the 3 lessons I learned from Marie Kondo

I read/ listened to two of her books,

and they were the first things I turned to

almost as a coping strategy,

when social distancing measures were first rolled out.

After all,

this home I'm in is going to be where I am

for the next 2 weeks?

next month??

the entire summer???

What I read:

In true Lucy fashion I read them out of order*,

reading the second book first before the first.

the original book:

The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up**

the second book:

Spark Joy**

Lesson #1: What is joy?

Ask yourself, what is joy to you?

To me, these books gave me

a deeper understanding

of what joy is,

what it looks like,

and how it feels.

Seems silly, doesn't it,

like shouldn't you, a whole ass adult,

know what joy is?

No.

Not entirely, anyways.

I felt like before I read this book

I had a more superficial understanding of happiness and joy,

one that was tainted by advertising and marketing,

which consistently and implicitly inserts itself into our beliefs

of what is good, what is happy, and what is healthy.

But we're all different after all,

and those $olution$ work for some,

but not all.

In her first book, she MANDATES that

HAVE to follow her order of cleaning categories:

clothing >

books >

papers >

komono (miscellany) >

sentimental items

And the meaning behind is that

you slowly develop this skill of discerning

what is love?

what is neutral?

what is not so great?

And when she teaches her clients to define what

"sparks joy",

she literally demonstrates it. (see gif above)

She lifts upwards entirely.

The concept "joy lifts you up" was always abstract to me,

but in her Netflix show she directs her clients' attention

towards signs of joy in the body:

• eyebrows unfurrowed

• shoulders lightened up

• breath smooth

• overall, posture doesn't tense up in reaction to item

These are all signs from our body

that we've all learned to ignore

so we can be adults and complete our responsibilities.

Like after sorting my items I recognized the same

feeling of joy in my body when I message certain people,

or when I make a new recipe and it turns out really well,

that lifting sense of enjoyment.

I also noticed which things gave me

the same physical reaction as that one specific sock with a hole

that was really cute when I got

but has become so mangled it is now more monstrous.

Some of those things I can make changes to,

some of those things I still have to do (dishes)

but have learned to pair with something fun (podcast).

Take home #2: Making decisions using visuals

K, I've always conceptually KNOWN from class

that your working memory can only hold so much

and that having a visual (e.g., pros + cons list) helps with making decisions,

because honestly you can only hold a few of those pros/cons reasons

in your head before your thoughts swirl to the next set of reasons.

That's how I end up ruminating anyways.

Similarly, Marie Kondo makes use of this tactic.

Her first step is to get you to hunt down EVERY last item within a category

and place them into one place.

This looks like ONE GIGANTIC pile of clothes

in the living room

in every one of her Netflix show episodes.

Only when she's absolutely certain that you have all your options out

that she gives the green light to begin decision making.

In some ways I'm adapting this concept

(now tangibly and eternally visualized as a huge mountain of clothing options)

with things like emails, to do lists + scheduling meetings also.

I set aside one time at the end of the day

where I gather all my tasks,

emails that I've held on to because they had actionable items,

and ongoing projects (and their bite sized subtasks)

and make sure I make decisions when considering ALL of these.

Too often I've run into the problem where

I'm scheduling meetings on the fly

and agreeing to doing URGENT tasks

that I'm not giving enough time to those ongoing projects

with moving deadlines.

This, I realized,

was equivalent to

cleaning out all my books in the bedroom

and already putting them back on to the shelf

to realize that I haven't touched the books in the living room

or in my bag

and now there's no room on my shelf.

Take home #3: Letting go***

Probably the biggest thing I took from this book

is the concept of letting go.

My biggest flaw is I literally keep EVERYTHING,

from emails,

to the brunch receipt that said "e-muffin"**** from

my 102nd date with my bf.

She puts sentimental items last,

because you're not only letting go

of that drawing your child drew when she was 3,

that ticket to a concert you went to see as a teen,

or that receipt of the e-muffin,

you're letting go of an emotional connection to a past event.

And those are the hardest.

But her most comforting words are,

that these are the things that made you who you are now,

to thank them, the item and the memory of experience

for helping you shape who you are today.

And there you are,

the three lessons I took from Marie Kondo's books.

Note: I still don't know how to end these blog posts

because I feel like I should have a conclusion paragraph

So here are some words

thank you for reading???

Also recommend me books to read, especially books that have changed your life

👇👇👇

• Tweet me?

• Drop into my Discord Server where the only active channel is a channel where we count upwards to infinity (at the time of writing we are at 1312) ???

• Comment below!

---

Here are the footnotes because I'm the Queen of Tangents

*tangent #1

I read Harry Potter out of order as a kid

just because the next book was checked out

and I couldn't wait to hear more about Hermione

because Hermione was the embodiment of the

little nerd that I was.

