Go the f*ck home.
A very giggly talk from Pam Selle on getting your work done and going the f*ck home.
This is related to my April Intention to DEADLINE IT.
Whitson Gordon does a good job of summarizing:
- Time is money. When you work extra hours, you’re earning less money for your time.
- Get off Facebook and get your work done while you’re at work. As we’ve said before, surfing the web at work can help your productivity, but if you’re prone to slacking off more than you are working, you’ve crossed the line from good slacking to bad slacking.
- If you can’t name two things you’re regularly doing outside of work, you’re spending too much time there.
- Keep an excuse handy to leave work—whether it’s a night class, an appointment you need to make, or even dogs you need to feed. Find a reason to get out of there at 5.
Even though she’s talking bout work in an office, it still applies (and makes us laugh).
Source: thewebivore.com
12i Quarterly: The Happiness of Pursuit
About three months ago, I started a year-long journey to intentionally increase my enjoyment of life through nothing more than a series of experiments to better understand myself.
After writing One Girl No Diet—my health and body image blog—for almost two years, I decided to expand the scope of my writing to include projects and goals not related simply to health and fitness.
Reading Braingpickings this morning, I read about a book called, The Happiness of Pursuit on the neuroscience behind happiness by Cornell University psychology professor, Shimon Edelman. Maria Popova summarizes the effect of the books approach:
What emerges is a kind of conceptual toolbox that lets us peer into the computational underbelly of our minds and its central processes — memory, perception, motivation and emotion, critical thinking, social cognition, and language — to better understand not only how the mind works but also how we can optimize it for happiness.
And it turns out that major findings can be highlighted in the wording of our Declaration of Independence, and its embedded message that it is the ability to question, decide and direct the course of our lives that is the root of happiness, not the attainment of a thing or set of things.
In short, the quality of our findings lies in the quality of the questions we are asking in our search. Without spending time experimenting with what may make us happy, we will be at a loss to find it.
I wrote about this a while ago on my other blog in a piece I called Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of the Right Question:
The real questions—“Why do we live in a system where we get to quantify happiness by ‘how much’ we have?” “What is meaningful for me?” “What would I fight for?” — aren’t even asked.
Granted, this was written during the debt discussions back in August, but I can see that this idea was the seed for all the work I’m doing now onTwelve Intentions. The fact remains that no matter what we do, unless we understand why we’re doing it, we’re always going to feel awash. It’s nice to read other people’s—especially other Cornellian’s—work on this idea:
The focus on the pursuit of happiness, endorsed by the Declaration of Independence, fits well with the idea of life as a journey — a bright thread that runs through the literary cannon of the collective human culture. With the world at your feet, the turns that you should take along the way depend on what you are at the outset and on what you become as the journey lengthens.
Three months into this project, it’s had some ups and downs and the prerequisite ramping up that comes with starting a new project (and documenting it…). Edelman’s book seems like an interesting layer to my pursuit, how neuroscience can help us optimize happiness. I think the most important commonality in my project and the reading I’ve come across is two ideas:
- An evolving sense of wonder and the resultant understanding of our life and experience is at the heart of our happiness and experience of being human.
- At the end of the day, we are responsible for our own happiness.
Finally, since I’m not the only person wondering about this, there has to be a cumulative and collective component to this since we’re all connected. And maybe I’ll figure it out or maybe I won’t. But it feels pretty good to be thinking about it either way.
Thoughts?
Source: twelveintentions.com
Intention for February: Prioritize Physical Health
Feeling twisted up? Stretch…Hi. Hello. Welcome to the second month of the year.
Last month was a vacation for me. The exercise was to wake up and think of something that I am thankful for before my feet even hit the ground. I didn’t do much blogging but that will change this month. I feel a shift into production happening.
February: Be part of the physical world.
OK. Seems simple enough. I have body, right? Right. But, it ain’t so easy. Originally, I had wanted to include this concept, but during a later month. It seemed too closely related to my older blog, One Girl No Diet, which was about food, health, fitness, dieting, body image…You get the idea.
