Tag Archives: routines

Waking before my alarm

I get up an hour or more before my wife. She’s a light sleeper and even set at its quietest, my alarm will often wake her up. So every night I tell myself to wake up before my alarm. Probably 3 out of 5 weekdays I do. Most times it’s within 20 minutes of it going off, but some days, like today, it was almost 45 minutes early.

When I wake up way too early, I always have to juggle the decision of what to do. If I’m over an hour early, the choice is simple, I get up and go down to the couch. There I can sleep for another hour and let my alarm wake me. If it’s 20 minutes or less, I just get up. But those in-between days like today are tough to decide what to do?

If I head to the couch with only 40 minutes to spare, I will re-wake up after my couch nap feeling like I need more sleep. If I just wake up, I feel like my sleep was too short. A day like today means that I would have slept for less than 6 hours. But if I go back to sleep in my bed, there’s a good chance that I won’t wake up again before my alarm, and I know I’ll wake my wife up unnecessarily.

That window of waking up 25 to 55 minutes too early is a window that’s hard to deal with. Today I closed my eyes and ended up checking the time twice before getting out of bed 12 minutes before my 5:15am alarm. I came downstairs and set a timer to go off in 12 minutes, then started my 10 minute, timed meditation. I sometimes fall back asleep after my meditation, when I get up before my alarm.

These morning rituals that I have, for when I wake up before my alarm, have been developed over time. Sometimes the routine is natural, sometimes it’s a struggle. Part of the struggle is that I’m still half asleep when I’m making the decision of what to do. Sometimes I tell myself to get up, or to go downstairs, and I don’t. This could lead to my alarm going off, or to me half-waking up several more times and then waking up tired.

As I finish this, I hear my wife is up in the bedroom above. She has been getting up earlier than normal to work out. That’s what I’m headed to do too. Meditation, writing, 20 minutes cardio listening to an audio book, light stretching, and one or two sets of weights. By the time I head to the shower, I feel that I’ve already had a good day. It helps when I can start off getting up 20 minutes or less before my alarm.

Flaked out

I’m listening to music, slouched on a couch, in the living room I’ve barely left after running an errand with my daughter early this morning. I’ve dabbled in social media, eaten too much chocolate, and had to change couches to reach the phone charger. My only other task was changing a part in my coffeemaker that went faster than expected.

I’m now done with social media and will probably ignore the dense informational book I’ve been listening to and will download something fictional instead. I think I’ll take a day off exercise and just sit in the hot tub instead, if I can muster the effort to go upstairs and change. I’m doing my daily write. I’ll meditate. Maybe I’ll watch Matrix Reloaded, even though I’m not on my exercise bike. I’ll talk my wife into ordering in dinner.

It’s Saturday after the first full week back to school. I exercised the first 8 days of the new year. I struggled getting enough sleep. Some days you just need to give yourself permission to flake out.

Today is one of those days. Permission granted.

Living in the Matrix

I’m re-watching the Matrix 20 minutes a day. I hop on my exercise bike and start watching where I left off the day before. There is a lot to enjoy in this cult classic film. I forgot about the metaphor of the human race as a virus rather than a mammal. When you look at the way we spread, destroying our host (world), it’s a brilliant comparison.

But the moment I love most is the choice Neo has to take the red or blue pill. Discover the truth and never be able to return, or return to ‘normal life’ oblivious to even having made the choice… go back and live in the matrix.

How many of us spend time stuck in the matrix? Wake up, go to work, come home, eat, watch entertainment on tv or our phones, go to sleep, wake up… repeat. I remember a friend telling me about his life after high school. He got a good job in a factory and him and two buddies would work, go home, have an early dinner, go to his friend’s house, get high, and just hang out. Weekends were just longer times of being high. He did this for almost 5 years before going to university and he describes these as his ‘wasted years’. No new life experiences, no memories to cherish, nothing but a blur of wasted time.

I remember when the kids were young and my wife and I were working full time. A month would go by where all we did was work and ‘feed and water’ the kids. We were coping, we were managing our lives, we weren’t ‘living’. It wasn’t always like that, we have some wonderful memories from that time, but we certainly had periods in the early years of having two kids where that was our reality.

I wonder how many people are living in that kind of world right now? The ‘wasted months’ or ‘wasted years’. Going through the daily motions of surviving and coping, but not really living. Consumed by the rat race. Here is a brilliant short movie Happiness, that shares exactly what I’m trying to describe about existing, but not really living, in the matrix.

