If you are having trouble falling asleep

Hi!

My last post suggested an Evening Ritual you can use to get ready for sleep. Instead of hopping into bed after an evening watching exciting movies or a scary series, perhaps even working late, you need to ease into your sleep time to optimize your sleep quality.

Today's post comes courtesy of O Magazine:

Today's thoughtless comment to a friend. Tomorrow's meeting with the boss. The mortgage. The homeless. The flu. The glaciers! If your mind starts to spin when your head hits the pillow, a new trick called the cognitive shuffle may help. The goal: to silence fretful thoughts by deliberately overloading the brain with benign nonsense. 

The cognitive shuffle evolved from a cognitive scientist's attempts to solve his own sleep problems. Luc Beaudoin, PhD, an adjunct professor at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, figured that if he could find a way to put his brain into a state it recognized as ready for sleep while directing his attention away from the stressful thoughts keeping him awake, he might just be fooled into dozing off. "The brain's sleep-onset control system need not know what you're thinking or imagining," he says. "It just needs to notice that there is mind wandering and that there is vivid visual imagery, as if you were hallucinating. Unless the brain is on drugs, these clues generally signal that the cortex is ready for sleep." 

Beaudoin's theory worked for him, so he tested it on college students, pitting the cognitive shuffle against an early-evening journaling technique called constructive worry, which has been shown to beat back insomnia-inducing thoughts. The shuffle was just as effective—and arguably more convenient since it can be done at bedtime or in the middle of the night without a pen, paper, or worksheets. He's currently studying it in comparison with counting backward. To try a version yourself, follow these steps: 

1. Pick a letter at random. 

2. Visualize a word that starts with that letter. It should be something you can picture and should be emotionally neutral (no clowns, airplanes, or snakes). 

3. Continue thinking of new words that start with that letter. So if you chose lollipop, you might then picture a landmark, a lemon, a ladle, a lion. Instead of speeding through a list of words, pause and imagine each one, says Beaudoin. 

4. When you get bored with your letter, move on to the next. Don't get creative and make up stories about any of the words. 

5. Keep going until...zzz. Some people nod off within the first few minutes; others may take as long as 15 or 20. 

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/health_wellness/tricks-to-help-you-fall-asleep-quickly#ixzz4nAjOnFsy

Optimize Your Sleep - Optimize Your Life!

Your Evening Ritual for healthy sleep

After a busy day, it’s quite difficult to wind down and get ready for a good night’s sleep.  You might have worked late or stayed up watching TV.

Then, when you want to go to sleep, you can’t. Your mind is racing with thoughts you don’t want or need at that time of day.

Lots of people have difficulties with sleeping. According to the National Sleep Foundation, 45% of Americans say that poor or insufficient sleep affected their daily activities at least once in the past seven days. The idea of being optimally productive requires some planning of your sleep. If you want to be productive tomorrow, you will need to ensure that tonight you will get enough sleep.

Once you know how much sleep you need, that is when you can start planning your sleeping schedule. This is really important to know in order to set yourself up well for the following day. I’m sure you have had days when you have awakened and just wanted to go back to sleep. Or when the alarm clock jerks you out of a sound sleep and you feel as cranky as Dr. Jekyll. These things can all be prevented, by knowing how much sleep you need, and by catering to your personal sleeping schedule.

How many hours of sleep on a consistent basis do you need to be on your game during the day? I need 7 hours of sleep but you might need more or slightly less. Theoretically, you should wake up without an alarm if you’ve gotten enough shut-eye.

Starting the Evening Ritual

If you need to get up at, say, 6 am. the next morning and you need 7 hours of sleep to feel great, when do you need to begin your evening ritual?

My lights need to go out by 11 pm. but I tend toward the earlier side. So I want my light out by 10:30, which means my evening ritual starts at about 9:30.

Check out the suggestions below, add up the time you’ll spend on all the activities you decide to do and go back from your “fall asleep” time. You’ll probably need about an hour.

