copper ore into copper bars and finally get a copper axe! Now I can cut down trees, expand my chicken coop, and open some areas for more crops, getting ready for my first winter. I also now have mushrooms in my cave.
🧩 Made some progress on our Ancient Map puzzle! All the decorative borders are done!
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Post 08/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
🏝️ I got 2 days off work and had an extra-long weekend with Monday 20th being a holiday here! 🥳 I didn’t have anything planned, I just took the time to relax and slow down. Reading, journaling, playing Stardew Valley, long walks, yoga and running. That’s about sums it up!
📖 I finished reading “A Closed and Common Orbit” by Becky Chambers and I absolutely loved it! I also had lots of fun reading “Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life” by Bryan Lee O'Malley.
✈️ We finally booked our flights to Brazil. We will travel in December, so we wanted to guarantee the best rates because we know prices will only go up from now on. Excited to go but also not too excited to be there in the high of summer (it’s going to be 40C ! ).
🎒 I’ve decided to upgrade some of my daily gear: my old backpack and my wallet. I’ve been using the same for quite some time now. The wallet could easily be 20 years old, the backpack maybe 15+ years? I’m not sure. I got myself a tote bag that turns into a backpack and a wallet that has a pocket for a phone and can also turn into a mini cross-body purse. I was inspired by the upcoming trip, and I wanted to be prepared with versatile gear.
📒 And talking about changes: I’m rethinking my GTD system, more specifically the app I use every day for tasks. I’m feeling less anxiety overall and I feel ready to explore other options. I want to be able to capture things more easily across my devices reducing ALL the friction. Also, I miss reminders and being able to customize a few lists. I feel I’m in a good headspace to spend time tweaking and testing with no rush.
📝 So, I decided I will test out Todoist for 90 days and see how it goes. It will require some time to set it up, test it, tweak it. Nirvana gives me structure and boundaries. Todoist a highly customizable app and I feel I’m ready to dive into something less structured. I’m in an adventurous vibe now!
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Post 06/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
📒I stopped time blocking hour by hour with Cal Newport's planner, and I'm doing a more “focus of the day” type of planning with the Rocketbook week spread pages. I'm liking it. It gives me a different perspective. Stil testing how it goes.
🚄I finally booked my train ticket to Scintillation 5 in Montreal. It’s a small literary convention where we geek out about sci-fi and fantasy, mostly.
👷♀️I went to a job site visit with my estimating team. It’s always nice to see in full scale what we measure on paper.
Me and my partner went the Tulip Festival this weekend. It was an hour bike ride to get there, and it was very busy! The tulips were in full bloom, it was a nice day.
🏝️I’m taking 2 days off work this week for the Victoria Day holiday. Yay!
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Post 05/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
📒I've been using my Rocketbook for a week or so now, and I'm enjoying it! I didn't like the pen that comes with it (a 0.7mm black Frixion) and got 0.5mm Frixion Synergy pens in assorted colors and I love them. I've always liked smooth paper, so it wasn't hard for me to adjust to the polyester paper.
✏️After getting an executive size Rocketbook I got a letter sized one, which is bigger for planning and time blocking. I still don’t know if I want to use both at work or use one for personal notes and the other for work notes/planning. I’ll experiment more this week.
📅I used my big Rocketbook to plan the month. Even though I have all the events on my digital Calendar, writing them down manually helps me become more aware and less anxious about the future. It just makes things more tangible if that makes sense.
🎈I’ve been thinking about better organizing my blog ideas. I have a list in Standard Notes, but I forget to look at it. I’m thinking if I should have them in my to-do list, in a separate Areas of Focus in Nirvana. And then, how to I get down to write? I’ve been not feeling very wordy lately. Some food for thought.
📺I started watching the Fallout Series on Amazon Prime. I never really played the games (I can’t remember why it was never on my radar) but the show is really good. I like the dark humour/satirical tone in it and the 50’s aesthetic.
🎸Had a good time re-listening to the first Black Sabbath album from 1970 on the radio. Every Sunday night my city’s local rock station plays a classic rock album non-stop. It’s called the Sunday Night Vinyl Series. With music streaming services I spend way less time listening to full albums.
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Post 03/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
📒I got a reusable notebook: Rocketbook Fusion and some blue and colored Pilot Frixion Synergy pens in 0.5mm. It comes with a black 0.7mm and I prefer writing in blue. I really like the feel of writing on it, it's exceptionally smooth. I haven't had much time to use it, I'll test it more in the following days.
✏️I realized (not surprisingly) that handwriting makes me slow down, it's good for me! And my handwriting got worse over the years. Gotta practice more!
🚲Me and my partner went for our first bike ride of the year after the winter. It was a total of 37km, I was completely exhausted after the ride but feeling great! It was 21C, perfect weather. I anticipate some post-exercise muscle pain tomorrow.
📺We got 30 days of Amazon Prime (trial) and we caught up on the “The Grand Tour: Sand Job (S05 E03)“. Just fun with cars and gorgeous visuals, this time they start in Mauritania and drive all the way to Dakar in Senegal.
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Post 01/100 of 100DaysToOffload challenge (Round 2)!
🤯I've been having less and less headaches since I got Covid-19 48 days ago. I think it's timely progress!
🩺It's been a bit more than a month since I got the iron infusion for my anemia. I started to feel less tired this weekend, which I think is a sign it’s doing its thing. The doctor said it can take at least 3 to 4 weeks to increase the iron levels.
✅I had a small crisis regarding my to-do list, but it's all good now! Crisis averted! I did some experiments only to realize I still like my current setup with Nirvana.
🌹I finished a fantasy romance that was fun and silly 🙃 called “That Time I Got Drunk And Saved A Demon” by Kimberly Lemming.
📖And I finally started reading “A Closed and Common Orbit” (Wayfarers #2) by Becky Chambers. It's one of those books that gets me in the first paragraphs. I don't know why I took so long to pick it up! It's really good!
📖I’m also reading “Slow Productivity” by Cal Newport. Got to the part where he talks about Jane Austen’s writing routine, and how there are misconceptions about it.
💪No runs outside this week, it was too windy and cold, and wet. I went to the gym instead.
📺I watched the documentary “Raccoons: Survival Warriors” at Curiosity Stream. People usually hate them, I know, but they are so cute!
