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You don't have to enjoy self care.

Of course, having fun and making yourself happy is always a good thing. But if doing things for yourself feels like a chore, that's okay.

Maybe going outside doesn't always clear your head. Maybe working out doesn't normally make you feel any different. That's fine! It's completely valid to treat those things the way you'd treat taking medicine: "Got my sunlight chemicals. Check. Got my exercise chemicals. Check."

It might be helpful to simply treat "getting your chemicals" as something to help you sleep and/or for your long-term health. It's great when you're having fun, but it's okay when that doesn't happen.

#advice

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Could you share productivity tips for how you organise your life/get things done?

i feel marvelously underqualified to answer this question right now since i’ve been positively useless since mid-march and at least marginally useless since the new year started but! here are some of my favourite organizational bits:

schedule a sunday reset

the absolutely lovely muchelle b has multiple videos about what her sunday resets look like (try here, here, and here) and y’all? these are a gamechanger. i try to do these at some point every weekend, if not every sunday! i’ve been slacking on them a bit lately and this is a great reminder that i need to get back into doing them.

get yourself a trustworthy master list

part of my weekly reset is looking back at my daily lists for the week and crossing anything i got done off of my master to-do list. i have a notebook that is literally just a master to-do list - anything that gets added to my plate gets added to this notebook. it’s the one list i trust explicitly! i know that if i was assigned a task, it’s on that list. this comes up in muchelle b videos, too - you need to trust the spot where you’re writing your to-dos or reminders down or you’re not going to use it. for me, that looks like making sure i have one (1) spot that is a catch-all, and all of my other lists (daily, weekly) get created from the master list.

create an ideal routine & then acknowledge that it’s uhhh going to change

listen, i love a good routine. i love knowing that i meal plan on sunday afternoons and i plan my week on monday mornings and that my ideal morning routine looks a little like “wake up, water, coffee, journals, read, yoga, shower, work.” but initial routines don’t always work - and that’s okay! when i feel a little lost, i like to create an ideal routine and then pay attention to how it goes. do you ignore a certain part of it? are you trying to introduce too many new things at once? let your routines shift and change as needed, just as you shift and change. be open to adjusting for what you need, what you want, and what brings value to your life.

pay attention to your energy budget & your time budget

this one comes from a rowena tsai video i watched a while ago that talks about energy management versus time management. the video is great, but i also just generally find the prompt “manage your energy, not your time” useful for remembering that uhhhh hello! i’m human! i don’t have infinite energy resources! i need to pay attention to where my energy goes, and which tasks bring it back. we love a little self-awareness in this house, etc etc

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13.4.20

Y’all know I only post original content on here unless I feel like it’s important to share. Take it in ✨

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Things I learned after teaching literacy for 10 years...and after making many, many mistakes. Are these hard and fast rules? Of course not. But these helped me foster a love of reading with my students, and helped bring more joy into our classroom.

1. Reading comprehension questions is not how people learn to love reading. Answering basic reading comprehension questions rarely helps students grow. The students who can already answer the questions independently don’t need to, and the ones who can’t answer the question won’t.

2. Read out loud. No matter the age, no matter if you’re all listening to an audiobook/podcast, no matter if it’s an op-Ed piece, no matter if it’s Strega Nona for the 30th time. Read meaningful and authentic text out loud.

3. When you’re reading out loud, pause only when necessary to clarify meaning so you don’t interrupt the flow of reading. Let them get hooked!

4. Make a class on epic! so your students can read and listen to books for free during school hours! Plus there are so many engaging nonfiction books at all level that you can present to your class.

5. Every student should have a chance to read something at their level every day. It’s their right as a reader.

6. Be open about what you love to read about, and talk about your own journey as a reader! I talk about my books clubs and describe to my second graders how I still stay up late reading, or how proud I was when I finished reading my 1,000+ page fantasy novel.

7. Use videos to supplement vocabulary/topics! Especially if you have students who are English Language Learners. Nat Geo has these great short (3-5 min) videos about so many topics.

8. When in doubt, read about animals. Every child loves reading about animals.

9. Allow space for students to recommend books they loved or ask them for recommendations.

10. Keep reading sacred and fun! And smile. You get to teach reading, the best thing in the world.

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what do you do if you dont finish your to do list for the day? how do you know how many items you HAVE to get done on the list? thats what always stops my executive dysfunction from even trying, i feel guilty if i dont finish but i also feel overwhelmed by having to complete the whole thing 😓😓😓

i always try to have a balance of must-dos and would-like-to-dos! having that flexibility means that if my must-dos get done early i can get started on the would-like-to-dos, but if the must-dos take me all day, it’s not the end of the world to bump the would-like-to-dos to another day. 

i never write my to-do lists with the expectation that i’ll finish every item on it, honestly. would i like to finish everything on there? absolutely! is it the end of the world if i don’t? absolutely not. they’re aspirational - i usually get a bit of a motivation (adrenaline) kick from looking at an absolutely massive to-do list but i also read the room! sometimes a massive list is brilliant and inspiring, and sometimes a massive list is overwhelming and terrible. i adjust the amount of items i put on a to-do list for the kind of day i’m having.

