Time, Discipline, & Sleep
Sunday Letter #3
Can you believe it’s already almost March? It feels like 2022 just ended, and time flew by and now we’re already at the end of February. Speaking of time - can you believe I survived off mainly microwaveable food, cans of AriZona green tea, packs of chewy Chips Ahoy, lots of sour cream & onion Pringles, and weekly milk tea boba in college? The photo above is from 9 years ago when I was in college, surrounded by my dinner. Now, at 30 years old, I couldn’t imagine eating all of that (but I do still enjoy the occasional milk tea boba).
Lately, an area of my life I’ve been growing in is being structured. And - being disciplined about following the structures that I create for myself. More so the latter. One of the things that, looking back now, I realize was good for me in college was the structure it provided for me. I had set times to go to my classes, things to study for, due dates for papers and exams, and plans made with friends that were scheduled around those things. Things just felt, simpler, back then. Now, my day-to-day life lacks that same structured feeling. Yet one thing that I want to do differently is to create plans for me. In college, I felt like I was being pulled by things outside of me - my classes, midterms, finals, papers, the expectations of others, etc. And so those things kept me in line. Now, I want to be the source. I hope that makes sense.
I saw this video clip from Jordan Peterson the other day, and it really resonates with where I am now, particularly these quotes: “You transform the chaotic potential of the future into actuality with vision,” and “Someone who doesn’t make a plan - it isn’t that they don’t make plans, it’s that they make unconscious plans. So, they’re ruled by their own whims.” One thing I’ve been using lately that has been really helpful for me is the Pomodoro Technique. And using a planner (I use a bullet journal that I designed using this method by Sadia Badiei).
So far, it’s going pretty well. The one thing that I do feel can be improved is my sleep. I’ve had insomnia for a while now, and when I wake up in the morning I don’t feel fully rested - which makes me feel like I’m running on 55% energy for the entire day. So improving my quality of sleep is one of my top priorities now. I’m also aiming to get up at 4:30 every morning, and though I’ve been doing that for the past few days, I just don’t feel fully rested. Probably because I’ve been going to sleep the night before at around 10.
So that sleep time will change.
I’ll see how I feel in a month - with both my new structured-days and sleep schedule - and share about how it’s been going!
Hoping everyone is having a beautiful and deeply restorative day.
This song. Oh my heart.
This album. Perfect to listen to while working, writing, or just lying in bed meditating on the day or one’s life.
Pomofocus - the timer I’ve been using.
This quote by Pema Chödrön - from her book When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times: “Perhaps there is no solid obstacle except our own need to protect ourselves from being touched. Maybe the only enemy is that we don’t like the way reality is now and therefore wish it would go away fast. But what we find as practitioners is that nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know. If we run a hundred miles an hour to the other end of the continent in order to get away from the obstacle, we find the very same problem waiting for us when we arrive. It just keeps returning with new names, forms, manifestations until we learn whatever it has to teach us about where we are separating ourselves from reality, how we are pulling back instead of opening up, closing down instead of allowing ourselves to experience fully whatever we encounter, without hesitating or retreating into ourselves.”