December goals

It seems my December goals are about (over)due. This month, I’m going to focus on taking care of myself and having a pleasant Christmas.

The first goal is one I’ve already told you about: developing a morning routine that will actually inspire me to get up in the morning. I have a feeling that will be more effective for making me get up in the morning than an empty promise. I outlined my basic idea for a morning routine in my previous post, and we’ll have to see how it changes during the month.

The second one is to stay away from Christmas traditions that I don’t enjoy and find meaningful. I plan on having a minimalist Christmas by cutting out on all the food I don’t enjoy making and eating, all the people I don’t enjoy seeing, and all the Christmas traditions that never meant anything to me.

The third goal is about practicing gratitude. This month, I will not complain about my work. At all. Because, the truth is that I have a wonderful job, and I’m lucky to be able to work with something I love. So now I”m going to go sit down with my complex analysis take-home final, and enjoy the process of discovering the answers.

Some musings on getting up early

First, a little update on my November goals. This month has been a little difficult for me. I’ve made considerable progress on the paper I was supposed to be working on, but the rest of the goals have not really worked out.

The Russian had to take the backseat to a programming project (implementing the simplex method in C++), and getting up early has been … challenging.

I’m struggling a lot with just finding the motivation to get up early in the mornings. I go to bed on time, wake up right before my alarm goes off, and then just stay in bed. There are a few factors I’ll try to work on. One of my goals for December will be to instead of getting up early, develop a proper morning routine. I think one of the reasons I can’t get up is that I first need to figure out what I need to do, and plan out my morning.

I’m a creature of habits. I hate it when my environment is disturbed and I can’t follow through on my plans; yet I don’t have a proper routine even for when to take a shower. Sometimes I shower when I come home from work, sometimes right before bed, sometimes in the morning. Sometimes I have breakfast first thing when I get up, other times I wait for an hour or two. Sometimes I have a proper cooked breakfast, other times I make microwave oatmeal. Clearly, I need to fix this.

Here is my suggestion for the basic routine:

Shower when I get home from work. I like taking half an hour to reset after work, so I can relax properly or get started on my personal projects.

1) First thing in the morning: get up and wash my face.

2) Make a cup of tea, and drink it while reading the news.

3) Make breakfast consisting of oatmeal with nuts and dried fruits.

4) Enjoy breakfast while listening to a podcast (my current favourite is History of Philosophy without any gaps.

5) Get dressed, brush my teeth, deal with makeup and hair.

6) Go to campus / get started on the day.

I’ll probably have to tweak this considerably as my month goes on, but this is what I’m going to start with. Ideally, I want to fit meditation and exercise / stretching in there as well. That’s a later project though: right now my focus is on getting some kind of basic ritual started.

What does your morning routine look like?

Top 5 resources for minimalism

During the past year, I’ve been experimenting with minimalism. I know there is some confusion out there about what minimalism really is. That’s because there are two different things people may refer to when they talk about minimalism: a minimalist style and a minimalist lifestyle. The two are not the same thing. There are fashion bloggers with a minimalist style that own 15 white button-downs so that they can pick the one with exactly the right detailing for each outfit. There are people that love colour, antiques, fussy details, and still live a minimalist lifestyle.

A minimalist lifestyle is simply about having only what you need and love. How much this is depends entirely on you. There are minimalists who take it to the extreme and have only 100 possessions, and minimalists whose homes look like yours or mine, just without all the clutter.

For these purposes, clutter is defined as anything you don’t actually need, that simply takes up space and doesn’t make you happy when you look at it. The and is key here. You can have useful things that don’t make you happy when you look at them, but that you still use on a regular basis. Some practical things fall in this category. On the other hand, you have things that serve no purpose than to make you happy, like art, your book collection, and the family photos on the wall. Ideally, most of your possessions should fall in both categories, but nothing should fall in neither.

Clutter is things like the second set of wine glasses that you never use because you don’t like them, the scented candle that you don’t burn because you don’t like the scent, and the fancy clothes steamer that you don’t ever actually use. You may see a theme here: things you don’t use. Things that serve no purpose. In a minimalist lifestyle, these things have no place.