But, increasingly, I find myself interested in defining—to at least a working definition—my own basic requirements as a human. Or, I should say, basic+ requirements. Think of it as the not-just-surviving anymore level of personal requirements.
I am blessed with a flexible schedule. It is a blessing to me because it allows me to workout generally whenever I want and for as long as I’d like. For me, breaking a sweat every single day is as much a requirement for success to write and design as having a computer is.
Unfortunately, the reality for many people—myself included from time to time—is that our schedules make it difficult for us to live as part of the physical world. I don’t mean to sound like a hippy by saying it that way, but think about what you do the bulk of your time at work: sit at a computer or a desk for long stretches at a time.
We are not built for that. At least, I am not. I am built to be climbing up and down steep rockfaces to an ocean somewhere on the Italian coast, I’m pretty sure.
The point of all of this is, in order to be a whole person, we need to understand and accomodate our physical selves.
What this means…
For me, it basically means that I will continue to work out. There are always days where I feel tired or lazy. On those days, I will remind myself that if I’m upset or lethargic, I’ve never felt *worse* after working out. I continue to eat mostly plants, lots of colors of vegetables, wearing sunscreen, drinking water.
As someone who works online, it is surprisingly easy for me to lose sight of how essential it is to take care of my body. When I’m stressed of pressed for time, it’s hard to take a break.
Intention: Prioritize my body.
Mantra/Strategy: When I dont’ feel like I can afford (or deserve) a break for a walk (or a run or a hike or a yoga class) is usually exactly when I need to get going again mentally.
So, if you work in an office or a job with long hours, you will need to make even more adjustments. While long hours at work make it difficult to workout, working out makes it easier to handle—mentally AND physically—long hours at work. Try to minimize sitting and move around as much as possible and find a way to do something that makes you break a sweat each day.*
Like the Goethe quote, you have your body forever. It’s health is a “thing that matters most.” It’s as important as any other element of yourself. Sometimes the order of operations is unexpected. You think, “I’ll start taking care of my body as soon as [life/work/my schedule/my mood/whatever] settles down.” But really, a lot of the anxiety and stress of life dissipates with a good run or a random dance party.
Thoughts? Tell me @jessicabrookman.
* I plan on talking more about work & the body this month including office concerns, negotiating with your boss re: exercise/standing desk/working from home…stay tuned.
Jessica BrookmanA mini-lecture by Dr. Mike Evans.
Convincing argument for exercise as being a very key element in your health:
The idea of 23 1/2 hours is also really approachable; being active for 30 minutes a day seems pretty easy when you have almost the entire day left over after…
The New York Times and the Force of Habit
My first job out of college was ridiculous. I worked at a hedge fund in Greenwich, CT in 2006, i.e. right before shit hit the financial fan.
I spent the summer getting lunch for rich people, test driving Maserati’s and staring confusedly at Bloomberg while fending off awkward sexual advances from recently graduated math-nerds-turned-new-money.
I never thought a life in private equity was for me, but I was good at math and it seemed like the safest bet to pay off my student loans in the shortest amount of time. Plus it gave me some sort of perverse pleasure that i managed to avoid spending 4 years of college kissing the ass of my finance professors to get a job in private equity at all. Sue me.
My boss at the time used to insist that i read the NYT and the WSJ every morning.
Not incidentally, he wanted me to read very specific parts of the paper in a specific order. I didn’t see the point of such an ordered approch, but of course, I did it…mostly because he would quiz me. But, I was actually more concerned about whose ass i was going ot have to kiss to get into medical school at that point or how i was going to convince someone to pay me to swim until 2008. I planned on dropping the habit after I left the firm, which I did. I contined to read the paper when I felt like it.