Needless to say it was R E A L LY confusing.

**affiliate links

this means I earn $$ if you specifically purchase from this link

I've been trying out Amazon Affiliates for the 3rd time

because the previous 2 times the strategy I was using

wasn't generating enough sales to meet their min thresholds

so both times I never cashed out and they closed my account.

Starting this for a 3rd time so I can try out some new strategies,

blog about what worked + what didn't

because experimenting is what I love doing, shhh :)

Keep an eye out for a potential blog post ???

***Unrelated distraction and tangent

I was going to write this all in one go but I wanted to document

that before I wrote lesson #3,

I was deeply distracted by looping this specific video

for at least 6 times.

Please watch it and get it to 10M views thanks

****the e-muffin

bf: what's an e-muffin?

bf: like an electronic e-muffin?

bf: are they gonna email me the e-muffin?

bf: I didn't get a muffin where is it

me: there was an english muffin under my poached egg this was my order thanks

3 questions I journal when anxious

The Questions

1. What is the best-case scenario?

2. What is the most likely scenario?

3. What can you do about the worst-case scenario? What do you not have control over and will choose to let go?

The reason behind asking these questions

What this graph means

• If we pretend the x-axis shows how "good" something is, with negative events occurring on the left side and positive events happening on the right side

• And on the y-axis we count the # of times something happens out of, say, 100 simulations of that example

• What this graph shows is that: the most likely situation is a neutral situation, in the middle

• The best-case scenario occurs very little of the time, but so does the worst-case scenario

Best case scenario

• when in panic mode, my brain fires up and looks at all the worst-case scenarios to prep us to fight it

• but in reality, the best-case scenario is JUST as likely to happen usually, and we should give it equal weight in our thinking

• that's why, in addition to your body automatically prepping us by thinking of the worst, we should ask ourselves, are we prepared for the best-case scenario? did we consider what that would look like?

Most likely scenario

• when in panic mode, our brains also gloss over all the middle parts, all the neutral non-black & white possibilities

• asking myself what the MOST likely situation to happen is important because we want to be prepared for this scenario the most (rather than the worst-case scenario)

Worst-case scenario

• we also don't want to entirely ignore the worst-case scenario because your body is alerting you to this for a reason

• I like to split the journalling for this into two categories

• [1] what CAN I do about this situation?

• This is to acknowledge that oftentimes our brains worry about things and there are tangible next steps you could take. Make a plan and schedule those steps. The brain worries because it's an internal notification system reminding you to do things all the time when actually, we can just isolate the reminder to just the 5 minute period before you have to do the thing.

• [2] what are things that I have no control over that I should make time to honour and then let go?

• acknowledge that anxiety serves a purpose to warn your body of something and to spur it into action to DO something, but there isn't always something it can do. When this smoke detector accurately detects that something is on FIRE, you have tangible next steps to evacuate. When the smoke detector goes off just because you ever so slightly burned your omelette, it's an annoying alert system that sets of all these unpleasant reactions (loud sirens).

• for me, I take the time to be like, thanks smoke detector (thanks anxiety), you tried, I can't do anything about this slightly burned omelette. You (anxiety/ smoke detector) served a purpose and instead of focussing on letting it ring eternally, I'm gonna press the button that shuts it up

• The hard thing about panic is that it doesn't have a single button like the smoke detector, but there ARE ways to curb anxious thinking and anxious bodily reactions (feeling clammy, out of breath, heart palpilations)

• Calming your anxious thinking: mindful sushi train, mindful leaves on stream

• Calming your anxious body: deep breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, visualization

An example

Scenario: I'm pitching a new research idea to my supervisor and I'm nervous because I REALLY LIKE THE IDEA and it's my first time pitching anything to her.

What is the best-case scenario?

• She says yes! Let's do this! So excited!!!

• Part of writing this journal entry will feel empowering, trust me. Writing the answer to this question will feel energizing. When I do this it feels like a burden is lifted off my shoulders because previously I only automatically considered all the potential embarrassing endings and that's such a burden to hold tbh.

What is the most likely scenario?

• She says maybe, sounds interesting, but has some qualms. Her advice is to please gather more information and answer these n questions about feasibility and rationale and let's discuss again!

• Writing this ALSO made me feel a burden lightening. Instead of just assuming no, I'm expecting that most likely, my "baby's first research idea" will have some flaws and her role is to give me constructive feedback. It doesn't have to be perfect the first time, and having that scaffolding for making this project feasible and convincing for funding is a good exercise to hone key research skills.

