Improvements

Happy Monday Y’all.

Today’s blog we’re going to talk allot about improvement and in true FIP style books.

What I’m reading right now:

– How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life by Caroline Webb.

I stumbled upon this title, and good thing I did; this is the perfect follow up to Thinking Fast and Slow. Thinking Fast and Slow read like a text book and was extremely informative. It talked about how we have two thinking systems; one that’s fast and on autopilot and another that is slow and deliberate. How to Have a Good Day is the application of what we learned in Fast and Slow.

To my pleasant surprise, many of the habits Webb outlines in her book, I’ve been doing all along. Some new things that I learned? Put away the gadgets. For instance my email is constantly on; I’m alway jumping from one task to reply to an email but then I have to refocus my attention on the original task. Webb suggests allocating specific time slots to check in on the inbox. I tried this Friday. I realized I got a lot more done and didn’t miss any critical emails.

Webb also talks about the importance of exercise to your mental well being. Studies show as little as 10 minutes of aerobic exercise a day made people smarter. I’m going to try this. 10 minutes is nothing! The idea of exercise for mental betterment is new to me; my motivation is usually for vanity reasons. Probably why I never stick to it long term.

Speaking of mental health, I’ve taken up meditation. I always thought of prayer as my meditation, you clear your head focus on your conversation with God — works perfectly. however, it’s been a daily part of our lives for so long that shifted from the slow thinking part of my brain to the fast thinking part.

I’m currently using the free version of a meditation app called Headspace. In a 10 day program, the app teaches you to properly set you body up for meditate, how to clear you mind and focus on your inside. Like Webb’s exercise sessions these two are 10 minute practices. One particular trick that worked for me was visualizing my thoughts as traffic and pulling my conscious away from the traffic and watching it go by. Works effectively especially since I’ve always got thought racing here and there. ha!

So yes, the focus is on self improvement. The aim is 30 days of 10 minutes dedicated to meditation and 10 to exercise.