Author: spidern

Decluttering my Facebook Feed

For the past few months, I’ve been feeling information overload from tons of emails, phone notifications, podcasts, blog posts, learning apps, books I haven’t read, as well as social media apps.

I realized that Facebook was adding stress to my life, each time I wanted to post something I was thinking twice about it and I was also spending lots of time in the app. So, I decided to clean my Facebook contact list as well as the Pages I liked. I removed around 250 contacts and kept around 170.

A while ago, I read about Dunbar’s number, which according to Wikipedia “Dunbar’s number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships—relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every other person. This number was first proposed in the 1990s by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who found a correlation between primate brain size and average social group size. By using the average human brain size and extrapolating from the results of primates, he proposed that humans can comfortably maintain 150 stable relationships.“

So, I guess 170 is closer to 150, and yes, I feel more relaxed after I cleaned my contact list.

These are some lessons I’ve learned, review your contact list and pages you follow and ask yourself these questions:

  1. Is this person/page helping me be a better person?
  2. How do I feel when I see the posts from this person/page?
  3. Am I learning something from this person/page?
  4. Is this person going to be happy for me if I share some accomplishment?
  5. Is there a better way to be in contact with this person/follow this page? Maybe it’s better to be in contact with them with a phone call or through a messaging app, Twitter, Instagram or a blog post feed.

One thing I have learned is to not add coworkers to my Facebook account, that doesn’t mean I don’t have good friends that started as coworkers, but I have learned that it is better to add them after we no longer work together. Why is this?

  1. You might find out that your coworkers got together and you were not invited. You could start stressing about why you were not invited.
  2. You post something and someone might not like it and this creates problems at work.

For Pages, I used to follow lots of Pages about companies I like and Pages that post about travel ideas. I’ve seen that there are many good pages with good content, but I’m trying to minimize the pages I follow to only those where I’ve identified that I like the majority of the content, and to only those pages that are teaching me about a topic I’m currently learning about. I wish there was a way to like a Page but not follow it, and only enable the follow when I’m ready to learn about that topic. Maybe there is a way and I haven’t found it yet?

Your social networks can help you grow only if you make sure you are following the right people, and they can be a source of connection, support and learning.

 

 

 

Decluttering my phone contacts list

A few days ago, while I was scrolling through my contacts list, I realized I had many contacts from companies or people I had met that I no longer was in contact with, or that I didn’t remember who they were. I realized that I needed to clean my contact list.

I deleted the following items:

  1. Companies in cities where I no longer lived: restaurants, taxi companies, service companies (electricity, internet, laundromat, dry cleaning, car, etc.)
  2. Contacts I couldn’t remember who they were: I meet a lot of people through work, and sometimes I forget to write notes on how/why I met them, or they were contacts I hadn’t written a full name.
  3. People I was no longer in contact with: some people I had met in school, or people I had lost contact with because I moved to another city.

After cleaning my list, I ended up with around 250 contacts, they are of family, close friends, current coworkers, and service companies of the city where I live in.

During this activity I realized:

  1. LinkedIn is a better platform to keep in touch with previous coworkers. Especially because many of the emails/phone numbers I had were from a company, and people change jobs all the time and those contacts might not be current.
  2. Yelp (or some other platform) is better to keep track of service companies, since again, companies change phone numbers all the time. In Yelp, I create lists for each city I visit or where I have lived, and bookmark companies there.
  3. Facebook is great to keep in touch with former classmates and close friends and family that live in another city.

Habits that changed my life

I first learned about the impact of good habits and daily routines on productivity from Tim Ferriss and Leo Babauta. I’ve been working on implementing many habits in my life for the last ten years. I remember reading so many blog articles and watching YouTube videos to learn about them, and to this day, I continue to do so. The majority of these habits are common sense that we are told as kids and teenagers we should do, but it wasn’t until I started practicing them regularly that I started seeing the benefits.

These are some of the habits that are important to me:

Meditation. I try to meditate first thing in the morning, after waking up. I don’t always manage to do it but for me this habit is very important, it helps me have a more focused day and lower any stress. I meditate for 20 minutes using the Headspace app. I’ve been using this app since 2014 and it’s the app that taught me how to meditate. Another app that I used in the past is Calm, but for me Headspace works the best.

Make my bed. I once read that making your bed first thing in the morning gives you a sense of accomplishment. Here are some links that talk about the benefits of making your bed:

Healthy breakfast. Most days I start with a healthy smoothie. I learned about its benefits when I read the book Revive by Dr. Frank Lipman and then I found this article to help me create different recipes: The Perfect Smoothie Formula.

Review goals. About four years ago, I created my bucket list, with all the items I wanted to accomplish in my life. I spent two days thinking about all the things that were important for me. I constantly review and update my bucket list, which is divided in six parts:

  1. Things I want to do/accomplish (ie. run a marathon)
  2. Things I want to have (ie. my own house)
  3. Places I want to visit, for this I checked a list of all the countries in the world and chose a list of the ones I want to visit first.
  4. Things I want to learn
  5. Activities I want to experience (ie. see the aurora borealis)
  6. People I want to meet/say thanks to, I have a big list of people I want to meet/say thanks to. It is a list of people that have inspired me, that have taught me many things and have helped me become a better person without knowing.

At the beginning of this year, I chose some goals I wanted to accomplish in 2019 for the following areas:

  1. Finances: Income, Give (Donate)
  2. Exercise
  3. Living Environment
  4. Relationship
  5. Family and Friends
  6. Work
  7. Learning: How many books I wanted to read 
  8. Career: Which certifications I wanted to get
  9. Mentoring
  10. Blog
  11. Travel and adventure

Then I divided those goals in quarters and then months.