• The neutral scenario can so easily be framed as a negative scenario (oh, she said no, "I'm a failure") as a positive scenario (ah, I see movement and forward motion in this project and see tangible steps forward). How you frame the neutral/ most likely scenario is so important.

What is the worst-case scenario?

• She says no, please finish all of your existing projects first.

• Actually, as I write this out I realize this isn't the worst-case scenario but when it's swimming in my head it fEELS like a downright "no" and a rejection, which hurts. In reality, it's a "not yet", with tangible steps for what you have to finish next (stuff on your plate) and a reminder to revisit this idea as it grows (set a calendar reminder).

• She says no, this is a terrible idea let us never revisit this again.

• Honestly, my first worst-case scenario thoughts about this make me feel terrible. It's the bulk of the "burden on my shoulders" feel. Imagine how embarrassing this could feel, how this feels like rejection!

• I think in the past I would have just jumped to part 2 of the question, "what can we acknowledge and let go of"? It hurts when an idea gets scrapped because like I said in the beginning, it's something I valued, and losing the opportunity to do something you valued does hurt. It might take some time to let go.

• Because of what journaled in question 2 about the most likely situation, I actually discovered that more than I value 100% acceptance of an idea, I value feedback from a supervisor and that's really what I'm investing in when I do this degree. If she flat out just shuts it down (which is honestly out of character), I would ask specific questions about why because part of what I value is learning how to chisel down a dumb idea into a shining, feasible one.

• If she still declines I would respect that boundary, of course, do some reading and reflection on my own (ideally) and go back to part 2 of this question of letting it go. In this scenario I have already tried the best I could to a) pitch the idea and b) learn from pitching the idea and there were no further steps I could have taken. Honour your effort and allow yourself to let go of things that don't budge.

Why stop here?

• Another post about how I'm managing my anxiety during these anxiety-provoking times

• My journalling routine this year !!!

Reflecting on my journalling routine

I started out 2020 strong with a whole new {pretty heavy} journalling routine. Back in high school, I used to blog every day (possibly multiple times a day), and it really helped me process the day. I'm still in the process of archiving my old Blogger blog, and some entries were really good to come back to, for me to see the progress that I've had since then.

(Granted, 90% of the blog was just an early, longer version of Twitter where I dumped all my weird internal monologue and is very cringey to look back on. But there are some good nuggets in there).

So without further ado, here is my 2020 journalling routine. Which I can now call a routine because I've done each component at least 3x.

1. The daily morning journal

What & How

• Morning pages where I dump my thoughts for 10 minutes

• I try to include reflections on my goals for that day, including one strive goal (i.e., if nothing goes wrong and I still have time) and one definite goal (i.e., minimum that I need done)

• Google docs, I add new entries at the top every day

Why:

• Doing morning pages really helps me a) get geared up for the day and b) clear my mind of self-doubt. b) is especially helpful because it helps me lockdown and identify these thinking patterns and challenge whether they play a role in my life

• I do mine digitally, which is different from the usual recommendations! (See the end of this post for the classic morning pages from Lavendaire) -- I do this because my typing speed is close to my thinking speed, especially my morning speed and I like seeing my thoughts visualized.

• I get really frustrated writing things out by hand because I think a lot faster than I write and sometimes I want to write so fast that I can't go back and read what I've written. So that's why.

2. The daily "evening" journal

What & How:

• I have a custom 5am to 11pm calendar that I printed from staples

• It shows the entire week, at 1hour increments

• I track the activity that took up the most time during that section

• I also give a little symbol to represent how the hour made me feel: + = positive, ø = neutral, - = negative)

• I jot down 3 things I'm grateful for that day

Why:

• The idea of reflecting on +ve things that happened today to counteract my by default negative filter

• I'm also tracking the types of activities that energize me vs. drain me. It helps inform me how I should plan my ideas (i.e., don't leave the heavy work towards the end of the day), and help me reflect on whether the draining stuff is worth it in the long run or whether I'm just doing it because other people are doing it also/ I feel some invisible social pressure to conform

• I use a custom printed "agenda/planner" layout because too many agendas pretend that weekends don't exist and I don't vibe with that at all.

3. The weekly reflection

What & How:

• (I repurposed and old lab notebook from undergrad for this loool so the first 50 pages of this journal are lab meeting notes but we'll ignore that)

• Every Sat (though usually I procrastinate and do it on Sunday)

• Section 1: reflect on my 3 intentions of the year (i.e., clinical skills, finish phd and self-care), and track how much time I spent on these intentions (which I tabulate from #2).

