I recently stumbled across film maker/YouTuber Matt D’Avella. His videos relate to living a minimalist lifestyle. Minimalist in the sense of having a lifestyle which entails surrounding yourself with the essentials of life. And I think that’s what it really boils down to for me. What are the things in my life that are meaningful to me? What are the things that bring me genuine joy? On the flip side, what are the things that are weighing me down? What are the habits and characteristics I’ve built up that are unhealthy and damaging to my own development? And I really could go into more depth, but for starters, I want to lay out 12 habits/goals that I’d like to keep going everyday (more or less) for the entirety of the year. (Let’s not talk about January.)
1. Establishing a morning routine
And really, this kind of encompasses a lot of things. Mainly I want to just get out of bed right after my alarm and quit laying on my ass for a full hour. I’d also like to drink a full glass of water and take all my supplements before the day begins. Stretch maybe. Check the news. Put my phone on the other side of the room! Make a list of things I need to do that day. Get up earlier.
2. Exercising
Oh boy. We all know how this one goes. Long story short, I’m going to try to stick with the 2 day rule. One day of rest in between MAX. Whether that’s 5 minutes or a full hour at the gym, this one is a pretty big one for me. Should be interesting to document.
3. Cutting down on sugar and carbs
Define cutting down? Ultimately I just want to lose some weight and I know this is really holding me back. So for the first month, I’m going to cut out sugar (packaged foods) and primary carbs (bread, pizza, pasta, etc.) for a whole month. Or as long as I can go really.
4. Meditating
I want to create some time for myself and calm my racing mind. Work on that inner peace shit. 10 minutes a day. Breathing exercises will probably be a better time spent honestly. Do I still have that fuckin breath holding app?
5. Limiting screentime
For the sake of time, I think everyone knows how bad it is so I don’t really need to go into depth on the whole thing. All the meaningless hours wasted on my phone for what? Nothing. I want to be intentional with my time, and this is one of the things that has been really holding me back.
6. Sketching
This should, in concept, be a really easy thing to do. Unfortunately that’s not really the case. 15 minutes out of my entire day. How hard can it be? (hah) I enjoy it and since I’m now going to be working digitally 90% of the time, I still want to maintain these skills learned in my foundation arts class.
7. Pullups
Jesus fucking Christ I’m weak af. Used to be able to do 13 pull ups and now I can’t even do a single one.
8. Journaling
This blog is kind of a form of journaling. But I think it does generally help to physically write things down. In the case of my journal, I’m going to use it to write about my personal relationships and the shitty state of my mental health.
9. Designing something every week
I need to build up my portfolio. And aside from the rushed 3 day experiment where I literally did all of the 6 pieces of work in my portfolio now, I really don’t have anything substantial that I’ve produced. In this case, I want to at least commit to producing ONE SINGLE project a month. I already know that this one is going to be a challenge. (pretty much the same with every one of these habits lol.) But this will be great to fill up the meaningless gaps in time that I have.
10. Reading More
I was going to put reading more nonfiction, but I don’t want to limit myself. Reading is a pastime that I love and enjoy, why should I put a constraint on it? A realistic goal might be to end my day with reading. And this also encompasses, (I’ve just decided) being updated on the news and reading more articles from the fucking New Yorker subscription I bought some 6 months ago.
11. Learning about finance
Taking a personal finance class already knocks this one out of the park. But I guess that’s kind of cheating. I’d really like to read more about stocks and commit to tracking my financial purchases every week. Limit my spending! I’VE GOT FOOD AT HOME.
12. Keeping up with this blog
Daily? Weekly? I think…I think I’m going to aim for one blog post a week. If I want to do more then sure. But one blog post a week seems reasonable.
So those are the habits. Let’s see how this goes.
- Establishing a morning routine
- Exercising
- Cutting down on sugar and carbs
- Meditating
- Limiting screentime
- Sketching
- Pull ups
- Journaling
- Designing something every week
- Reading More
- Learning about finance
- Keep up with this motherfucking pieceofshit ass blog
10:55 p.m. 