Covid daily routine

Early on in the pandemic, I read that ventilation and fresh air circulation was very good in helping to reduce spread of the virus. At that time my morning custodian was not consistent and so I had different custodians coming to the school, so I decided that I would go to each of our 5 classrooms at Inquiry Hub and open windows to start the school day. We have early morning principal meetings on Thursdays, and on that day I didn’t get around to opening the windows until just before classes started.

On this day I was able to see and chat with a lot of students on my route. So, that time slot has become my daily routine. In a couple of the classes I will end up asking students to open the windows if they are already seated nearby and I can’t access them and be socially distanced, while the other 3 room windows are always easy to access. But more than that, it puts me in every room, each morning, to say greetings and chat with students.

I know that I’m lucky to only have 5 rooms to do this in, with my other school being the online school with no physical classrooms to visit, and for some principals this would be a massive undertaking. But for me this is a wonderful way to start my day. Sometimes I just say quick good mornings, other times I get into full conversations with students.

Yesterday I spent time hearing about the progress of one of our grade 12’s who has been working on a massive project since grade 10. Monday was just a catch-up on the winter break. This routine can take me about 5 minutes or it can take over 15. No matter how long I spend, it has become a wonderful routine that starts my day off right.

Students are so confined in their movements now compared to pre-covid. Even in our small school they use 3 different entrances and have no common hallways. With things being so isolated between groups of students, this little covid inspired daily routine has really helped me connect to students in a way that I would have otherwise missed.

What becomes routine

I have been writing, mediating, and exercising regularly for quite some time now. Writing and meditation are daily, while the workout is usually 5 days a week. I set my alarm for somewhere between 4:30 and 5:30 and I get up, peek at social media, then start writing.

I used to meditate first, then I realized that I wasn’t mediating as much as I was planning what I wanted to write. So I switched to writing first. Some week days I end up writing a bit more than planned and those days sometimes end up as my skipped workout days, or my workout becomes my 20 minute cardio and nothing else. I don’t ever let this happen 2 days in a row.

Recently though, it has been a bit of a scramble. I seem to be stuck going to bed later and waking up at the later end of my window. I then start my morning by checking out news and social media longer than I should before I begin writing. Today I realized that this has become part of my routine. It’s no longer a quick check to see what’s going on, it’s the first of four steps:

Procrastinate on social media, write, meditate, then workout.

This added step has made me more rushed in the morning. I’ve even skipped shaving a bit more regularly (easy to do when the only place you don’t wear a mask is inside your own office). The social media procrastination does, sometimes, inspire my writing. But more often it is just a waste of time. It’s interesting how a routine of focus and discipline can be slowly undermined by a bad habit. It’s easy to make distraction, procrastination, and entertainment part of a routine, without realizing how easily this can distract from the reason you developed that routine.

With just two more mornings of this routine before I start my two week holiday (when I won’t be getting up so early), I think I’m going to have to stick to a strict schedule to keep myself from wasting a large part of my days on a routine I usually keep to under two hours. And when I return in the new year I will need to be more disciplined about what my routine really entails.

Lazy habits form much easier than disciplined habits, and it becomes easy to make distraction part of a regular routine.

Insomnia strikes again

I tried exercising before bed yesterday to help combat it. Found myself eating an hour later and still up well past midnight.

I don’t know what’s different right now? I can see the holidays ahead. I feel things are going as well as can be at home and work. I am feeling fit. I see positive news about a vaccine coming months sooner than I would have predicted. So what’s keeping me up?

I wouldn’t mind so much if it was creative time, but it isn’t. It’s unproductive time that I can’t concentrate on anything I would really want to do with more awake time. And it makes me feel more unproductive during the rest of the day, when I feel not tired, but slow.

Meditation is all but useless because I can’t stop my mind from racing long enough to actually meditate. I’m scattered and not doing more than putting myself through the (attempted mental) motions. My mind is too noisy to be still. Too restless to be useful. Too sleep deprived to be productive.

Reading this, I make it sound a lot worse than it is. I’m still functioning well enough that I can get things done. I feel like a six cylinder engine running on four cylinders… Still running, still capable of getting me where I need to go… just not at full capacity.

I think I’ll really try and stay away from my phone and laptop this weekend, other than listening to a novel. I think I need to stop distracting my distracted and sleep deprived mind with a screen. But even as I say this, I know it will be tough because I don’t enjoy it when my insomnia brain has nothing to be distracted by, but it can’t be productive.

Meanwhile, it’s still Friday and I need to focus on a good day at work ahead. I’ll exercise earlier than last night (couldn’t wake up early enough for my morning routine)… and hopefully early to sleep tonight.

