Seven Little Things that Make the Most Difference in my Life

I admit to being a bit of a productivity nerd, always reading new books and trying to get some new hack that will actually help me get more stuff done. One recent book suggested a four step process...

First - focus on one Highlight for your day - something that you've wanted/needed or would like to work on - and schedule a 60-90 min chunk of time for that.

Second - when that time comes around, practice Laser focus - turn off your phone, etc - just work on your Highlight.

Third - Reflect on how it all went and repeat.

Except... it is a 4-step process and there's a supporting step that is not part of the work flow... Energize. Basically, you need to keep up your energy otherwise your day is going to tank. They have several ideas for how to energize yourself during the day - everything from snacking to strategic caffeine to naps to good sleep hygiene.

And I thought... yes... this is all so true. I know this soooooo well!!!

1. Prioritize Sleep

I have not been sleeping well lately. I have trouble falling asleep and then I wake up at 3 am. Sometimes I lie there, awake, until it's time to get up at 5 or 5:30. I know that these sleep issues are due to multiple things... watching a movie too late into the evening, being on my phone or the computer in the evening, the cat chirping in my ear and demanding cuddles at 3 am, my partner having coughing fits (allergies)... it really doesn't matter. The upshot is... I drag myself out of bed at 5:30 am and feel horrible.

When I have not slept well, my energy is blipping along at almost 0%. I have no enthusiasm for my projects. I spend my day putting out tiny fires (extremely urgent to me) and start neglecting other things, like eating well.

So I'm focusing on good sleep hygiene as we move into this new year. No TV or computers or phone after 7 pm. I can work on a puzzle, or we can play a game. Maybe I'll write some cards. Any analogue activity is fine... just nothing digital. I'm also starting to have a mug of chamomile tea in the evenings. We have also begun to listen to a sleep meditation just before bed. We could try banishing the cat from the bedroom but that isn't going to happen. 

2. Eat Good Food

I get up early, and head off to Starbucks most mornings. I come home around 8 am and then make breakfast. But... if I go grocery shopping... then the morning gets longer and I might not get home till 9 am or later. At which point I am a raging Hangry (hungry anger). I do try to take a breakfast-on-the-go with me - some yogurt and berries, or a cut-up apple. Because, honestly... if I am running around doing errands... the hangry really wants something... and there is Timmies (toasted bagel with herb and garlic cream cheese) or Starbucks (chocolate brownie warmed-up). And neither of those options is good for me. 

So... we are back to Michael Pollard's book (In Defense of Food). The take-away was... Eat Food. Not too Much. Mostly Plants. We do try to follow that. Where I get hung up is on snacks...  I want chocolate! No.... that's not right. I NEED chocolate!!

I have been trying to grab an apple and almonds when the urge strikes... trying to wean myself off of the chocolate. I've also decided to give dark chocolate a try... REAL dark chocolate. My brother-in-law has done this in the past. And when I've visited them, I've tried a piece of  90% dark and almost spit it out!! Soooo bitter and dry and... ick! But... it's an acquired taste. More on this in next week's blog...

3. Drink Water

Ugh. I totally fall down on this. Years ago, a friend (10 years older than me) told me that if she didn't drink enough water, she would get tired and cranky. Yeah-yeah... whatever.

Ah-hem...

It's true. For me! Ugh. I walk by my water bottle in the morning as I head out the door and I think "There it is. I should pick it up. But it's empty. It will take too much time to take it to the sink and fill it with water."

No. Seriously. This went through my head just this morning. The rest of me looks on in amused incredulity... "It would take 10 seconds to fill that water bottle up!" Yeah, whatever. Now I'm at the bottom of the stairs and it would take even LONGER now.

So I head out the door without a water bottle. And regret it later when I am grocery shopping and parched. Yep. Got bit in the ass by my own impatience.

The thing to do is this... maybe... to park downhill. I wrote about this ages ago. Grease the wheels, smooth the trail... park downhill. The thing to do would be to fill my water bottles the night before (I have several). Fill the small one and put it in my office back-pack... the one that I take with me when I head out. Would that not be the thing to do? Yes... it would... wish me luck!

4. Move More, Sit Less

I have one of those fancy Garmin watches that tell me how many steps I've taken, etc. If I sit too long, it will vibrate on my wrist and if I look at the screen, it tells me to "MOVE!". It's a bossy little thing, that watch. Of course, I ignore it.

