Tag Archives: habits

The power of audiobooks

Since downloading Audible, I’ve listened to so many books that I never would have gotten to. I’ve fallen back in love with fiction. I’ve ‘read’ some classics I’ve always wanted to. And I’ve enjoyed listening rather than looking at words in a book after spending a fair bit of time in my day reading words on a screen.

I used the term ‘read’ rather than ‘listened to’ above because I consider listening to a book the same as reading it. I have consumed the book for my enjoyment. I don’t think the format matters that much… other than the fact that had I not listened, I never would have gotten to read it.

I can’t read a paper book on my treadmill or row machine, and don’t enjoy trying to read one on exercise bike. I can’t read a paper book while I drive. I can’t read a paper book while cooking dinner. Audio books have opened up windows of reading time I would never had had otherwise.

I also listen to podcasts, but books have become my favourite form of audio. The performances are getting better too. Books are coming out with multiple voices, rather than just one, and some books just sound so good in the author’s voice, with emphasis put where the author intended it to be placed.

I’ve read over 50 audio books in the last 2 years. In the two years before I started reading audiobooks, I probably read 8-10 books. Audiobooks have made me a lover of reading again.

Self care

Apparently yesterday was Mental Health (awareness) Day. I didn’t realize until I saw a number of tweets come through my feed. What’s interesting is that two days ago, after coming home from a long week at school, I saw many tweets from educators talking about being exhausted, feeling overwhelmed, and essentially saying, ‘the struggle is real’!

I felt it too, as I shared in this stress-releasing tweet I shared on Thursday:


These are interesting and exhausting times, and overwhelm seems to be palpable to many. So now is a good time to remember the importance of self care. When we care for ourselves, we have more to offer others.

  • Exercise
  • Meditation
  • Walking (for pleasure, not to get somewhere)
  • Hobbies
  • A glass of wine
  • Binging on Netflix
  • Conversations with friends or distant family
  • A technology free dinner with family
  • A good book
  • Creating an upbeat playlist
  • Cuddling with a loved one
  • Ordering in a favourite meal
  • A long shower or bath
  • A funny podcast
  • An extra hour or two of sleep
  • Playing a mindless game
  • Puzzles, crosswords, Sudoko

What you probably don’t need is to spend more time on social media, unless you have a stream that’s intentionally funny or entertaining. You don’t need to think about the work you have to do all weekend, schedule a bit of time and that’s the time to think about it.

When there are many things beyond your control, when spare time seems nonexistent, that’s a hint to make time for yourself. You’ll feel better because of it. You’ll have more energy because of it. And most importantly, you deserve it.

Broken sleep cycle

I just had a long afternoon nap. Long enough that I’m going to struggle sleeping tonight. It’s a vicious cycle when my sleep patterns get messed up. It never starts intentionally, a late night where I can’t fall asleep is all it takes to start me off. Then suddenly everything goes out of whack.

This afternoon I set an alarm to stop me from sleeping too long, but I turned it off and didn’t get up. That’s not like me, and so it tells me that I needed it. But now what? What happens tonight when I try to get a decent night’s sleep?

I’m someone who used to do well on 5-6 hours a night, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve needed more. I fought it for a while, but realized I was less productive and so let myself sleep longer. Over the summer I was getting closer to 7 hours and very frequently waking up before my alarm. Now the alarm is essential, and my time in bed is much longer than my time actually sleeping.

It’s hard to battle because part of it is insomnia that I seem to have no control over, and part of it is the patterns I end up following that promotes rather than reduces my insomnia… so I don’t help myself.

Workouts help, routines help, and discipline helps. I’m sharing this because I’ve learned that if I want to change something, making it public is more effective than trying to quietly convince myself that I’ll change. I need to share that I’m going to work at building consistency into my schedule, and therefore help rather than hinder my sleep struggles.