I thought that, as as spontaneous person, having routines and habits would limit my spontaneity. But over the years, I’ve evolved froms someone witha traditional and analytic job into a full-time freelancer in a creative field. I am almost completely in charge of my schedule which is awesome…but difficult. You can easily get bogged down in the number of options available to you. It’s made me a little bit indecisive (at best) and time-wastey.
So I had to quell my fear of beoming an automatron long enough to test out my hypothesis that simple routine would approve my attention to what I was working on at the time as well as through out the day.
I started reading my google reader in a very specific order as soon as I opened my laptop to start my working day. My apologies to the Gray Lady, but I can buzz through the biz section without getting cockblocked by the pay wall, read mashable, and about 100 blogs in about a half hour.
Instead of spending an inordinate amount of time deciding what I should do first, it acts as a nice buffer. It’s automatic and productive. All I have to worry about in the morning is getting up, getting to my laptop and reading for 20-30 minutes. I would have spent those same 20-30 minutes milling around drinking coffee and wondering about what I should do.
Essentially, my attention was focused on NOTHING for too long first thing in the morning. If I read, instead of feeling less spontaneous, ineffective and paralyzed by too many choices, I feel calm and up-to-date.*
The get-up-and-mill thing I was doing was just a habit so there’s really no reason I couldn’t replace it with another one, right? I just had to reset my intention: Pay attention to what you’re doing at the moment and nothing else. Then move on to the next thing.
I’m not an expert at this yet, but having small 20-30 min automatic checkpoints during the day has been really helpful. Creating a force of a habit like this actually frees up extra time for me. The key is to make these checkpoints sustainable. I cannot commit myself to do a 2-hour workout every single day but I can commit to reading the newspaper first thing in the morning for a half-hour.
Turns out my boss wasn’t just a financial viking, after all.**
Jessica
*This feeling may or may not wear off as the day goes but at least I’m starting every working day like this.
**Yes he is.
Source: twelveintentions.com
Intention for January: Gratitude First
Happy. Thank you. More Please.
A month after I thought of the concept for this blog, I was standing very close to the same spot. Looking out over the city, wondering why I hadn’t been able to write yet. I realize that “11 and 3/8ths Intentions” is not nearly as catchy but, as the month of January burned down, I still couldn’t sit in front of my computer with this very window open long enough to write a post.
“F*@$!!!”
Sometimes, I get swept up in things that aren’t happening; carried away by things that aren’t working. Essentially, i was focused on negative space.
“Why can’t i do this?”
“Why haven’t I started?”
I just just hiked up a mountain (literally, not metaphorically) and I was pissed off that I “haven’t done anything.”
I would say I was slacking on my intentions but somehow i don’t think that’s the right sentiment since part of this first month has been to reset my “gut” reaction to things. So without further nonsense, the month of January is, has been and will continue to be focused on GRATITUDE.
I held a misconception that people who are thankful for what they have must be from one of two parties: people who are happy with little or people who already have everything they want. Since I belonged, in my mind, to neither group, I felt that it was my right—no, my sworn duty—to be a cranky bitch until I figured out how to make a ton of money or effectively control my taste.
Of course, if this problem was limited simply to material posessions, I could have just found myself a rich boyfriend. But, as these discoveries usually go, not having a closet full of Fendi wasn’t really my problem.
Now an assist from a cute little film:
In case you’re trapped at work and your interwebs are on lock down: This movie rotates around the lives of a couple late-20s new yorkers. If you’ve lived in New York, chances are you’ve taken a ride with a cabbie-philosopher. But Malin Akerman’s character had a run-in with a bit of wisdom worth sharing. She says:
“About a year ago. I was in this cab. And the cab driver said, ‘The key to your life is gratitude; you do not give enough thanks.’ And I said, ‘Well, how do i do that?’ He said, ‘Simple. Say thank you.’”
Now, back to the mountain. On that particular morning, I, Jessica Brookman, had woken of relatively sound mind and body. I had climed to the top of a very large hill in the mid-morning. I gazed on the City of Angels with relatively clear skies and relatively sharp vision.