I already do a 45-60 min pre-lunch walk with my partner. That's good, right? Yep. And more is always better. We are starting to stitch in a pre-dinner walk - just around the neighbourhood. Usually it's because one, or both, of us have not yet reached 10,000 steps. It's a good little incentive and we also visit the mailbox and check if the free newspaper is out yet.

Moving is always good... I need to remember that.

5. Meditate & Breathe

I fell off the meditation bandwagon months ago. To just stop, breathe, focus on nothing but the breath and watch the monkey mind scurry around. Come back to the breath.

When I do meditation, I always feel so much better. I am calmer, clearer... just... better. Why do I not do it? Because it takes too much time. Yep... I mean... if 10 seconds is "too much time", then a 5 minute meditation session is so over-the top "too much time", it doesn't even bear thinking about.

Although, my partner reminded me that... "you can meditate at any time... not just in the morning"... errrr... you mean, instead of being on my phone and scrolling the news?? Whhhhaaaaattttt?? Yeah. What a concept.

What if... when I pick up my phone because I'm bored or avoiding something... I actually stopped and closed my eyes and meditated for a quick minute or two or three... What would happen?

Hmmm... idea percolating here. I could change my lock screen to be a pic that says... Meditate & Feel Better... 

*20 minutes later**

Done!! We'll see if it makes a difference or just becomes part of the scenery...

And... I've also set a timer on the two worst time-sucks on my phone (my boredom soothers) - Facebook app and the Internet app (for checking the news). When the daily time limit is reached... boop... the app is greyed out and I can't click it open!

6. More Analog Face Time - Less Digital Facetime

No, this is not Apple's Facetime... which is not actual face time. I'm talking real, live, analog face time... where you sit down in front of a real person and have a chat or play a game or... whatever. We are social beings. We need inter-personal interactions! And as we all learned during Covid... Zoom calls gave us LOTS of Facetime and interactions but very little face time... and we all felt exhausted after those calls. Digital Facetime is no substitute for analog face time.

Maybe that's why I like sitting in Starbucks and working. I see a lot of real people. I hear murmured conversations. I chat with some of my Starbucks regulars, chat with the baristas... it doesn't take much.

7. Get Outside

This one is huge. To just get outside, breathe some fresh air and interact with nature. Even if it's just in the backyard. Better if it's a walk in the forest. Being out in the forest calms me... energizes me... Soooo... just get outside.

A Plan for the New Year

Yep, it's January 1. A time when a lot of us make the dreaded New Year's Resolutions... Usually they are lofty goals "I am going to go to the gym every day and work out for an hour!". How'd that work for you? They've done studies, and most resolutions are on the trash heap by the time February rolls around.

I'm going to start small... with small steps... chamomile tea at night, dark chocolate and an apple in my office bag, pre-fill my water bottle at night, walk to the mailbox (don't drive), meditate for 5 minutes, play a game, get outside and breathe.

Small steps can make a big difference.

How to Drink Enough Water??

I know, I know... I wrote about this months ago, well... years ago... and I thought I had this problem licked. How the heck does one drink enough water in a day?

The recommended amount is 2 litres per day. That can come from drinking or from eating foods that are high in water (e.g. watermelon, cucumbers).

When I go for a hike, or if it's hot and sunny out, I usually have no trouble remembering to drink water. But in the winter... and when I am more sedentary, I really have trouble remembering to stay hydrated.

I had this great system a while back. Every time I went to the bathroom, I would drink a cup of water. That would then make me go to the bathroom more often, where I would drink another cup and... voila... I was super well-hydrated!

But that little hack fell off after a while. Not sure why... possibly because it seemed like I was going to the bathroom every 10 minutes! My partner says my body will adjust after a while but... I don't think I stuck with it long enough to reach that point!

I do have water bottles full of water sitting around my office and... do I drink them? No, I do not. Unless I get a tickle in my throat and then I'm all over them!

Hacks to Drink More Water

There must be something that will help me to remember to drink water??? So I turned to Google and searched for tips on how to drink more water... here are some of the top ideas...

