Whims - 21Sep26
00:00:00 Chris Golden: Hello and good morning everyone. It is Monday, September twenty first and after taking the weekend off, somewhat unintentionally, I thought I'd talk a little bit about that break. But also two things that I'm starting this week to hopefully improve on why I took a break, but at the same time make each day that much better. So why did I end up taking the weekend off? Well, first and foremost, if you recall back on Tuesday, I discussed how this would be somewhat regular. I'm going to aim to have an episode out every day, but there's going to be times where that's just one not possible. Or two, I make the executive decision that I might take a day or two to just focus on me, and that's functionally what happened this weekend. Saturday was a busy day. I had thought about pre-recording some content and publishing it on Saturday, but decided that that really wasn't where I'm at yet. I still want to make sure that I can make this habit a daily one, and publishing that that pre-recorded content seemed a little hollow in that sense. I still reserve the right to do it a little bit later down the road, but for this weekend didn't seem it. So I decided, yeah, I'll take Saturday off. I'll record on Sunday. But as yesterday sort of progressed, I had sort of come to this realization that I had found myself in, in a moment of chill, and I just wanted to take that moment and stretch it out. Sunday was the first day that I can remember in a while where I didn't have a whole lot lined up, and it was glorious. Um, the morning we were actually at the golf course, my daughter's in golf lessons, but then from essentially the afternoon on, there wasn't anything to do. I didn't have my Canucks podcast to record. We had recorded it the night before. Normally that's a Sunday night thing. I didn't have any other activities lined up, and I just enjoyed the day for what it was a day of rest. But here I am back on Monday and again, my approach is to try to hit each and every day this week with a new episode of whims. So I mentioned I'm actually also going to start two things today in the hope that they help me find more moments of that, that chill, but also to maybe make myself more resilient and be able to introduce some of those moments of chill more frequently. The first thing was simply purchasing a visual timer that I can use to effectively get myself out of that sedentary position I find myself in so often when I'm working, especially when I'm working at home. So I've picked up a gravity timer and it's got a handful of default settings five minutes, ten minutes, twenty five minutes, fifty minutes. And so far this morning, I've been pretty good following a twenty five minute sedentary period, followed by a five minute active period. I haven't quite incorporated that longer sort of stretch break as the Pomodoro technique would would suggest, but my thought is, is if I'm doing this consistently today and I can continue that tomorrow into the next, building that habit to start standing more frequently, getting that sort of activity built in, it'll help me both physically, but as well mentally. And this actually is reinforced in the science of it all. Now, I'm not a doctor. I'm not a physiotherapist. I'm not someone you should be taking advice from. But I have read a book by Manoush Zomorodi this this summer called Body Electric. And in the book she talks about how science started to identify how sedentary behaviour was contributing to an overall decline in health among what would previously young, healthy adults. And there's a lot that's discussed in the book. But the simple premise is that many of those adverse health effects can be reversed through something as simple as being more active and taking more activity breaks over the course of your day. And the science sort of goes on. The more active you were, the healthier you tended to be. Now, I'm not going to be the guy who's going to be out there running and, and jogging on the regular doing jumping jacks, at least yet maybe sometime down the road. But I thought that if I could, you know, take those simple, you know, micro breaks throughout my day where even if I'm still going to continue to work or I'm reading as I'm doing so on my feet with some subtle movement that I'll benefit from that. So that's, that's one of the things I've started, and I've got the timer next to me right now telling me that I have just over sixteen minutes left before my next activity break. The other thing that I'm going to start doing is journaling. Now, journaling is a new concept to me. I had a diary or something when I was in high school. Um, I got this nice sort of cloth wrapped book and I had started writing things in it. Um, it sort of fell out of favor and I ended up actually tearing pages out of the book. I regret doing that. And I don't know why I did that in the moment that I did it. Uh, I still have the book, but the pages are empty except for that torn out section where I tore it out and shredded it. But I'm going to start trying to write things down. I'm not going into too deep. I think I'm going to take it simple. I'm going to just jot down notes, just, you know, what happened over the course of the day, things that I might want to remember for tomorrow. Um, I've received some advice to, you know, doodle or, or just the simple act of taking pen to paper and putting on it whatever might be in my mind. And, you know, I think the few people that provided advice, many of them that said that for journaling, they were able to more effectively put it to use over time. It's just something that developed. It grew. It's kind of like, you know, building that, that strength up that muscle. You got to start somewhere to get to wherever it is that you might want to be. And so that's what I'm going to be doing. I've got some decent pens, I think, um, some, uh, zebra Sarasa pens, vintage color. Um, again, that was just I like nice pens. I'm not to the point where I can drop a ton of money on a pen, so I should reframe that. I like nice budget pens. Um, so I've got those and I've got this notebook that was provided to me some time ago. It's a decent quality. I'm going to write down, jot down and see how that goes. Um, there is a part of me that wonders if I should get myself something like the Field notes books, because I do see value in having like a daily carry where I can write thoughts down. Um, as I'm finding more and more frequently that I'll think of something in the moment, and then the thought is gone and it's lost. And sometimes I can't even get that recall to bring it back. So I just wonder if I might be able to empower myself a little bit more in writing those down. But again, that's, that's like diving into the deep end. And I'm a firm believer that it's best to get into the shallow end and progressively get yourself to the point that you're not going to drown in the deep end. So that's my approach. I'm curious for you, our listeners, are there any out there that follow something like the Pomodoro technique to introduce activity into the course of a day, to be less sedentary, especially in the work sense, or are there other tactics or tips that you could share with me on how to improve that? Alternatively, maybe you're a journaler or someone who's been considering journaling. I'm curious, how has your approach been? How did you get started? What is it that you write down or journal about? And again, I'm not telling you to share your your deepest, darkest secrets or anything that's in the journal itself. But like in general, what, what, what type of themes or approach are you taking? I'm genuinely curious.
00:08:14 Chris Golden: I'd love to hear more about it. So please shoot me an email. I'll share that address in a short moment, but I'll see you on the flip side.
00:08:22 Chris Golden: Whims is recorded on the traditional and unceded territory for the Semiahmoo, Kwantlen and Katzie Nations. You can email me at whimsfyi@proton.me, that's W H I M S F Y I at proton.me, with a casual hello, comments, questions or the winning lottery numbers. And no, I don't need your help with SEO. You can find all the links mentioned in this episode, in the show notes on the website, whims.fyi. And the song you hear at the start and the end of the show is "The Homestead" from Logan at musicformakers.com.