The act of writing

Twitter inspired my to write this morning. The first tweet is by Marcus Blair, but let me share some tweets by him before I get to the one that originally inspired me.

Marcus has become one of my favourite educators on Twitter. He shares tweets about what he does in the classroom and he reflects on his teaching and his interactions with his class. In a time when there is so much stress and anxiety, he shares tweets that I find uplifting, and that remind me why I wanted to get into education.

Here are 3 recent tweets by him:

The tweet that inspired me to write now was this one where Marcus reflected on his own writing:


I responded:


Then almost a couple hours later I read James Clear’s 3-2-1 weekly email and wrote this about one of the 3 quotes he shared:

The act of writing makes me a better writer. The commitment to this act every  single day is itself a reward, making me feel like I’ve accomplished something before I even start my work day.

Yes, some mornings it is really hard to get started. There have been days that I’ve spent more time thinking than writing. Yes, there have been days when I’ve had to rush or even postpone my morning workout because I was too slow to get my writing started, or too long winded to finish what I was writing in a timely manner. Yes, some things I’ve written should have been left unwritten. But sometimes… sometimes my writing speaks to me. Sometimes it is metaphorically a song I had to sing. Sometimes the act of writing is a form of expression that leaves me feeling like I’ve added something worth sharing with the world.

For those moments I write. Not for the actual contribution I’ve shared, but for the feeling I get sharing it. Writing is my artistic expression. My keyboard is my brush. Words are my medium. My blog is my canvas. And committing to writing daily makes me feel like an artist.

Sprinting a marathon

You can’t sprint for an entire marathon. Your body won’t let you do it.

I’m lying on the floor, with an achy back. I’ll skip my morning workout after a bit of a stretch. I’m thankful I have an option to stand up at my desk, I’ll be using this option t today.

This has been a great year for health for me. Despite breaking my kneecap in February, I have been working out consistently, I’ve increased my strength, I’ve dropped to my healthy university weight. I’ve been stretching and caring for a slightly injured shoulder that has recovered really well.

So now, my back has decided to do what my back likes to do and seize up. I should be used to this but it has been so good this year that I forgot how much my back can detract from my day when it hurts. I mean, I am used to discomfort but the dull ache doesn’t affect me like the real ache I feel now.

I was trying to think of what’s different, what I physically did to bring on my current back issues and the only thing I can think of is sleeping in a bad position. That shouldn’t be such a big problem. Then I thought about this year and how the backdrop of it has been so stressful.

There is a constant worry about health and the safety of those in my care. There is the pace of work, the stress of those around us, the state of world politics, the second wave of coronavirus, the change to rainy weather… and the fact that I carry my stress in my back.

It feels like I’m trying to sprint a marathon and my back is the part of my body that has said, ‘enough’. Maybe this is my cue to remember that there is a lot of school year left, and to pace myself a bit. I can’t keep sprinting, but I can go the distance if I remember that this is an endurance race and not a a 100 metre dash.

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.

No more Daily Ink posts on my personal FB page

If you read my Daily Ink post via my Facebook Story, or on my wall, please follow my Pairadimes Facebook page. If you read my blog post somewhere else, just skip to the last paragraph.

As I approach a year of Daily-Ink blog posts, after leaving this blog dormant for a while, I’m reflecting on the process. One thing that I like about when I hit “Publish” on my blog is that it gets auto-posted to Twitter, LinkedIn, and my Pairadimes Facebook page. Then I manually go to the FB post on my page and add it to my FB story and my FB wall. I’m no longer going to do this. The challenge is that I often write my post either the night before it gets posted or I write it in the morning over an hour before I post it, (I like to have it done before my morning meditation and workout).

So, daily I have this task that I need to remember to do… and it becomes a chore rather than something I want to do. It also makes me feel like I’m ‘plugging my blog’, saying “Look at me!” And while I love comments and engagement on my blog, I do find I write better when I focus on the writing itself and not an audience of readers. Having my Daily-Ink blog automatically go to Twitter, LinkedIn, and my FB page is enough. Please follow my posts at one of these sites if you normally read my blog on my Facebook wall. Today is the last day I regularly share my posts on my FB wall or on my story.

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And as a special request to all readers, I do love your comments! Comments make the blogging experience better. However when I get a comment on Facebook or LinkedIn, or in a a tweet, they are fleeting. They end up on my timelines, never to be seen again. However, I go back to my blog posts often, and a comment there becomes part of a historical conversation that becomes part of the blog. So as a special request, please comment on my blog posts rather than in social spaces. ~ Thank you!