To get a little new-agey on you, I needed to be coming from a place of gratitude. I needed to let myself simply enjoy being up in the hills instead of wondering where else I could be and what else I could be doing.
So this very first intention—the basis for everything else I do in this project, this year, this life—is to start by being thankful for the moment I’m living first.
Intention: Gratitude
Strategy: Before allowing myself a moment to whine/complaining/stress, think about at least one good in the situation. If no good can be found, make some (because being an ungrateful bitch certainly ain’t gonna attract any…).
Effect: Say thank you for all the good stuff. Then ask for more of the same. Hopefully, that takes up most of my time, leaving me with none with which to bitch.
This is tricky for me so it’s a good place to start. Now all i need is the equivalent of Cesar Milan…someone to kick me in the ribs everytime I start:
“This coffee is too…”
“Tsst….ah ah.”
Obviously, I’m starting this on my own. But, if I find him, we can call him the Bitch Whisperer (!)*
Thank you for reading.
*Please note: author is thankful for somewhat lame off-kilter sense of humor. As well as the wonderful world of Pinterest where she found the lovely print (no source…if it’s yours, let me know and I’ll credit you). See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?
[Happiness is] knowing what your highest strengths are and deploying those in the service of something you believe is larger than you are. There’s no shortcut to that. That’s what life is about.
(via explore-blog)
About three months ago, I started a year-long journey to intentionally increase my enjoyment of life through nothing more than a series of experiments to better understand myself.
After writing One Girl No Diet—my health and body image blog—for almost two years, I decided to expand the scope of my writing to include projects and goals not related simply to health and fitness.
Read more about this project @ twelveintentions.com
Source: twelveintentions.com
Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life.
An interesting problem to have…
You can pretty much substitute unattainable/ridiculous beauty standards for “male physical preference.” I wonder why hot, slim girls never have this ongoing battle with unattainable beauty standards as the plump and unattractive amongst us do? Maybe because it better serves us and thus are not marginalized and excluded from it. I would say that I sing the song of “all women” because it would inevitably be a benefit to every single one if some of these trends (and that’s what they are) changed. But, that would be doing a disservice to a lot of people who read this blog—many of whom are men—in representing you and people like you. You equate feminine elevation with more being CEOs and in big managerial positions. This egalitarian feminist stuff is cute and all, but I wonder when you and those like yourself will realize most women simply aren’t interested in attaining any of that stuff. I do? I think peope should do whatever work moves them. I have everything from rocket scientists to stay-at-home moms reading this blog. I myself prefer to be, ironically, a starving artist. And if believing that women are worthwhile as human beings makes me a feminist, so be it, I’m a feminist. We simply don’t have the same incentives to achieve on that caliber as men do. Why can’t people just come to terms with this basic fact of human nature? Oh, I don’t know, Coco, why can’t you just read my blog and assimilate the facts: I dropped out of a highly competitive field because i realized it spelt doom for my potential to have a family and actually see them grow up. Figure that one out…I don’t have all the answers for you. I do know that while nobody wrote a song called “Looking for Business Partners in All the Wrong Places,” you should probably also do womankind a nod and google Sheryl Sandberg. This blog is an argument against extremes. You seem to believe that there are only two option: To be intelligent and ugly or an idiot and attractive. The whole point of this blog is that you aren’t making binary choices. Your committment to extremism and reductivism alternatively bores me and gives me a migraine. And while it’s true that I’m objectively less attractive when I have a migraine, I’m simply not an ugly bitch. It would be abusive of me to imply that I haven’t used my looks to my advantage on an almost daily basis. I have never gotten a ticket of any kind, I didn’t know that oil changes cost money until last year and I routinely get into places I have no business being simply for smiling and asking nicely. But now you’re making me sound like a douche and I haven’t lived in LA long enough to be a douche. Stop it. I also believe that it’s possible to be a cat lady without