Results

A few posts back, I mentioned how I picked up an electric timer to help me stay on task when working on projects at home.  I’m great at meeting deadlines someone else gives me, but I’m not good at self-imposing them (stuff for school/work/freelance is no problem–I always meet deadlines,  but the stuff I do more-or-less for fun takes some serious focus because there isn’t another person telling me to do it).

I gotta say, this is already paying dividends.

Say I’m working on editing a podcast episode. I’ll set the timer for twenty minutes or so, and just work for that period of time and not do anything else (on the flip of the coin that is me, once I get into the zone while working–I don’t stop, so the timer doubles as forcing me to walk away from the computer for a bit).

9 times out of 10, I’ll reset the timer for another twenty minutes (give or take) and keep working, which is great. But other times I’ll work for the allotted time, do something else for a few (see: wasting time on the Internet), and then get back at it.

It is really helping with getting me back on track with novel writing. I’ll say to myself, “Your Royal Awesomeness Self, you’re going to write for twenty minutes and I don’t care if it is genius or crap.” (it is mostly the latter).  To wit, I’ve written more this week than I have in the past few months. Huzzah.

I kind of fell off the creative horse a bit since the New Year while going through a bit of a rough patch in my personal life, but I think I’m back in the saddle (at last).  Yoga has helped with that too.

Speaking of yoga, I’ve only been doing it for only a few weeks and I’ve been seeing results from the get-go. I really started seeing the benefits of yoga when I began doing it in the morning right after getting out of bed (so I’ve been doing it at least once a day, but usually twice a day during the work-week).

It wakes me up and energizes me. I’m also way more toned than…probably ever…and I’m actually developing upper body strength.  And I recently dropped down to 140 lbs*. (what my doc says I should be at for my height), having been at around 160ish a few months ago.  I think the biggest thing I take away from doing regular yoga is getting used to the breathing exercises, which help with stress a great deal and help me settle down after staring at a computer screen for hours on end.

And being swimsuit season, I sure picked a good time to drop twenty pounds.

*now staying AT 140 is the real trick, as I will go up and down a couple pounds daily, but I wasn’t able to get any where close to that for the longest time before starting the yoga stuff.  I do other exercise besides yoga and I try to stick to a ‘lots of fruits and veggies and not too much meat’ diet.