Changing routines on weekends, (like writing this so late, and still not having had my workout), doesn’t help. Late night scrolling on my phone when I can’t sleep doesn’t help. Long naps do not help. Sharing this with you now does. Wish me luck fighting this recent bout of insomnia.

When is your next workout?

Even without dealing with a pandemic, this is a crazy time of year for educators. I will avoid sharing what time I’m writing this, but let’s just say it has been a long day! I bet 2/3rds or more educators can’t believe it’s only Thursday, and not the weekend yet!

So with all the craziness of September, who has time for a workout?

You do!

Until January 2019, my pattern was to stop working out during my busy times at school, like September and report card time. Then I realized that fair weather fitness wasn’t fitness. I decided that if I wanted to be healthy, I had to be consistent. So I stopped letting ‘busy’ stop me from working out.

The result: more energy, and more to give! More vibrancy, and a great feeling that I’m actually caring for both my current and future self.

Busy times aren’t times to push heavy weights, run longer, or ride faster. Its dedicating small windows of time to self care. It’s about raising the heartbeat, walking when you’re too tired to run, and maintaining a level of fitness at a time when it’s easy to forget to take care of yourself.

If fitness isn’t a priority when you are ‘too busy’ then it’s not a priority. Period.

You deserve to treat yourself better than that. So, when is your next workout?

Turning off to find balance

It’s that time of year again when the ‘To Do’ list at work is growing. The last two days I’ve left work and then just kept working. I know that’s the time of year, but I also know it can keep going and that there is always more to do.

I try to use exercise and meditation to help me turn off, and I’ve moved these activities from morning to evening, but I’m not sure I like this strategy?

What do people do to ‘turn off’ work? What strategies allow a separation between work and home? I don’t mind taking the extra time at the start of the year, but I’ve had about 3 years of imbalance that have left me feeling like I am not doing this well.

Writing helps, it’s my way of unpacking ideas. What else do people do?

Covid dreams

I woke up this morning from a dream in which the entire focus was on getting the proper face protection to do the task I wanted to do. I can’t remember the task, only the concern for not being safe.

I often have dreams where the preparation for the task takes over the dream. This goes all the way back to being a pizza delivery driver in university. I’d dream of getting in my car to go to work and my car would only go in reverse. The whole dream would be about trying to get to work driving backwards.

Obviously these are stressful dreams. I can control stress in my waking life, can’t do it in my sleep. It’s not surprising that months into this pandemic, I’d have dreams related to the challenges we face. Going back to work last week has added to this.

Dealing with Covid-19 isn’t something normal. It’s a unique challenge that adds stress to our daily experience. Being around other people used to be easier. Understanding how to give others their personal space used to be easier. Supporting one another used to be easier.

Stress responses are not designed to be triggered again and again over long periods of time. While I was bent on the idea that this isn’t the ‘new normal’ and we need to remember that things will get better… the timeline for change is too long to not call this normal. We need to normalize mask wearing, social distancing, covering up coughs and sneezes, and staying home when we don’t feel well. We need to make this normal enough that it isn’t a stress, but just what we do.

I look forward to dreams where I’m wearing a mask, but the concern of it isn’t the focus of the dream.

Slowly getting back to my routine

Morning meditations, writing, and workouts have started back for me as I head into the routines of school days. While I’ve enjoyed the time to sleep in, and move my schedule around, I also missed the consistency of starting my day in the same way. What I haven’t yet done is get through the routine in a timely way. Yesterday, I started working right when I got up. Today I spent a fair bit of time distracted.

I know I’ll get ‘dialled in’ soon, but it has been a slow start for me. It’s weird how this is totally something I want to do, yet it’s still taking me time to get to it. What is it about our nature that we like routines yet we take so much time to get into them? Is it just me, or do others find the same?

Back to time restricted eating

Other than about 6 weeks of Keto a couple years ago, and a few training diets more than half a life ago, I’ve never really dieted. That said, for over a year and a half now, I’ve tried to practice time restricted eating (also called Intermittent Fasting) five days a week – Sunday to Thursday night.