1. Add flavour - add lime, lemon, strawberries, cukes, etc. I'm not a big fan of that. I want my water to taste like water.
2. Tie it to a routine - like drink when you go to the bathroom. Tried that... didn't seem to work.
3. Challenge a friend - yeah... no... my partner drinks water like nobody's business... there's no way I can keep up with that!
4. Set alarms - throughout the day, to remind me to drink water. Maybe... 
5. Track it - well... that's possible. My Garmin app that goes with my fitness watch allows me to track how much I drink. 

I'm usually not a big fan of tracking things - it just seems to add a whole extra layer of work to things but... given how connected I have been to my Garmin app while I'm doing the virtual Camino... then this might actually be the time to try this.

Tracking Water Intake

OK, I am going to try the tracking tip. First step... set up my Garmin hydration tracker...

My Garmin, allows me to set my goal for the day and I chose the standard 2000 ml (2 litres). (I know the image shows 2129 ml - but I changed it to 2000).

I can then preset 3 different types of containers. So the first one is my morning tea mug (473 ml). The next one is my small blue water bottle that easily fits into the side pouch on my office backpack. It's the one I am most likely to take with me when I head out the door. And the last one is my bigger water bottle that rides in my backpack on longer hikes.

Given how much I am walking... I'd also like to bring the small blue water bottle along somehow. I don't really want to carry a backpack though for a 30 minute walk. But... I do have a waist belt that has a holder for a water bottle. I think it's time to dig that out, wrap it around my waist and bring the water with me. It might actually help me drink more water. At this point, every little hack that helps is something to try!

I know that so much of this is rooted in habit formation. The trick is also to make it as easy as possible. Right now... this feels doable... and it's one more of those small steps that help me to build healthy habits.

Desalinization Plants - The Answer to Drought?

As I sit and write this, we haven't had any rain for the last five weeks. And there is none in the forecast for at least the next two weeks. We normally have fairly dry summers. We usually have water restrictions of some sort and we always let our lawns go golden, unlike some neighbours who insist on watering their patches of useless grass. But, in a normal year, we usually get some relief from the odd rainstorm. Not this year. Which has me wondering about our water supply...

Our water comes from a reservoir high up in the mountains which is fed by winter rains and run-off from snow and glacier melt. But as the glaciers recede year after year, I am a bit worried about what the future holds. And not just me. I found a report which indicates that as our city's population grows (and grows), we will quickly outstrip our water supply. Living on an island, albeit a large one, our sources of fresh, clean water are limited. The plan for the next ten years, or so, is to build another dam in the mountains, creating another reservoir to gather and stockpile water. It's not cheap though, 75 million dollars or so.

And yet... we live on an island, surrounded by miles of ocean water. Couldn't we tap into seawater with a desalinization plant? It seems like the wave of the future, doesn't it?

I did a bit of research and there are over 20,000 desalinization plants around the world, providing clean water to over 300 million people. Some of the key players are Saudi Arabia, Israel and Australia. Although some US states like California, Texas and Arizona have also jumped on board. It seems like a win-win solution... take free sea water and turn it into fresh water. But not so fast...

There are two desalination methods: thermal and membrane. Both are extremely expensive (double what "normal" water costs), use a LOT of energy and have environmental issues.

With the thermal method, water is heated up to produce steam which is then collected and condensed to produce water. The remaining brine is then pumped out to sea. This method was the most popular method prior to the 1980s. It fell into disfavour because it's a bit more expensive than the membrane method which has now become far more popular.

With the membrane method (also known as reverse osmosis), sea water is forced through a membrane with tiny holes which catch the salt molecules but let the water molecules pass through. In this case,100 gallons of seawater produces 50 gallons of fresh water. That leaves 50 gallons of salty brine left over. What to do with it? Usually, the brine is pumped back into the ocean but this can cause sea life to die as the brine sinks to the bottom and smothers whatever lives on the ocean floor. Many desalinization plants try to dilute the brine with sea water and disperse it over a larger area. Still... it's tricky, not least because the brine is often contaminated with heavy metals. As well, some recent studies suggest that the ratio of fresh water to brine water might actually be something like... 35 gallons of fresh water and 65 gallons of brine. On top of that... the intake pipes which suck the sea water into the desalinization plant also suck in all sorts of sea life - from fish to plankton, which is problematic.

In some areas, desalinization plants are processing brackish water from aquifers and rivers, water that is only slightly salty. This is far more efficient than producing fresh water from sea water, since there is less salt to be filtered out.