That’s what minimalism is all about: getting rid of things that serve no purpose. And not just physical possessions, but also social commitments, expenses, hobbies, and habits that don’t serve any purpose. If they don’t have any purpose, then you get rid of them. And it’s completely up to you to determine what purposes are worthwhile.

The end result? Less clutter, more time and money to do what really matters to you. Does this sound tempting? Here are the five best resources I’ve found to help with my journey to minimalism.

Into Mind The entire blog is amazing, but I particularly recommend their 30-day minimalism challenge for anyone who wants to get a jump-start on minimalism.

Zen habits This is the blog of minimalism guru Leo Babauta. He writes interesting, thought provoking posts about minimalism on a weekly basis. Some of my favourites are The myth of discipline, Simple daily habits that ignite discipline, and Beating the anxiety of online reading.

The blissful mind Once again, the entire blog is amazing, but in particular Catherine is the one who inspired me to start setting 3 simple goals every month. She also has some great tips for bloggers in this post. And, of course, her blog is a work of art.

Your money or your life by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez. This book changed my life. It made me realise that whenever I buy something, I’m trading however much of my life it took me to earn the money, for the item. I’m not trading money for an item, I’m trading parts of my life that I will never get back. I still buy things, but I’m much more aware of what the actual cost is now. I can’r recommend this book enough, even though some parts of it is slightly dated (it was written at a time when you actually earned interest on your savings…).

Lessons from Madame Chic by Jennifer L. Scott. This is a compilation of 20 lessons the (American) author learned from her host family during 6 months in Paris. It’s funny, thought provoking, and teaches you to enjoy all the little things in life. Placing the strawberries just so on the fruit tart you’re cooking. The slice of camembert after dinner. The cold wind on your face when walking to the store. And this is what minimalism is really all about. Not just paring down your life to what you actually consider essential, but also taking the time to enjoy what’s left. Jennifer also has a blog, The Daily Connoisseur.

What blogs / books / podacasts about minimalism do you enjoy?

Update on my October goals

This far, I’ve been mostly good. I’ve remembered to bring lunch 4 days out of 5 every week. To improve that, I’m modifying that goal to include making the lunch the night before. I tend to not have too much time in the mornings (hello 8 am recitations), so it will be easier to bring my lunch sandwich if all I have to do is grab it from the fridge.

As for not buying anything unnecessary: I’ve bought a couple of things for my Halloween costume and a new eye shadow / eye liner after my old one ran out. I’m mostly being good though. Mostly. I’m new to the whole minimalism thing, and not buying things is a lot harder than it might seem. I’ve managed to stay away from buying books (hello library) and clothes though, and that’s a big win for me. I can’t stop myself from buying books, so I’ve stayed away from Amazon and all the charming bookstores in Hillsboro.

I’ve worked on the probabilistic method 4-5 days every week. I’m not reaching my target of 6 days a week (Saturdays are no math days for me). This is one I’ll have to work much harder on. The book is fascinating, but I’m failing at carving out time for it. From now on, my work in that book will be scheduled every day, so I can’t fail so easily.

The probabilistic method is an extremely clever idea. The basic idea is that if we want to prove that something exists, we don’t need to construct it. We simply construct a probability space, and show that if we randomly select an object from the space, there is a positive probability that we chose our desired object. Since there is a positive probability to chose it, we know that it must exist. I’m currently writing up a post on some examples of the probabilistic method that should go up within a few days.

My 3 goals for October

I don’t do New Year’s promises. They are usually overly ambitious, and realy on the idea that we should only try to improve once every year. Instead, I do monthly goals, and evaluate half-way through. This month, I’m sharing my 3 most important goals for the month.

1 I will work in “The Probabilistic Method” every day. I’m getting really interested in probabilistic methods and extremal graph theory, and this is the book to read in that area.

2 I will bring lunch to work at least 4 days every week. Sigh. I usually plan this out really well, and then get too lazy to prepare lunch in the morning. So I’m going to prepare lunch the night before to eliminate that excuse.

3 I will not buy anything new (except Christmas presents) all month. Minimalism challenge: level 1.

As you can tell: a combination of work-related and personal goals. I find that limiting myself to 3 makes me more likely to succeed than tons of goals. That’s why I try to have one related to work, one related to good habits, and one related to minimalism every month. I’ll let you know how I’m doing in 10 days!