While having a morning ritual is important to starting off the day and really getting the most out of it, an evening ritual is equally important. It allows you to digest everything that happened during the day and celebrate it.  You can be constantly achieving your goals and making progress in your life, but unless you take the time to really celebrate that progress, then you're missing out on a lot of meaning and fulfillment you can be experiencing right now.

It is important to have an evening ritual to put yourself in relax mode.  You need to let go of the day, let go of tomorrow and just relax while paving the way to a refreshing sleep.

Getting ready for bed – the powering down phase

First and foremost, turn off all digital devices! No more TV (you shouldn’t have one in your bedroom anyway!). No video games. No web browsing. Place all phones, tablets and computers outside of the bedroom. You are not going to die of boredom between brushing your teeth and slipping into LaLaLand.

You’ll brush your teeth, drink some water and perhaps even shower or take a soothing bath.

There is nothing you can do about your day’s problem(-s) late in the evening, so just go to bed. Leave the problem solving for tomorrow when your brain is fresh.

What you might do to aid your brain in letting go of the worrisome stuff:

- Say to yourself: I’m going to work on problem XL from 9 AM until 10 AM tomorrow. Right now, I can relax.

From Cal Newport’s Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World:

…support your commitment to shutting down with a strict shutdown ritual that you use at the end of the workday to maximize the probability that you succeed. In more detail, this ritual should ensure that every incomplete task, goal, or project has been reviewed and that for each you have confirmed that either (1) you have a plan you trust for its completion, or (2) it’s captured in a place where it will be revisited when the time is right.

- Prepare tomorrow’s clothes. Nothing like trying to get dressed and realizing you’re missing clean socks or underwear, or there is a spot on your only shirt. If, for some crazy reason, you wake up late, it’s that much easier to get dressed and out the door quickly. Put the clothes out, ready to jump into them the next day. No wasting brainpower in the morning. This also helps you get better at ‘planning ahead’.

Some people make lunch, pack work and sport bags, set wallet or purse/keys/sunglasses/phone next to the door, all the night before. When they wake up, they don’t have to think about making a lunch or forgetting things. They can just workout (or their Miracle Morning Ritual!), eat breakfast, and go.

- Visualize the next day in detail. Charles Duhigg talks about this exercise in his book „Smarter Faster Better“.  Duhigg writes about how the most productive people visualize their days in very specific ways. Your brain processes these goals as you sleep and you can jump out of bed and straight off into them in the morning.

- Practice yoga or just stretch. Set aside at least five minutes for yoga or stretching each night. Find a quiet space in your home and get comfortable. Fill your lungs and breathe out slowly. Envision that you're releasing the day's stress and negative energy with each exhalation.

- Keep a bullet journal to stay on top of your personal life outside of work – the perfect place for a daily recap of all things ‘you’. You might write about your ‘Magic Moments’ or accomplishments you are proud of. Or simply your pleasant experiences of the day.

Getting ready for sleep – The Shutdown Phase

When you are in bed, you might take time for the following:

- Meditate for about one to five minutes. Just be still and observe your breathing, coming in – going out. Envision that you're releasing the day's stress and negative energy with each exhalation. Listening to a guided meditation audio is a great way to eliminate distractions if you find your mind wandering.

- While keeping a smile on your face, ask yourself a few of the following questions. If you want, say these things out loud, as it is even more effective.

What  happened today that you could feel happy about?

What are three things (minimum) that you are grateful for?

What was great about today?  What did you love?

What have you given today? How have you shown kindness and compassion?

 
What did you learn today?

How have you grown today?  In what ways has your life improved?

What have you done for others?

These questions teach you to live life more consciously which, in turn, helps you to feel more fulfilled.

- Read some fiction

Nothing disconnects you better than going off to your favorite fictional world and leaving all the thoughts, ideas, worries and responsibilities of the real world behind. 15-20 minutes should do.  It took me a year to read all eight Outlander novels and they were wonderful for whisking me off into another world.