Both thermal and membrane methods require tonnes of energy which, in most cases comes from fossil fuels. This simply contributes to a vicious cycle. As climate change alters weather patterns and reduces rainfall in certain areas, desalinization plants pump more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, thus worsening global warming and climate change.

Now there is some hope on the horizon. Saudi Arabia is apparently looking at shifting their chief energy source from fossil fuels to solar power. That would certainly reduce the environmental impact. Other sunny climes, like Australia, California, Texas, Arizona and Israel would also benefit by switching from fossil fuel power sources to solar.

So, while desalinization plants are definitely an option... they are likely not in our future anytime soon. I would imagine we are going to look at other options first: more reservoirs, homeowners being encourage to install cisterns and other rainwater catchment options for gardening and... sigh... lawn watering, harvesting grey water, etc. 

Clean, fresh drinking water is a precious resource and we should treat it as such. And yes, there are dozens of Indigenous communities across Canada that lack this precious resource. It seems that for every community which has a water advisory lifted, another community is added to the list. All of this makes me appreciate the water that flows out of our taps even more.

Resources

Yale University - article on desalinization plants

National Geographic - article on desalinization plants 

Wired - article on desalinization plants 

Circle of Blue - other options for fresh water supplies

How I Finally Figured out how to Drink more Water

I am not the most evolved being when it comes to drinking enough water.

I continually forget to take my water bottle along. And when I do take it along, I often misplace it or leave it in the car.

 To be honest, I just forget to drink water! And I then suffer from the resulting lethargy and headaches... wondering why I'm so exhausted!

Except in the summer... when I'm working in the garden... then I can drink water like a fish (I know... fish don't drink water... but you get the point).

This is a rather hypocritical state for me to be in. When my Dad was struggling with dementia, I had signs posted all around his suite, urging him to drink more water. We had full glasses of water sitting on the counter and his dining table and his side table. None of it made any difference. He was chronically dehydrated and yet, because the elderly tend to have decreased thirst, he just wouldn't drink enough. 

So... here I am... in kind of the same boat... although not as elderly! I know that not drinking enough water leads to all sorts of issues (including restless leg syndrome) but... how to actually drink more water?

Last weekend, I think I figured it out... at least, I hope so...

Here's my trick. Every time I go to the toilet, I grab my toothbrush cup, fill it with water and drink it down. After I'm finished using the toilet, I do it again. Simple and easy.

This is a beautiful example of habit stacking... except not really, because going to the bathroom is a necessity not a habit! But still... I'm tacking the habit of drinking more water onto something that is already a solid (or liquid) part of my day.

My toothbrush cup

The beauty in this is... the more water that I drink... the more I need to go to the bathroom and... the more often I go to the bathroom... the more water I will drink!

A classic example of a positive feedback loop.

Now, my toothbrush cup isn't huge... it only holds a shade over 6 ounces and a standard glass is 8 oz.  Given that the average human should be drinking 8 glasses of water (8 oz glasses) a day... that's, let's see... 64 ounces, which means I need to drink 11 toothbrush cups worth of water. Soo... if I go to the bathroom 6 times in a day, I'm set!

I like this method because it's: (a) super simple and (b) it's done in small steps. I don't need to drink a litre at a time. All I need to do is drink 6 ounces before I go to the toilet and 6 ounces afterwards. Love it!

P.S.

And yes, I drink the tap water here. We have excellent tap water and I've never been much of a bottled water fan.

P.P.S.

As an aside... I've had that toothbrush cup for... ooohhh... since I was about 5 years old. That faded, dilapidated sticker used to be a little mouse. My sister had a white cup, my mom had a green one and my dad had a yellow one. I think my toothbrush cup is the last one standing...

P.P.S.

Having done this for a week now... I can definitely say... It WORKS! I am drinking my daily quota of water and it's not hard. Most days I'm drinking 15 of my little toothbrush cups. And... in order to keep track of this, my partner suggested a super simple system... We have a pottery dish with decorative rocks on the bathroom counter. It has 15 rocks in it and every time I drink a cup of water, I remove a rock from the plate and place it on the counter...

Super simple but anything would work, moving marbles from one glass to another... or paperclips or... whatever. Get creative... Even a piece of paper where you can track how many glasses/cups you drink.