Organise your Thinking – Hetty

Category: Organise your Thinking

No-sugar experiment

March 29, 2021March 29, 2021
by Hetty

I am doing an experiment on not consuming sugar to hopefully not get diabetes in the future and to overcome some annoying issues. What happens when you stop consuming sugar? This post is about my no-sugar experiment.

That Sugar Film

To do a No-Sugar experiment has been in the back of my head since I have seen ‘That sugar film’. It shows what happens to your body when you eat too much sugar or products with hidden sugars and has inspired many many people to start to consume less sugar. Damon Gameau is the maker of the documentary.

Why do a no-sugar Experiment

Diabetes

When I met my new doctor he suggested to do a blood test as I had turned 50. I thought that was a good idea, as I was feeling healthy, and having something to compare to in case I do not feel healthy another time. The results told me it was all fine, however the number on what tells you that you might have to be careful for not getting diabetes (HBAlc) was on the high side. Not high enough for the doctor to talk about it to me. But it made me think of my re had relatives with diabetes. Also that I need to eat in time otherwise I might get dizzy, lose all energy, and get grumpy, which are signs of a blood sugar level that goes up and down too fast, and makes me crave for sugary foods and drinks.

Annoying issues

I started reading about low sugar diets and watching some videos about vloggers who did a set time with no-sugar. There I heard about candida. This is a fungal that grows in everyones body I understand. If you get an candida overgrowth it can cause issues of all kind. You can measure it but I didn’t do any tests as I believe it is good to consume less sugar anyway. I don’t know whether I have overgrowth or not.

Some issues that I have and could be caused by candida are; dandruff, eczema, anxiety, bloating, itchy ears, itchy skin.

As a result of being inspired by the movie, my genes, my issues and the candida theory I designed my No-Sugar Experiment.

My no-sugar experiment regime

In short my diet is now as following; Low GI, processed sugar free, avoiding all processed foods, mostly green leaf vegetables or broccoli for vegetables, meat/fish/eggs/nuts for protein.

What I am consuming very little/not

Products with sugar in it, such as bought tomato sauce, dressings. Check all the different names it is hiding under here.
Sugary or alcoholic drinks
Mushrooms
Processed meat

What I am eating in limited amounts

I eat about 2 pieces of fruit a day. Preferably the ones that are lower in sugar, and no citrus fruits. (As orange juice gives me cramp and it can cause eczema I had already figured out during a diet that I followed when hoping to stop my eczema)
Products with yeast; only 2 slices of home baked sour dough wholemeal bread
Low GI grains: oats for breakfast, brown rice, whole meal bread.
Cheese, yoghurt and milk
Starchy vegetables
Night shade vegetables ( tomatoes, egg plant, capsicum)
Nuts ( no peanuts or pistachio as they are high in mold = fungus)

What I can consume unlimited

Meat
Green leave vegetables
Herbal tea, water

Candida diet stages and supplements

Stages

There is a lot of useful information about candida on this ( click here) website. You can read information that explain the choices I made such a:

Taking it slowly to minimise Candida Die-Off effects
Use probiotics to regenerating good gut bacteria
Introducing low GI foods slowly

Supplements

I try to eat supplements in the real food form. E.g. banana for potassium. Other fruits for vitamin C. Yoghurt for probiotics. Go into the sun for vitamin D. Iron intake from meat, green leaf vegetables and fruit.

Coconut oil
Cinnamon
Fresh garlic
Fresh ginger
Apple cider vinegar

I take fish oil for my skin and joint health, zinc because it is not in the New Zealand soil. Probiotics while adjusting to less candida fungus and hopefully overtake them with healthy fungus. If the fruits I consume are not high in vitamin C I take a vitamin tablet.

Rest and Relax

I read everywhere that you need to take enough rest and keep stress low if possible. I usually sleep very well for 8 hours a night and I have little stress in my life. As I have those factors covered it should help me to adjust to the new diet soon.

What happened when I did the no-sugar experiment?

First week

I did not have much cravings from day 3 on. Bloating went away. One night of very light sleep and a few hours of dizziness following. A bout of anxiety that lasted only a few hours.

If you stop eating all sugars and carbohydrates you can get bad candida die of. I will be careful not to overdo as I am worried about eczema coming up especially. Now and then I have for example a little piece of cake (gave me a stomach cramp) and of course the carbohydrates.