ever actually owning any cats. But that’s a story for a different day. Let’s finish up with you: Mind you, I’m a woman who most of my confidence actually comes from my intellect [Ed note: obviously…] as I was a late bloomer, however I’m now good looking and of superior body type. I value my intellect more than I’ll ever value my beauty for it is fleeting, but I’m aware of the reality of human biomechanics. I’m aware that I and most women want to get married and make babies. I am aware that men don’t give a rat’s ass about a woman’s professional accolades, academic accolades, and overall intellect unless she’s hot. I’m also aware that at the age of 23, given the fact I’m at my prime in attractiveness, it would be foolish and unwise to squander my best years deluding myself that I don’t want a man only to complain 10 years later that there are no “good men” who want first dibs of my imminent sexual irrelevancy. First of all, how DARE you insult my current ability to speak cat. Second of all, when did this ever become about men wanting me, or anyone who reads this blog. Men-not-wanting-me is not a problem I have but it’s also not related to the point of this blog or, more specifically, the post that you commented on. My point is that it would benefit everyone to be aware of—and graduaally change—these standards. And you’d have to be a moron to believe that, as an attractive woman, you are somehow exempt. In a lot of ways, I think beauty standards apply pressure to the most attractive among us even more heavily, since those women are expected to use them to to their advantage effectively and are less free, in some ways, to explore their other talents. For me, it’s an interesting problem to have: I’m not willing to wrest whatever power from the system and keep my mouth shut while I see things that are offensive simply because I pay for dinner less than the average person. Maybe that, itself, makes me unattractive. Maybe not. But what do I know, I’m just a girl with purple hair, two absentee cats and a lookbook I haven’t used in 10 years. Meow. 
On last week’s post, I naturally got a comment talking about how this is a blog for unnattractive women:
You’re singing the song of the unattractive women.
This just further confirms that much of the impetus behind feminism is based on the dissatisfaction very intelligent women have with the fact that less intelligent, prettier women with few credentials routinely swept the male market without breaking a sweat….While most brilliant and successful women occupy the same trope of generally overly entitled, delusional about what they can attain relationship-wise and their sexual value at large, unattractive, bitter, and may as well start naming their future 28 cats.
Ow. It hurts. Make it stop.
Ow. It still hurts. Make it stop.
Life isn’t fair, I know. You lot better start learning how to speak cat.
What You Do Matters. Do Something (via @GOOD)
Along with some of the work I’ve been doing here on making your own happiness by taking responsibility for yourself, I stumbled on this article from 2010 on GOOD today and needed to share it:
For more than a decade now, scientists have pursued the connection between happiness and health, and emerging research has begun to validate what many wisdom traditions have intuitively known—that having a sense of peace, fulfillment, and purpose leads to a healthier, more balanced, and longer life.
In the last few years, social scientists Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ed Diener, and Martin Seligman, among others, have explored ways to quantify happiness and chart its components. Based on his research, Seligman has even developed a “happiness formula”—Happiness = Set Point + Conditions in Life + Voluntary Action—which indicates that happiness is partly genetic, partly a result of circumstance, and partly an outcome of conscious decision-making. Indeed, by Seligman’s reckoning, the external conditions of one’s life, like having more money or a larger house, only account for 7–10 percent of actual happiness, while genetics (40 percent) and voluntary actions (50 percent) matter far more.
…Read the full article here.
What do you think of this idea?
Personally, my outlook has improved 100-fold when I realized that 1) I’m the one who gets to make me happy and 2) My own health is so strongly linked to my happiness that they’re almost the same thing for me.
#healthismywealth
Stefan Sagmeister’s The Happy Film.
a feature-length documentary (in production) in which graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister undergoes a series of self-experiments outlined by popular psychology to test once and for all if it’s possible for a person to have a meaningful impact on their own happiness.
Don’t get boxed into a corner. Don’t forget that this is going to be fun.
