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Productivity

SCHEDULES AND ROUTINES🍅

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Take a pick my dear Sunday team- Coffee, tea or water?


In my last blog article I preached about my mini life reset I carried out in April. My main goal was to get a grip of myself and become disciplined enough to be active with my interests rather than mourn about how unproductive I was being and how lazy I was growing. It was about little steps away from my comfort zone.

In that post I stressed on my plans of designing a schedule and routine and hoped to share the process with you if I actually do it. Well, I did it!

Schedule baby

DESIGNING A schedule can seem like a lot of work at first but the key to overcoming that is not doing too much.

I made a simple paper and digital list of the activities I’ll love to do each day no matter how little and if that list of yours looks like a railway you might want to reconsider.
In that list I included the following activities in order of which came first:

Drink water
Study/school work
Bible reading
Financial book read
Planning and checking notifications
lunch
Read my current novel
Make dinner
Watch evening soap opera
Bath
Spanish lesson
journaling

Let me already mention that I had breaks between these activities. It wasn’t a do or die robotic program.

TIME BLOCKS🍅


I DECIDED my wake time should be 04:00a.m so I can study for two hours before the whole family was awake- that’ll be such a distraction.
Well you must have guessed right: I snoozed my alarm more than I woke up. That was just too early for goodness sake we are on a break, the whole world.
When I was tired of deceiving myself I moved my wake time to 05:00 a.m.
This time it was better, I felt better in the mornings. But it was still difficult.

PRESENTLY


SOON ENOUGH my body made a decision for us: it decided to no longer hear the alarm. I could no longer hear my alarm when it rang. Instead it woke my mom up every day at 05:00a.m. I felt bad.


When a schedule is obviously not working, it is okay to make adjustments. You should keep trying out schedules and routines till you find the one that suits the moment or season you’re in. If there’s one thing I know now, it’ll be the fact that you can’t have the same schedule and routine for so long… things change. Do not be afraid or ashamed of tweaking and adjusting your schedules and routines.

Tweak it till it fits

Adjusting is healthy

I created a digital document where I wrote about some days when my schedule was successful and when it was a total wreck.

We should be able to pick efficiency over extended work. Instead of doing too much and being so inefficient it will be better to do the little things and do them effectively DAILY.


After deceiving and torturing myself for weeks I decided one morning to just do what I can whatever time I woke up. Not minding the time, indeed my goal was to choose commitment daily and not to become the neighborhood rooster.
That was the best decision I took last week and this past week was really calm and effective. I noticed I was usually awake somewhere between 6:30 a.m. – 07:00 a.m. And that was the end of my morning disappointments.

ANY CHALLENGE?


Definitely. When staying in a house with your parents and siblings plans are meant to change most times. Most times you’ll need to leave your work and focus on errands or helping siblings. Yes, this has affected my routine most days but like I said before: your schedule or routine shouldn’t be untouchable. You should not feel bad for tweaking this list. Just make sure you’re choosing to commit daily no matter how little the time.
So currently whenever I wake up I choose my commitments no matter the time of the day.
My schedules did suffer daily but my evening routine became my source of content. It was the most consistent and effective; I never missed a day in studying Spanish. So that’s my pride… I keep tweaking the blocks that fail.

POMODORO🍅


Oh dear tomato unit. I represent my pomodoro time blocks with tomato emojis. Pomodoro technique is simply setting a stop watch for work and another for a break: I use 25 minutes for work and 5 minutes for a break and the cycle goes on and on.

As for Spanish lesson; it’s scheduled at 10:00p.m. Monday to Saturday for 1 hour.

On Sundays I welcome breaks from commitments and tend to writing. Did I mention my Photoshop course I scheduled for Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 9:00p.m.?


Side note: 🍅Praying has recently become the sweetest way for me to start my day.
🍅 I ditched school work for two weeks. Don’t be like me. But I’m happier this way.
🍅 I’m starting a new finance book because I finished the other one i.e. “Increasing your financial IQ by Robert Kiyosaki”

Schedules and routines are just guidelines not mountains…

This article has gotten too long… bye now x
Take it easy… baby steps.

In her September Thoughts

16ixteenTh

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3RD WEEK OF SEPTEMBER
THROUGH OUT THE SECOND WEEK I HAVE

  1. Been reading nice books.
  2. Done a lot of introspection and meditation.
  3. Watched YouTube videos of my favourite youtubers.
  4. Been reading through the book of John.
  5. Annotating my Bible during my Bible Study.
  6. Been the house cleaner since I am the only one still on vacation.
  7. Been sleeping well and gotten into a nice routine.
  8. Been taking and editing photos; used some for the featured image in my post. It was a fast week, I don’t feel like I did much (apart from shopping for work space supplies) and at some point it got real rough both emotionally and intellectually.
  9. P. S I’m so happy to tell you I took and edited the featured image for this post and it’s a picture of my Sticky notes from my last shopping.