By now, sleep should come pretty naturally. Turn off all lights and let yourself float into blissful slumber.

Sweet dreams…

TA-DA!!

Shoot off the fireworks! Have the trumpets play the honkiest fanfare going! Call out the marching bands.

I cleaned out my basement.

No, that is not an anticlimax. It's major.

I dragged my cleaning lady into the catacombs and we pulled everything out of the one little room I am alloted in this apartment house. She swept out the dirt and cobwebs and washed off the shelves. Then I had to decide what stays and where do I stash it (so that I always see what I have at a glance).

I have definitely gotten more realistic about what I'll use and what will gather dust until doomsday. So out went the Winston Churchill books I thought I should read. Also the books that some teacher would love to have. And so on.

I stored things by category and only the categories I really use NOW. No Maybes. No "But I spent good money on that".  In Germany, we can put all our junk out on the curb and it is picked up by the waste department. More often that not, though, other people drive by and stop to pick up some "treasure".  I just think, "Better you store it than I!". 

No matter if you own or rent your place, you are paying per square foot/meter. When you can't really enjoy a room or put your expensive car in the garage because of clutter, you're throwing that portion of your money down the drain. If you rent storage space, you're wasting money and not solving the problem. You're making it worse. It's the biggest joke of all time because most people never ever use the stuff that is stored again. If you move to a bigger home because you need more space for stuff, you're throwing good money after bad.

Three Questions You Need To Ask if You Are Downsizing

Ask Yourself 3 Questions When You Go Through Your Belongings

 

Write down your favorite pack-rat phrases. Things like: "I have to go through those," "Someone could use that," and "But I need it!" Unless you use the object in question at least once a year, such righteous exclamations are actually symptoms of dysfunction. Obeying these protests will keep you overstuffed and off balance forever. 

Instead, use your powers of analysis to outwit the primitive logic of these phrases. Ask yourself what you long for. Some of the most common responses are "peace," "space" and "freedom." Clutter keeps us from achieving these goals, and we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars buying larger homes and organization gadgets. Empty space is more valuable—psychologically and physically—than almost any object. 

With this in mind, walk into any room of your home and focus on 10 random objects. As you consider each, ask yourself (1) Do I truly need it?; (2) Do I truly adore it?; and, (3) Would I trade inner peace for this? The answers can help curb your pack-rat impulses, allowing you to clear out and move on.

Anti-Multitasking-Challenge

We are so used to multi-tasking that we actually go into withdrawal at the thought of focusing on One Thing at a time. Even though science has proven how unproductive, yes, even conta productive it is. 

Allow yourself to be "in the present moment".

Here is a list of Single Tasking Reminders to help you on your own single tasking challenge:

• Eat breakfast without reading a book / newspaper / going online / checking your phone or even talking by speaker phone.
• When you take public transport - simply sit and observe. You don't always need to be distracted by a book or by music. When you drive, be fully aware- don't drift off on clouds of thoughts.
• Watch a movie from start to finish without doing other things. 
• Listen to an album all the way through without doing something else. Watch a TED talk completely through with having it run in the background while you are perhaps cleaning. Yes, even though these are just words!
• Connect with the people you speak to - don't think about what you need to say next, just listen and react to what needs to come through. Your relationships will bloom!
• Carry around a notebook and write things down should you feel like you will get distracted.- don't pop off and do whatever tasks grab your attention.
• Start your day with some mindful rituals. Do each thing one at a time.
• Set a timer for 25 minutes and divide your tasks into 25 minute intervals. Take a 5 minute break after every 25-minute unit. Some tasks might take longer, so break them into these time blasts. This method, called the Pomodoro time management technique,  works well to help you focus.
• Declutter your desk so that you don't have any distractions there.
• Switch off your phone for a day on the weekend and detox from technology.
• Allocate one day of the week to cleaning. Don't use it as an excuse to be off-task
• Slow down your evening with Evening Power-Down rituals. Give yourself enough sleeping time.
• Have only one browser window open at a time when you are on the internet. Shut off all notifications!

