Several Things That Have Worked for Me, at Least on Occasion
Many of which I could not, in good conscience, recommend to anybody else.
Simulating my walking commute. When I go into the office and choose to hoof it, it’s an 80-minute roundtrip. But I do this as rarely as I can, showing my face every now and then mostly for optics (I hate myself) and to try and keep myself from getting scolded. Gotta get those keycard swipes. You sadly never know who’s watching or who might actually care where you’re getting your work done and when. I’ve recently made it an easily achievable goal to regularly get more steps in, so as to lower my weight, cholesterol, blood pressure and resting heart rate — and to maybe up my physical sexiness a tiny bit as a bonus. Also to calm anxiety and alleviate some depression. So I try to get 40 minutes in the morning, and 40 minutes later in the day. Or at least a division of walks that accumulate to a solid 80 at a steady clip. It’s been very beneficial in many ways, and I’m getting really into it. Might even get real crazy and add some ankle weights to the mix before too long.
Setting an alarm for two-and-a-half hours before my aspirational bedtime. For a few years, I’ve been on that intermittent fasting ferry that has led me through sometimes troubled and challenging waters to a much lighter land. My weight rapidly fluctuates, but at present I’m down about 50 pounds from where I was pre-pandemic. I haven’t clocked in this far below 200 since, I think, junior year of college, and that was just a result of an excruciating tonsillectomy and some complications that came after it. But like anything I do that I get into, I’ve had a tendency to stretch the fasting hours further than is healthy or advisable, mostly because my stomach has shrunk and my appetite ain’t nearly voracious or irresponsible as it used to be. Nowadays when I get food my eyes are always bigger than my stomach. A decent problem to have. Sometimes I essentially forget about eating because I get wrapped up in things and keep the schedule of someone who is staffed at a startup venture destined to fail, but not for lack of effort or time spent. You’re less likely to experience phantom bacon smells if your nose is perpetually to the grindstone, I guess. So I was eating way too late and it was messing with my sleep, something I already mightily struggle with. And I read you should stop eating about two hours before hitting the sack. Hence the alarm, which gives me enough time to prep something quick if I haven’t filled myself up by then and beat the buzzer where I cut myself off for the night. More often than I care to admit, this results in my snagging some leftover Subway and store-bought Deviled eggs I keep around for comfort and devouring some of each while standing over the sink, kind of like a goblin, but a cleanly one.
Turning off Domino’s and Uber Eats app notifications to prevent temptation I’m not strong enough to withstand, especially on those days when I unwittingly and absent-mindedly neglect nourishment until way too late in the day. I keep Just Salad and Subway on though. They can hit me up whenever. Sure, I could stand to step up my self-control, but I’m sure not above making that slightly easier to do.
Separating your day into two segments, with a nap as the divider. I really love when I have the opportunity to do this. It’s not a part of my routine because I am not in kindergarten and generally have obligations that have to take place during normal business hours, on top of others that take place outside of them. Just like most any adult. But if I can pull it off, it helps with my productivity. Takes me a few minutes to rebound from a nap because I always feel like I’ve come out of a season’s hibernation instead of having slept for like 60 minutes, but once I’m back in it, it really helps my productivity. It makes me less likely to climb into bed at a way-too-early hour, too, which I am sometimes wont to do because of boredom, fatigue or a cocktail of the two. Also if it’s a weekend and you ain’t got shit else to do, you can catch a fresh buzz twice in the span of like 15 hours.
Getting out of bed in the middle of the night when you wake up, to get some shit done. I’ve finally grown more accepting of my inability to slumber for a solid stretch and am trying to better play the hand I have been dealt. When I wake up, I always have to piss, and as soon as I make that move I start thinking anxiously about what I need to accomplish the next day. These thoughts follow me back to bed where I wrestle with something similar to impending doom, hoping to fall back asleep so I can be rested enough to tackle what I gotta toil on. But the thus-far-unbreakable pattern is to just keep ruminating on it, so a little bit of action feels appropriate. Even if it amounts to little, it still makes me feel better, and then I am more aptly suited and less worried when I get back to bed.
Treating texts, emails, G chats and any other written conversation or missive as something I’d try and diligently, even artfully, craft into actual sentences or thoughts. Won’t say they’re always coherent or not a wild rambling adventure that buries the lede and loses the plot, but they’re still delicately composed with at least an eye in the direction of eloquence. If nothing else, it’s good practice for the things I write for Substack or Medium that a max of, like, a dozen people actually read. Just makes you feel like you’re putting some effort in, too.
Positioning things in strange but interesting context as a way to remind myself that none of this really matters in the grand scheme of it all, but not in a depressing way, because it’s still important if it means something to you. It just lowers the stakes and makes for aspiring to more manageable goals. Helps you be more realistic about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Like, the best things I feel I’ve ever composed have been consumed by very few, if anyone else, aside from yours truly. But the act of ideating, writing and editing them brings me great joy. If nothing else, I’m at least entertaining myself, something I firmly believe a significant part of life should be about, selfish as that may sound. Then, I do work for brands that are seen or read by more people than I can even imagine. I’ve banged out push notifications that have been read by a larger and broader audience than many New York Times best sellers, albeit fleetingly and begrudgingly. Many of these completely suck and do nothing more than annoy people. It’s a win if they don’t completely hate them. Relativity is a strange thing, but it sure helps with reframing.
Reading a short poem every time I am tempted to check out an ex’s Instagram profile. All I’ll say about this is I’ve read a fuck ton of poetry since implementing this practice, and that’s with me still miserably failing at it a pretty staggeringly high percentage of the time.
Reaching out to strangers you admire, or whose work you admire, to tell them as much. And not in a flirtatious way. Or a creepy one, though it can certainly almost always be perceived as such. You can’t help what people read into things and whether their assumptions are accurate or not. Doing this shows appreciation to people you feel deserve it, and they will react with gratitude more often than not — or at least read it and feel some gratitude even if they don’t have the time or desire to get back to you. I won’t lie and say this can’t also be self-serving. I’ve made great friends and furthered my “career” several times just by hitting people up and getting a dialogue going. I will admit this is easy for me, because most of the people I emulate or am influenced by are writers, and not on, like, the Stephen King tier when it comes to being inundated with fan mail. So, people who enjoy a little bit of well-deserved attention every now and then. Don’t get upset if Sydney Sweeney doesn’t get back to you.
Praying. I’m not saying you’re going to like your stats, but nobody can 100 percent say it can’t be effective. If nothing else, it can serve as something as a salve from time to time.
Writing some stuff and putting it on the internet.