• Section 2: reflect on a) what's working/ what do we celebrate this week?, b) what's not working, what should we let go of?, c) schedule + make time for what's important in the upcoming week

Why:

• This helps me reflect on whether I'm still living according to my values, because life sometimes throws a lot of stuff at you and you kind of knee-jerk say yes and go with the flow

• On top of daily gratitude, I'm making the time to celebrate the good things !!! Especially sometimes it's hard to celebrate at the end of the day because I'm T I R E D

• I'm also making the time to honour and let go of things that aren't working, so that I can make time to say yes to the things that I want to do.

• I love this journalling time each weekend tbh, I LOVE IT

4. The monthly check-in

What &How:

• I use IG: heyamberrae's (see resources in the footer for the March reflection prompt) monthly reflection prompts

Why:

• She makes such an aesthetic monthly prompt and is so consistent in posting these

• I no longer do them though, although I do use her reflection prompts to guide my weekly ones -- I realized I actually preferred the more frequent check-ins

• It's not the end of this though, I foresee that if things calm down for me in the future that I might revert back to a sparser monthly check-in

5. The weekly blog

What & How:

• That's you!

• I learned to stop oversharing every small thought that came to my head on a blog because I soon realized that blogs have tangible storage limits and I ran out VERY quickly (I use twitter now, oops)

• I jot down notes and ideas of things that really impacted my life that I want to share with other people!

Why:

• Honestly, because my very supportive friend E. suggested it

• Also because I honestly really enjoyed blogging in high school and wanted to continue the habit of sharing ideas

• I just needed it to not be associated with my google storage (i.e., blogger) because man, I also hoard a lot of files on google drive (oops)

6. Talkspace therapy

What:

• 2x daily text-based check-ins with a licensed therapist

• I'm on the monthly plan that's $49USD/month and features a weekly check-in, but my therapist checks in 2x a day regardless, we just converse in smaller quantities and this feels more like a text message convo than like, the full plan, which felt more like emailing

• Shameless plug but here's my promo code: https://talkspace.com/invite/1317883?p=2.

• (Full disclosure: we both get $250* off the next plan if you use this link)

Why:

• I see it more as maintenance therapy where if something arises and I don't know how to apply a skill, I have someone to check-in with to stay on track

• It's also keeping me accountable TO check-in with myself on a regular basis on how my mental health is, instead of focussing on this eternal grind of academia where I become this emotionless productivity machine

7. My art scratchpad/ journal

What & How:

• I have a little ikea notebook where I just draw and write ideas that aren't typable

• It was my old morning pages notebook before I swapped back to doing an online typed one

• I use a date stamp like this one to stamp the date bc I'm a fancy pants

Why:

• Not all ideas can be typed and sometimes I just need to doodle as a mindfulness meditation thing

8. Research journal

What & How:

• Google doc (this is where the idea of my digital morning pages came from)

• I document everything in the science process, almost like a chemistry lab book, but more intense

• In my research, this looks like: documenting all research related meetings, talks I attend (ideas and names and contacts!), ideas that I don't have energy or resources to do right now, rationales behind decisions made (e.g., why we set 2.0 as an arbitrary threshold and the exact citation and link to paper for THAT specific choice).

• It's in google docs so I can ctrl+f easily and find the decision

• It's also where I make research to do lists now e.g., if I need to visualize the steps I need to do for an analysis, or document where I saved something, then 1) I'm helping myself stay on track, and 2) if I get asked 5 years and 3 months later what parameter I entered into an analysis and it's not recreatable from the code I can consult my to do list to be like hey, I set it as this

Why:

• The google docs idea of adding a new entry to the top is actually inspired by EMR (electronic medical records) systems that I've worked with

• I REALLY LOVE THE IDEA of having a system where you can just add entries, tag different things, etc. and just document things and I was like, no one cares, but I need an EMR system for my internal thoughts

• And thus the google doc of internal monologue of research thoughts was born, documenting all of my meetings, questions, important emails, successes, rationales, etc.

9. Budget journal

What & How:

• Another one of those adorable ikea notebooks

• I tape receipts to each page and reflect on each purchase

• Specifically, I reflect on a) whether it was a planned purchase and whether it's a planned purchase I want to continue forward in my budget and b) if it's unplanned whether I should PLAN for it next time / whether there are alternatives that I can make more readily available so next time I resort to the alternative more easily than fall back into the habit of spending money

Why:

• I'm really threading back to the 2020 word of the year/ promise to myself that I will more intentionally spend this year

Wow, this was a long post so I'm going to wrap it here. Let me know what kind of journalling you already do or whether you have suggestions / resources that you really like!

Resources I recommend:

• My 2020 Word of the Year: Intention

• Lavendaire's video on morning pages & what it is

• heyamberrae's monthly reflection prompt for March 2020

• Get $250 for you and me on talkspace: https://talkspace.com/invite/1317883?p=2

• [ad] date stamps for your journalling swag

• Mindful doodling video