SIDE NOTE:
The purple Journal apologizes for not uploading a post on Saturday, it was a very spontaneous day planned by my Aunt. I don’t usually post on Sundays and Sunday was also a rough day for me.
But the new week is here, it’s Monday and we are all anticipating a growth filled week.
The Purple Journal now invites you to join this week’s special, “Journaling Week!!! “


CLEAN UP AND WRITE

16 September 2019
Welcome to the third week of September. I have done my brainstorming for my goals this week. This evening I will be organizing them and I hope you’re doing the same.
I won’t say the first week was better than the second week. But the second week sure was spontaneous.
The best part of last week was that I got to move to my Aunt’s place for that week. Since the kids were going to school, I was left at home. I got into the habit of cleaning up the house before I start any study or plan for the day. It’s a bit stunning that I adopted the habit real fast.
Before I would just clean my work space and get on with the day but I have experienced the fulfilment that comes from actually cleaning up the whole house.

I know some persons might be too busy to actually clean up the whole house, or the house might be too big. You can actually just arrange the items around so your surrounding so it looks organized.
Here are a few emotions that can stream from just being in an environment tided up by you:

PRODUCTIVITY AND CONTROL:
I believe an organised environment does carry the aura of control and productivity. It puts you in a certain mood that makes you want to do more around that environment. Also, you might feel like you have your work under control, especially when you were able to clean up your mess and other people’s mess yourself.

FULFILMENT
We can all agree that there were days when after a nice clean up we felt like we had conquered the day.
If cleaning up was actually part of your to-do list, doing that task will make you feel one step into the day and one step out of the to-do list.

CONFIDENCE:
Yes, a nicely arranged surrounding makes me feel confident and modern. There is this aura of confidence I carry whenever I walk around the house knowing that it’s clean and ARRANGED.

FRESHNESS
Arranging your work space and surrounding can also make an old area look fresher. It makes the beauty stand out. In all, cleaning up and arranging is just a dose of energy and positivity.

Here is a fast tip from Marie Kondo, the author of life-changing magic of tidying up:
Keep things around you that you actually want to be around you. This is a minimalist’s guide but this also applies to all areas of life.
Marie Kondo talks about only keeping or bringing in the physical things that sparks joy in you. this is an intentional act and does make sense if you think about it.

JOURNALS AND PEOPLE
Like I mentioned earlier, this week is a journaling special, that means I will be spending my time on journaling. Since “Journaling” is not an actual word, we journal users describes journaling as the act and art of writing in a journal. It can be like a diary entry or by using a journal prompt. The best part of journaling is that it is intentional.

Using and writing in Journals have proven to be a good form of therapy for me and I am inviting you to try it out… If you already do, please check out my prompt source mentioned below .
I already scheduled October as a month of using Journal prompts. I made a decision to start my journaling exercise last week. Aileen, one of my favorite YouTuber is starting an online journaling course. She is the creator of the Lanvendaire Lifestyle contents that I once shared here on this blog.
Because this course is free, I decided to seize the opportunity and start my Journaling exercise now, instead of waiting till October.

Aileen’s Journaling series will be live on IG TV every Saturday at 09 PT for the next six weeks and she will also be sending emails with the journaling prompts you can try out.

You can sign up for the emails with the link below;
Lanvendaire.com/lavinotebooks

I already signed up and you can join me (as I join Aileen)

Xoxo
From The Purple Journal.

P. S Please leave a comment if you found this post useful, we are trying to build an online community.

This is not a sponsored post. Just a mere recommendation.

In her September Thoughts

13irteenTh September

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DO-MORE SYNDROME

13 September 2019

Do you feel restless and guilty when you’re not up to something? Have society stolen the joy of just being from you? Do you feel like you will never amount to anything because you’re simply not doing anything noteworthy now? Are you hurt?
Are you faced with what I resolved this morning to calling the Do-more syndrome?

It’s every where, in every story, every motivational line and dose. But is it worth the stress?