The Great Purge 2017

It is spring and we are feeling new energy and are full of motivation to get our lives back in order after the hibernation of winter. So we get ready for Spring Cleaning or the yearly purge of our STUFF.

Stuff has a way of filling existing space, unless we purposely stop it.

Instead of considering whether enough space is available for something, consider the costs to keeping the item. Sure, using “valuable real estate” in your home is one. But there’s also the cost of maintaining the item, cleaning it, time and energy spent moving it around, and possibly most importantly – the mental clutter it creates. It is distracting you, even if you aren’t aware of it. Even if something is in a labeled box bought specially from the Container Store, yet it’s something no one in your family actually needs, it is creating mental muddle.

So set those things free. Let someone else have them. You won’t read most of those books (again), use the 4 sets of extra sheets, measure with the other measuring cup sets in stainless steel and plastic, play with the old games that were fun years ago. Let someone else enjoy them – you have new mountains to climb, exciting adventures to discover, other books to read (that all fit into one Kindle!), fun toys to play with that are more in tune with the children’s ages, etc.

If you are a Flea Market nut, your abode is probably filled to the brim with things you enjoyed buying but serve no purpose and have no privileged trophy cabinet. Some things never see the light of day because they are under a pile or hidden away in the basement, closet or garage.

Mental Clutter Be Gone!

What if you keep it “in case” but you never actually need it, and you die with the item still in its packaging? What’s the worst thing that could happen if you let it go?

When I did my first purge several years ago, I was getting ready to move. So I didn’t really notice the difference. Now that I’ve been doing the Great Purge every year since, I’ve noticed an odd phenomenon – having such a sleek, slimmed down apartment is so easy to care for, yes, but I feel odd with all these empty shelves! It reminds me that I don’t really need an apartment this big. Well, it isn’t huge but it certainly feels roomy now.

So now I have to avoid filling the flat up again.

If I am interested in something, I generally buy all the books and materials I can find. Even a professional doesn’t need all of the stuff I procure! I really need to buy only the basics and not always whole sets of things.

I have stayed interested in painting but I will never be able to use all the paints I’ve bought. My place would be full of pictures stacked against the walls. Well, that’s the case already. I wanted to try watercolor pencils so I bought the deluxe set of over 100 pencils. At least I restrained myself after a soft pastel course last week and refrained from buying anything except two pieces of paper. Ta-DAA!

I have at least 1000 books still adorning my walls, even after selling over 1000.  Yet I mostly read the ones in my Kindle (It’s easier to hold in bed or carry in my purse.). And no one has purchased anything from me on Amazon in over two months.

I purged my clothes, shoes and purses so I am set for 2017. The place is really easy to clean because there is no clutter to move.

So my goal for the Great Purge of 2017 is my old seminar stuff. The materials I’ll never use again because I teach other subjects now. The hundreds of articles I wanted to read to be Amazingly Informed. The transparencies for use with overhead projectors. Who uses those things anymore?!

Even if you have several kids and a messy partner, or especially then, keep your things down to a minimum. Then they don’t pile up so badly.

Good Luck with your Great Purge!

Start NOW!

In 2 days, tomorrow will be yesterday.

I told my family and friends about downsizing all my clothes, shoes, etc. and have started an avalanche of Spring Downsizing. One friend even tried to give me about 20 pairs of pants and 30 blouses she felt were too good to give to charity! Aw, go ahead and give it away... 

Deliberate, intentional, strategic work is the Big Mama of improvement. With focused intent on improving, your progress is so much faster.

Nobody likes to fail. But what separates the masters from the mediocre is their attitude towards failure. You need an awareness of what is not working to get better. What needs improvement? What do I need to reach mastery. To cultivate a good crop, you need a bit of manure!

Reboot and rally

Instead of thinking “The path is full of obstacles”, think “The obstacle is the path”. The master has failed more than the beginner has even tried. Mistakes are learning opportunities so don’t flail yourself for experiencing them.