At night I review my goals and define actions for my To Do list, and then I review this list in the morning. Constantly reviewing my goals help me keep focused.

Exercise. Exercise has been the most difficult habit I’ve implemented in my life. I’ve tried and failed many times trying to get this habit to stick. I know all the benefits but I still struggle. Currently I’m exercising 3 times a week as I’m training for my first 10K. Here is a blog post on how I’m working to become a runner.

Reading. I love reading. This is one of the habits that I never felt I had to work on. For me it’s something I enjoy very much. Reading allows me to learn about my many interests. The majority of the books I buy are in Kindle version, and only the ones I love the most I get them in paper version. The reason for this is that I often move to different cities and I can’t have many paper books at home.

For a few years now, I’ve been tracking the books I read with the app Goodreads. This app allows me to keep a record of what books I’ve read and which ones I want to read. It also helps me to discover new books and see what books are being recommended by my friends and the community.

Daily Journal. This year I started journaling every night. At the end of the day, I write a very short paragraph summarizing what I did during the day and I classify each entry as a “daily journal” or as an “accomplishment”, if I reached a goal or milestone. I can’t wait to review this journal at the end of the year. 

 

 

How I became a runner

Or should I say “How I’m trying to Become a Runner”? I don’t know. I wish I could tell you that I’ve been exercising all my life. That’s not the case. Growing up I never considered myself strong. I remember once in high school we were asked to run about 3 kms (1.8 miles) and I was the last one to complete them. I was in very bad shape. I would run out of breath very quickly.

Until recently, my adult life was no different, I would have a hard time on a bike or hiking. My life is very sedentary and I work all day in front of a computer.

The first time I ran a race was in May 2015. It was a 3.5 mile race, a coworker had shared during lunch that he wanted to run a 3.5 mile race and was asking for people to join him. I told him I would run with him. I remember immediately thinking “what did I just agree to do?”. If I remember correctly, I had about a month to train for the race and I started going to the gym to train 3 times a week. The day of the race came and I was very nervous about it, the crowd was so big that I lost sight of my coworker and I ran by myself. What I remember the most about that day is the happiness I experienced when I saw and crossed the finish line. To this day, I still remember that moment whenever I’m training.

After that race I signed up for 4 more races, but then I had to move cities, I moved from Albany, NY to Atlanta, GA and with that move I stopped running. I have moved cities twice again, and when I got to Tampa, FL. this year, I decided to start running again. I signed up for a Disney Run, a 5K and I completed it this April. Currently I’m training for my first 10K.

These are some things I’m doing to create the habit:

1) The thing that motivates me the most to run is signing up for a race. For me, knowing that I’ve already paid for an event is enough to get me to train for it. After I finished the 5K in April, I signed up for a 10K in November and I’ve already signed up for a 21K (half marathon) next year.

2) Getting home and immediately change into my gym clothes.

3) Use a habit tracking app. I’m currently using Habitify but I used Coach.me for many years.

4) Post on Facebook and Twitter after each training session, to keep myself accountable and let my friends know that I’m training for a 10K.

5) Save YouTube videos to the “Watch later” list and then watch them while I’m on the treadmill. This makes it less boring and I get to learn new things while training. I also watch Netflix videos or listen to music or podcasts.

iPhone/Apple Watch apps that I use to train:

Currently I’m starting week 8 of my 10K training plan and I can’t wait for the race.

How I became a minimalist

I became a minimalist the day I moved to the US. I had lived in Aguascalientes, Mexico for 3 years when I got a job opportunity to move to the US. Once I got accepted for the position, I started selling the majority of my stuff. The process was long and tiring. I lived in a two-bedroom apartment and the process took a little more than a month. I sold all the furniture, sports equipment and my car. I donated many clothes that I knew I wouldn’t use anymore, especially because I was moving from Aguascalientes (a warm city) to Albany, NY where it is cold for about 6 months (or that’s the way it felt to me, coming from Mexico).

The plan was to sell my stuff, and whatever I wanted to keep I would take it to my parents’ house.

When that process was over and I finally settled down, I promised to myself that, going forward, I would be very mindful of the things I bought.

A while ago, even before the big move, I noticed that when I bought clothes, if for example I bought a new pair of jeans I ended up using the new jeans and not using my old ones as much. I noticed that I only used the old ones in case the new ones were dirty. So, ever since, I decided that if I wanted to buy something, I needed to be aware that most likely I would end up not using something else, and that made me think if I really needed it. So, the rule that I have now, is that if I bring new clothes home, is because my old ones need a change, and I need to get rid of them, otherwise I will end with a closet full of stuff I don’t use anymore.

My habits changed even more with that big move.

  • Books: I buy the majority of my books as ebooks. I only buy physical books when it’s a book that I enjoy a lot and I want to re-read it.
  • Clothes: all the clothes I have in my closet I use them regularly, if I identify there is something I’m not using it as much I donate it. I have also noticed that when I like something like a shirt, I buy the same shirt in different colors.
  • Shoes: I wish I had less. I don’t think I have that many considering I have a pair of shoes for each specific type of occasion/event/sport activity: running shoes, hiking shoes, hiking boots, golf shoes, sport winter boots, formal winter boots, office shoes, formal evening party, casual sneakers, sandals, etc.

Minimalism is important to me because I’ve moved 3 more times in a matter of 4 years, it’s important that I keep only the essentials with me, things that I really value and use all the time.

One book that changed the way I feel about things is “Marie Kondo’s The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing”. With her book I learnt that I should only keep things that bring me joy.

I enjoy watching YouTube channels on productivity and minimalism.

These are some of the YouTubers I follow on minimalism: