End each Day by Parking Downhill

We live on a hill, one of the steepest (if not the steepest) hill in our city. It's got a 27% gradient which is very steep!

Now, we live near the bottom of the hill, and not on the steepest part, which is better in the winter, when people can't even drive up the hill... but living near the bottom is not so good for my morning walk.

Walk Uphill or Downhill?

When I walk out the door... I am faced with two choices... go uphill or go downhill. Going straight, and level, is not an option. Many days, I face a mental block on my morning walk. I really, really don't want to have to grunt uphill right off the bat. I can do the slog to the top in 8 minutes but... those 8 minutes are a grueling, wheezing realization that I have turned into a winter slug!

So, sometimes what I do is... I'll just head downhill... it's easier, it gets the juices flowing and my muscles get limbered up. I may then circle around the block and start slogging up the road one street over (longer but with a gentler gradient). But first... a bit of downhill is much appreciated and makes the morning walk less of a chore... and more likely to actually happen.

Parking Downhill in the Woods

When I worked in the bush, we'd drive down these long logging roads into the wilderness. At the end, where we parked, we would always, always, always, get the truck turned around so it was parked facing in the direction of home.

Maybe it's a bear chasing you... or a forest fire... or a wounded companion... or it snows while you're out in the bush. The last thing you want to struggle with is a 5 point turn as you go back and forth, back and forth, trying to get turned around in the right direction.

Plus... if you go a bit too far and get stuck in the ditch... at the start of the day, you have waaayyy more time to get that figured out than at the end of the day when you're tired and it's getting dark. Oh... and if the battery died while you were out in the bush... it's a lot easier to push the truck forwards down the hill to get it started than to push it backwards down the hill (does that even work?).

Just another example of... park downhill... make it easy on yourself!

Parking Downhill for Productivity

I came across a productivity hack (which you know I love) the other day. The idea is to "park downhill" every evening. Not just the car either.. this works with projects or your desk or... whatever.

We aren't always at our most alert in the morning... so gathering up everything that we need the night before is just smart. The documents... the office bag... make a lunch... make sure your keys are on the key rack... get your exercise gear together. A little preparation the night before means that in the morning... you'll be parked downhill and everything will go much more smoothly.

With projects... it's a good idea to end the day in a "fun" spot. With something that you will find engaging and interesting and... dare I say it... easy.

I've been struggling with proofing a document that was translated from Polish to English using Google Translate... It's a bit of a slog but I can park downhill by telling myself the night before that I'll just start with the headings... and then the photo captions. That is easy. I can do that no problem. And once I've done that... then I'm already on a roll (having parked downhill) and can tackle the actual text.

Another idea... for those of us who work from home... is to have the document that we are going to be working on the next morning, open on the desktop. And nothing else. It's so easy to get distracted by all of the open tabs... so eliminate the distraction and make it easy.

Part of why parking downhill makes everything so much easier is that it eliminates decision points which are often energy draining. Decision fatigue is real... even in the morning... there is nothing worse than waking up in the morning and not being clear on what project is going to be tackled next. At least... there's nothing worse for me. I usually end up frittering the day away... so parking downhill just makes sense.

Even with this blog... if I can have a topic picked out in my own head the night before, then I am set for sitting down in the morning and writing. I'm parked downhill.

If... on the other hand, I don't have a topic picked out... it is a struggle in the morning because "I don't know what to write".... and it's pure gruelling uphill grunt work. No fun.

These might all seem like small things... but it's the small steps that make things easier.

Dodging Decision Fatigue

Decision Fatigue - it's a thing. This is why Steve Jobs and Barack Obama always wore the same outfit day after day. Well... not the same pieces of clothing... they changed their clothes. But they had the same style of clothing in their closets. Jeans and black turtle necks for Jobs. Same style of suit and tie for Obama. Why? Well... they made so many decisions in a day, they didn't want to waste any of their decision-making power on deciding what to wear. Smart.