Strategic practice is based on the idea that we have to relate tactics to strategy and strategic goals. The difficulty with this common sense idea is that it isn’t easy to know how to align immediate work with long-term goals, and there are many barriers to doing so. What kinds of choices must we make in order to be effective in the short-term and at the same time take on this challenge?

Life is usually filled with opportunities to improve. Working to constantly improve is the number one way in which many increase their quality of life.  You try to reduce wasted time and effort, increase effectiveness, identify inefficiencies, streamline your work, intensify your regeneration times, enjoy your progress. Yet never sacrifice quality in favor of doing things faster or cheaper.

For people who are unable to practice continuous improvement throughout their day-to-day work, the next best way to leverage the concept is to hold continuous improvement “events” every quarter. Sit down with your favorite hot beverage and brainstorm. Write your to-do items on post-its and stick them on your kanban board.

How to Practice Continuous Improvement in Companies

Source: https://leankit.com/learn/kanban/continuous-improvement/

Practicing continuous improvement begins with identifying a current process, procedure, workflow or project. Fully understanding what you have to work with is the first step in improvement. This may seem obvious, but many companies that skip this step spend lots of time trying to fix a process only to discover that the process in question isn’t needed, or the process is so poorly integrated with the company that they must take a larger step backwards to look at the bigger picture.

Questions to ask when considering an area for improvement:
– How many people does this specific process affect?
– How much time do people spend working within the constraints of the current process?
– What would we gain if we spent time working to improve this process? (Gains should be measurable, as in dollars, hours or other value metrics that are quantifiable.)
– What other teams / processes would be impacted by changes to the current process, and how? Would those impacts serve as impediments? Is the amount of effort justified by the anticipated value of forming a new process?

Before deciding what initiative to devote time and effort to, companies may take a vote on which process or workflow they feel would most benefit from improvement. Once a topic is agreed upon, the team may come together to brainstorm. At this point, many teams follow a series of steps that go something like this:

1.    Map out the existing process using a project board or a kanban board.  A project board can be a whiteboard that is populated with sticky notes. Each sticky note should represent a single piece of the process or action item. Teams should break down each process step as much as possible so that each step is clearly identified. Laying out sticky notes in a linear fashion (or whatever configuration best represents the process) is a good way for everyone to visualize what the process looks like and to understand how each piece fits together. Using a visual project board also helps people understand a process, even if they are not necessarily involved in it. Involving the un-involved in the formation of new processes may seem counterintuitive, but it helps to have fresh eyes viewing the process for the first time to become aware of things that may not have been so obvious to the team looking at the process every day.

2.    Identify areas of opportunity surrounding the mapped process. To do this, teams should analyze the current process and scrutinize areas that may be streamlined. For example, are there ways to reduce the time it takes for something to become approved? Are there unnecessary steps that are creating bottlenecks and/or causing people to wait? A classic example of process streamlining can be found in the manufacturing industry and the reduction of steps a worker must take to carry a widget from one location to another. Instead of requiring the worker to move faster (which does little but impose ineffective process management and lower the morale of the individual), the company moves the bin containing the widgets closer to the drop-off location, saving the worker several steps and saving the company seconds per work item completed, or seconds that get shaved off the total time it takes to manufacture one widget. While the immediate impact of one or two seconds may not seem to equate to very much money, it adds up over time.

3.    Finally, the team decides on a new process. Once all opportunities have been identified, the team works together to create a new process. The new process should be communicated to everyone who is impacted, and action steps may be taken away by certain team members who volunteer to help integrate the new process into the company. For example, if the new process impacts another process, the takeaway would be to work with a spokesperson for the impacted process to make the modifications that are necessary to accommodate the new process.

Continuous improvement is a great way for companies to identify opportunities and integrate improvements into the day-to-day workings of the company. Once continuous improvement has become second nature within the organizational culture, your team will begin to find opportunities in the most unexpected places, creating an environment that nurtures innovation and fosters a sense of ownership and pride among individuals.