Here’s the thing, Philip has turned out to look like the ultimate goal getter. He has lines of journals with entries and ideas and he is moving towards it. He has eaten the Do-more message long enough to ignore every opposition. He sounds more like…
“This might be the only way and I’m taking it down.”
Thing is, he never gets satisfied. And though he has been up and doing always, he still doesn’t have any solid grip on any of his supposed achievement. There is nothing grand to right home about so he flushed every second of movement down in the toilet. There is no fulfilment, no acknowledgement, therefore he’s got to do more, think faster and smarter…. He’s got to slap the answers right our of his brains whether he does have the answers or not.
The legend we are all trying to be… The do-more strategist.
“If it’s not working, just don’t give up… Do more! “
Who else eats this message daily. The reason sitting down and doing nothing has become a sign of worthless and uselessness.
Phillip took the hard road, got knocked by a bus but he’s till moving. He’s got to do more. He had a cut right through his stomach last night but he’s got to aggrandize himself. He’s got something to prove. He’s got to prove he’s got success in his DNA. He feels entitled to recognition just like the other stars.
He rolled off the ladder while trying but he’s not letting go. He’s got cuts and wounds with massive release of blood but he’s still moving. Dripping red all over his path. The cuts are so deep you wouldn’t see it; I think it pierced right through his soul and left scars on his self image but he’s got to be strong… Go getter! Do-more syndrome man.

He will later end up on a far away medical bed. The one not seen around… Soon he’ll have doctors fighting to keep his wounded soul in his ripped body. I don’t know if he’ll give up and let the ghost go. I don’t know if he’ll keep fighting. I could relate to his mantra and blood, so I walked away… It was too brutal and I had to get a check up.
Are you Philip?

What will be the gain if gaining this fulfilment will leave you broken. When will you stop measuring your fulfilment on societal standards? When will you just let yourself grow?
Don’t you have any concern for a healthy, peaceful mind?

Just like Philip I have eaten a great dose of the do-more syndrome… The “it’s not enough to be needed by people” mindset. The mindset that makes your hands want to do something, but the thing is we just don’t have what it takes to do what the world calls great(maybe at the moment). I have lived in this hell and anxiety and I know it’s not pretty. I had to let go and move off.

Who said we can’t let go…

Well here’s what someone else said, Morgan Harper Nichols said “It’s okay to let go and seek peace of mind.” Those words pierced right through my soul, releasing all the unrealistic needs and expectations from my young self.
It lead me to saying out loud, “you’re too young to be carrying these lies on your shoulder.”
Who made you believe you’ve always got to be enough. Smart enough, wise enough, good enough, skilled enough.

I think we all need to start getting comfortable sleeping and waking up to doing the small things that are difficult to do. Maybe.
It’s okay to start as a mediocre. The wrong thing is thinking that’s all you’ll be. It’s that fear that makes you run after what the world wants…
Based on popular demand is a killer. Don’t look at it. Based on popular demand is a fallacy capable of keeping people slaves without chains.
Don’t be that guy!

Start getting consistent with the little things nobody really notices. That’s the hardest thing to do… Because it’s small yet difficult and no body gives you praise…

Gratitude, love, care for obnoxious siblings, sharing when you obviously hate sharing all you have, giving others a helping hand, saying the truth, waking up early, reading books, going on social media and being conscious not to compare, reading the Bible, praying for yourself and others…

Learn how to live without praise and know you’re still getting it done. That’s one good drug if you’ve recognized the do-more syndrome.

P. S If you still feel like you need something to do. Look around, someone close to you is struggling with a little task. Help someone and get a thank you.

Featured image credit goes to me and my phone!

Who said you had to carry the world in your shoulder. Heaven is so big yet not everyone will go to heaven…

Welcomes

About : ) Hi from the other side

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Hola Ha!

Journals.

What comes to your mind when you hear the word journals…

Xavier had a hard time dealing with his breakup, he wrote an entry. He wouldn’t forget the way she walked away, letters describing all the words he couldn’t say and all in lined papers.
Spongebob really did great today, the Bikini Bottom is all rainbows. He writes an entry, he wouldn’t forget this day.
Joanna just had her first kiss, sure, she writes an entry. Words describing the heart beat only her could feel, bellyache or red butterflies…

Ashley is crying at 02 AM. Edwin missed his flight. Margaret gave birth to a girl and Josh fell off his bike. Rukki is praying, Chizaram is going to start a business, Olivia is starting a new book, Ife wants to travel and me, I’m just hanging around waiting for the next wave.

Catching and Releasing, unwinding, recording our existence, dancing to our rythme. What’s existence without memories…

First times and last times… heart beats and cold hands. Epiphany and dilemma. Adrenaline and Dopamine. More than ten Thousand neurons cutting across a single brain causing flashes of actions as the legs tries to find its place in the societal ladder.

The Purple Journal tells you all the things you already know, things you already learnt and felt yet this journal solves a problem.
As humans forgetting is innate and just like all the rainy nights when these persons go back to their journal hidden in the wooden shelves and remember what was once unforgettable, the purple journal is also your tiny reminder of the words you didn’t say….

A reminder of everything you called weird and irrelevant.

The purple journal is here to remind you of some feelings, thoughts and experiences you might have just forgotten….

So turn these pages with me, will you?