I have only been doing 14 hours fasting and much of that was sleeping. What it primarily does is restrict my unhealthy snacking after dinner, and delays breakfast, which I’ve never enjoyed preparing and eating.

Covid has messed up my schedule, summer made it worse. My good eating habits that I developed with restricting my eating window have all disappeared. So, along with my wife, we’ve decided to set a strict 5-hour window for eating for the next few weeks. We have only water, and a morning black coffee during our 19 hour no-eating restriction. When school starts I will move to 16-8, increasing my eating window to 8 hours.

It was weird to start this on a holiday to Kelowna. It limited our schedule of wine and cider tasting tours, but we filled our days with hikes and visits to the beach, and neither of us struggled with hunger after day 2. The only oddity was doing a long drive with no snacks.

There is a lot of research being done on the benefits of time restricted eating. I won’t go into it now, but I will say that it has three really positive affects for me:

1. It cuts out unhealthy snacking.

2. It stops me from getting ‘hangry’ – angry when I’m hungry. My sugar levels seem to stay in check and food (or lack of it) doesn’t come with mood swings.

3. It eliminates breakfast, which I don’t enjoy eating. (Breakfast is breaking the night’s fast, it’s not a morning meal time… technically I’m having breakfast whenever I choose to start eating after sleeping.)

I’m less than a week in, and I’m not sure this 5-hour eating window will be enough when I start pushing myself on my morning workouts again… but I’m really happy to have restarted my time restricted eating.

Making time for great conversations

In the last year and a half I’ve been making time for an almost daily workout, and daily writes (here) as well as daily meditations. (See: My healthy living goals year-end reflection, with 5 key tips.)

On Tuesday I recorded a podcast with Valerie Irvine on Zoom, which I finally posted today. This was my first podcast since sharing my conversation about learning at home during the pandemic, with Dave Sands in April. I would like to podcast weekly because I love the conversations and they help me think more, and more deeply, about education and learning. However, I’ve got to figure out a schedule that works and is consistent. I’m someone that needs my routines in order to make things work. I’m not a multitasker, and I know this about myself.

I watch things like this and think that maybe I have ADHD tendencies. 😉

@heygudeI forget what I was supposed to be doing when I decided to make this ##adhd ##attentiondeficitdisorder ##add ##attentiondeficienthyperactivitydisorder

♬ original sound – erikgude

My point is, (while I still remember it), that I have to create uninterrupted time to have these conversations, and also to produce and share the podcasts. I’m on holidays now and trying to produce the recording in 15-20 minute chunks made the process twice as long. It won’t get easier when school starts. But I love having these conversations and want to have the regularly. Here are three more of my favourites podcasts from the archives:

Remi Kalir on educator agency, Josh Abrams on Meridian Academy, and Shelly Sanchez Terrell on bringing passions into reality.

There aren’t any I’ve done so far that I haven’t listened to after the fact at least twice. I’m going to figure out a schedule, probably all done on the weekends, and make this as routine as I have my other goals that I track. I need to make regular time for more of these great conversations.

Going dark next week

Starting tomorrow I’m shutting down for a week. No Daily-Ink, no Twitter, no LinkedIn, no Facebook, no Snapchat, no Tik Tok, no social media or news.

I’m taking a full break, and plan on leaving my phone in a drawer when I’m home. I’m hoping to do some daily writing (though not sharing it online) and I think next Sunday I’ll report out on how much I did… public accountability works well as a motivating factor for me.

In some ways I’m very good at moderation, and in other ways I’m not. Locking my attention into news or an app can be something that undermines my attention for too long, and now that I’m off work for the holidays I’m allowing this to happen a bit too much.

So let’s see what a cold turkey experience does to these habits. Starting midnight tonight (Sunday morning) and ending midnight next week Saturday, I’m going dark.

Catch you on the flip side.