i also break my tasks down into varying levels of detail on a day-to-day basis. if i’m super with it, i can put the big task on the list no problem. if i’m lacking all focus and drive and feel like anxiety in the vague shape of a human, i put twenty tiny tasks (sit at desk! take a sip of water! write one (1) sentence! read one (1) paragraph! open email!) to give me the structure i need to get there and the serotonin boost that comes from striking things out. 

effective to-do lists are a learned skill, to be quite honest! i feel like there are some excellent youtube videos on the subject - if i recall correctly, our lovely favourite muchelle b has a few, probably in her videos on procrastination? will link if i can find them later.

tldr: cut yourself some slack! be kind! be flexible! identify your priorities on your list! try not to give yourself a massive list made up entirely of must-do items when you cannot reasonably get them all done. read the room (of your own mind) and create a list in a format that actually helps you, and acknowledge that that’s probably going to look different on a daily basis

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“on the mountainside, weeton’s humanity seems to dissolve until she appears more bird than biped.” from wanderers: a history of women walking (2020) by kerri andrews | i am nearly in tears over the ellen weeton chapter of andrews’ book (must find myself a copy of weeton’s letters and journals post-haste) but what a way to sink back into research and writing after the new year—! 

photo from my instagram @livinghours / photo + gif pairing inspired by @galina

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the inherent shame of beginning… dont look at me while i learn

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write down all the things that make you feel courageous so you don’t forget that there is bravery in you too

#i love this #motivation

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for better or worse i’ve recently realized that self care, for me personally, sometimes means extra effort instead of less. like making my bed every day makes me feel good about my living space even though it’s a couple minutes of work, and plating my food nicely makes me feel like i’ve made and eaten a nice meal even if it means cleaning more dishes. i used to think self care was almost synonymous with making things easier for yourself, but sometimes challenging yourself a little tiny bit more than usual is more rewarding than doing it the easiest way, although that isn’t true for everyone, i know, it’s just how things have turned out for me

#motivation #mental health #self care #life improvement

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Took myself on an adventure today to get some much needed time to myself

#sundays #Yorkshire #views #skies #mine

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“I tried to argue that Ophelia resonated because Shakespeare had made an extraordinary discovery in writing her, though I had trouble articulating the nature of that discovery. I didn’t want to admit that it could be something as simple as recognizing that emotionally unstable teenage girls are human beings. … When Ophelia appears onstage in Act IV, scene V, singing little songs and handing out imaginary flowers, she temporarily upsets the entire power dynamic of the Elsinore court. When I picture that scene, I always imagine Gertrude, Claudius, Laertes, and Horatio sharing a stunned look, all of them thinking the same thing: “We fucked up. We fucked up bad.” It might be the only moment of group self-awareness in the whole play. Not even the grossest old Victorian dinosaur of a critic tries to pretend that Ophelia is making a big deal out of nothing. Her madness and death is plainly the direct result of the alternating tyranny and neglect of the men in her life. She’s proof that adolescent girls don’t just go out of their minds for the fun of it. They’re driven there by people in their lives who should have known better.”

— B.N. Harrison, from “The Unified Theory of Ophelia” (via shakespeareismyjam)

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“Possessing a creative mind, after all, is something like having a border collie for a pet: It needs to work, or else it will cause you an outrageous amount of trouble. Give your mind a job to do, or else it will find a job to do, and you might not like the job it invents (eating the couch, digging a hole through the living room floor, biting the mailman, etc.). It has taken me years to learn this, but it does seem to be the case that if I am not actively creating something, then I am probably actively destroying something (myself, a relationship, or my own piece of mind).”

— Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic

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consider: teenagers aren’t apathetic about everything they’re just used to you shitting all over whatever they show excitement about

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Something that my counsellor told me that is still relevant is that sometimes you’re not going to have the time to cover all of your material or complete everything that is required to do within your studies and assignments.

 Whether it’s completing certain amount of readings or note taking or studying, each person has a unique circumstance and the education system doesn’t personalize the work for you. A person who is struggling with a mental illness, a person who is currently supporting someone else in need, a person who feels burn out easily or a person who takes longer to absorb the material; they all will get the same degree of workload from someone who doesn’t understand what each individual goes through out side of their academic life. Sometime even if there is nothing wrong, the unrealistic expectation to be working 24/7 or that you can finish so much work is not possible. 

And that’s okay. You’re human and you’re going through life your own way. It’s okay that you couldn’t finish everything and it is not the end of the world. It doesn’t make you less capable or less intelligent.

We move on. 

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Hello! Do you mind saying what model of laptop you have and what you think about it? I'm in the process of buying a new one and acer is one of my options :)

Hey of course:) it’s an Acer Swift 3, and one with a smaller screen and the i7 processor. I love how light and quick it is (I’ve had it for a year), but if I’m being honest I think the better spec isn’t worth the money I paid for it.

If you’re like me and will only use it for things like research, word processing, and email, I’d recommend the Acer brand and the Swift range but a cheaper model. Happy hunting!

#anon #laptop #answered

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I no longer believe in time. My day is structured by what number cup of tea I’m on.