Make Stress Your Friend: A TED Talk Worth Viewing

Make Stress Your Friend: A TED Talk Worth Viewing

Doing research into stress is enough to induce stress. Looking at all the damage that chronic or acute stress can cause to our bodies is enough to make people want to crawl into their beds and not come out. But it is possible to make stress our friend, and Kelly McGonigal, a psychologist, presented the talk on how from the TED stage.
5 Advanced Stress Management Techniques

5 Advanced Stress Management Techniques

Stress is everywhere in modern life. Some of it is chronic, everyday stress. And some of it can be extreme, brought on by situation and choices. Today I'll look at some advanced stress management techniques that don't get (in my opinion) enough coverage, but can be extremely useful.
Stress Makes You Stupid

Stress Makes You Stupid

Stress, the flight or flight response, is a necessary part of being human. It's what kept us from being eaten by things in the distant past. There are a whole lot of physical changes that occur while stressed, but there are also mental changes as well.

Most of us don't have to worry about being dinner for some hungry animal these days, and yet, the stress response is alive and well.

In the past week, I've heard from three different sources that "stress makes you stupid." Given my recent experience with extreme stress and the brain fog that went with it, I have to agree, and so I wanted to look into this phenomena as well as give some tips to get through it.
30 Day Challenge: Early Rising Wrap-up

30 Day Challenge: Early Rising Wrap-up

The challenge to myself was to craft and implement an early-morning routine. This was created because I wanted to have consistent time to read non-fiction, write, and do some basic self-care activities like journaling and stretching every morning.

While I had some challenges in working with my natural rhythms, I accomplished much more than I expected and gained a sense of satisfaction of important tasks done, even on the busiest of days.

Podcast Episode 3: A Primer on Delegation

Whether you call it delegation, outsourcing or automation, turning tasks over to other people or things can get you hours back. Today's episode looks at things you might not have considered outsourcing, and how to tell if it is a good idea to outsource a task.
My Bullet Journal Setup

My Bullet Journal Setup

Bullet journaling, at its core, is a simple system with no frills. Simple text notations; no fancy graphics or headers. However, one quick search on Pinterest will show you hundreds of fantastic expansions - and complications - of the original system. It's always put me off, because I have trouble drawing a straight line with a ruler. It put me off so much that I never really gave the simple system at its core a try.

For the past two years I have tried to plan on my iPad. I bought a PDF planner and used that as a basis, adding in a formatted page for each day. But the system wasn't working for me, and I experienced planner blindness. Planner blindness is a fancy way of saying I started ignoring the planner. So after setting up a system (again, that didn't work for me) for 2019 and spending a lot of time in prep, I abruptly abandoned it on Jan 2 for a paper bullet journal.

If you are a regular reader to the blog, you know that I used bullet journaling as my first 30 day challenge . Today I present my bullet journal setup.