Most of us make an average of 35,000 decisions in a day. That's a heck of a lot of decisions... most of them flying beneath the radar, because they are so miniscule, you're not even aware you're making them. But... pay attention and... we all make tonnes of decisions in a day.

It's no wonder then, that often, by the afternoon or evening, we reach decision fatigue. What to have for dinner? Ahhh... let's just do take-out. What should we order, from what restaurant? Ahhh... let's just do pizza. What sort of pizza? Ahhh... let's just go for the carnivore, meat lover! This has happened in our household...  Maybe it happens in yours too....

And even if we have the most impeccable self-control and willpower, decision fatigue can do an end-run around that soooo easily. I mean... in the face of 35,000 decisions in a day... anyone's self-control would collapse at some point. Because our decision making power is kind of like a battery... it gets charged up by sleep and rest and food. When we wake up in the morning, we wake up fully charged... usually... and then, as the day progresses, our decision making battery drains.

When we pay attention, we can see decision fatigue everywhere.

This is how clutter accumulates. We don't know what to do with something, where to put it, whether it will be useful, etc... and so we postpone the decision. Or so we think... because in actuality we are making a decision to keep the thing!

 We have incomplete projects around the house... well... I have incomplete projects around the house! And a lot of them are stuck because they need a decision to be made... Should I put the old baseboards back on the walls after the kitchen reno? Or should I put on the new ones? But... if we get new flooring later this year (who knows with Covid19) or maybe next year or the year after... then we'll have to rip off the new ones and since they are MDF, they'll be ruined sooo... is it better to put the old baseboards on... or just no baseboards? Argh...

But... there is a trick... it's called habits. Not bad habits... but good habits. Once something becomes a habit... you don't have to think about it anymore. It just happens by itself. Like brushing your teeth in the morning... or getting dressed in the morning. Of course, now with Covid19... it is also relatively easy to get out of the habit of getting dressed every morning... and just stay in pajamas. Which is why the shrinks are offering all sorts of sage advice on how we can best maintain our mental health. And a big part of that is sticking with a routine... and following those long ingrained habits of getting up, having a shower, getting dressed, eating breakfast, brushing teeth, etc.

Rest and food can boost our decision making battery

These are all the little decisions that can drain our decision-making abilities. And we do have to make important decisions in a day... like at work... or with our kids.

The trick then, is to automate as many little decisions as possible to leave us with enough willpower to make good decisions... even at the end of the day.

I know all of this very well myself. For a while, when looking after my Dad, I had zippo routine in my life, and it showed. I wandered aimlessly through my days waiting to react to a call from Home Support or Dad or some other care-related thing. Recovering from that extended period of aimless wandering took a lot of work. Because, left to my own devices, I fall afoul of all sorts of cognitive biases.

Like this... I wake up in the morning, lie in bed and think, "Should I go for a walk this morning? It sounds like it's raining. Maybe I'll just skip today".

And so I skip a day... and then another day, and then another, because the same conversation happens every morning.

The trick to success became when I made it a habit... there's no ifs, ands, or buts... every morning I get up, get dressed in my walking clothes, brush my teeth, take my vitamins and get out the door. It might only be a short walk but... it is a walk. Then I come home, feed the cat, meditate, make and eat breakfast and then sit down at the computer and hammer out a blog or two. Without fail. There are no decisions to be made... just a routine to be followed. And it is working.

Part of my problem is linked to my never-ending to-do list and... my former tendency to sit down and look at the list in the morning, after writing, and try to decide what to do next. "I don't feel like doing that. I don't have what I need to do that. I can't decide what to do with that... or how to do that..." And so the conversation goes with very little of any significance getting done. Which is why the new method of actually sitting down and scheduling things ahead of time... not the morning of... seems to be working. The task is ready and waiting for me to work on it... no decisions need to be made... it just needs to be started.

Now... this morning, I was scrolling through my list of draft post ideas and couldn't decide which one to work on and... voila... here we are at decision fatigue. Seems kind of appropriate.