It looks like I lost weight, but that could just be having a not bloated stomach. Anyway, a good reason to make sure I take in enough healthy calories to make up for the sugar. A good reason to keep myself reminding to eat enough carbohydrates ( bread, rice, oats), meat/ eggs/ nuts and coconut oil.

Second week

No craving for sugar, biscuits or chocolate. Sometimes coconut oil or vinegar water makes me feel nauseous. This happened only one time badly, since then I reduced the amount of vinegar and oil.

Third week

A day of craving now and then, but not very strong. A little of eczema came up. But possibly from the tea tree/coconut scalp mask ( with my hands where the eczema is) . I had this mask in the hope to stop fungus overgrowth on my head. My scalp is not itchy after the mask. The eczema could be candida die-off I conclude. The rest of the candida fighting hard to stay in the race. Thankfully my silver creme helps to stop it itch.

Support during the no-sugar experiment

With a diet like this it takes a long time before you figure out what it is what you are sensitive for. Because the diet has a smaller variety of food items it is possible to figure out what you should not eat or drink. But it is still hard I find because the reaction on a food does not always happen immediately. In my case, when I drink wine I usually feel an itch/cramp in my inner ears immediately, but eczema takes a while before it flares up.

Sometimes I get unsure whether something is good or bad. I then look for support on a facebook group for people who are doing the candida diet. By reading through the comments you get ideas, reminders of what to do and what not, and you know that you are not the only one trying hard. You can ask questions in a supportive environment, which is really nice as the chance is high that your friends are not interested in those issues.

Conclusion

The result of eating less sugar:

a more stable, positive,calm mood, less anxiety
less sugar cravings
no need to eat snacks in between meals
no itchy skin, dandruft, and no eczema

That is alot of gain. I started having hot flushes that wake me up during the night. I believe no sugar and cafeineafter 3pm help me sleep better. haveI settled on eating less sugar;

less fruits and other foods with natural sugars in them
very little alcohol max 1 drink a day, max 2 a week
Because I started waking up with hot flushes I only have (refined) sugar before 3pm. I believe this helps to get a better sleep
I only eat dark chocolate ( less sugar), and drink cafeinated drinks also before 3pm

Organise your Thinking

How Meditation Helped Me To Think Less

March 19, 2021March 29, 2021
by Hetty

I have heard my whole life that I worry too much. I think too much about what can go wrong. Meditation helped me to get more control over my thinking.

When people told me this I used to think: “I think worrying thoughts because I feel worried, I have a worrying problem, that is why these thoughts come into my mind.”

Your mind is always occupied with something, you cannot stop it thinking, right? I could not understand how meditation was going to be helpful. But as I -heard often- often heard positive things about meditation, and because I was desperate, I kept trying to meditate. Even though I did not really believe in its promised effects.
Only after years of just doing it and following the instructions of different kind of meditation styles I understand why it helps.
Meditation is training of the mind. It trains you to be more in charge of what you think and how much you think. It can help to make you a calmer and happier person.

When I meditate I am in a training session to get better at controlling my thinking. I train myself to think healthily.
In my case that usually means thinking less.

But it had bigger effects on me. It gave me insights in my own thinking. Many times before I had read confirmations like ‘ What I think is what I feel’ . But I could not use that wise statement because I did not understand how I could stop thinking what I think. I experienced it the other way around; “What I feel makes me think. ”. I was not in charge of my own thinking, and it made me often miserable.

I was not able to stop thinking the negative stuff so I tried something else: I thought if I ignore the sad anxious and bad feelings, there will only be the happy and calm feelings left. Just focus on the good, forget the bad. That was my unsuccessful strategy.

So far I have tried two strategies to become a happier person:
– Not thinking negatively: Unfortunately I couldn’t stop thinking negatively when feeling negative.
– Not feeling: I tried to try to forget and ignore the feeling. But that made me think a lot more negative thoughts (blaming others, blaming myself, feeling sorry for myself etc.) Other times it confused me and I did not know anymore what I felt.

Both strategies did not work. The first because I did not have the skill to let go of thoughts. And the second because it is the wrong thing to do. You cannot let go of a feeling before even acknowledging it.

I have only just recently learned that when I feel sad or anxious, I should not just try to be happy! This was such an eye-opener for me…

When I ignore the negative feelings, they will keep nagging me. They do not leave me alone. Next thing that happens is I wonder why I feel bad, what is the cause, who caused it, what do I have to change and so on.
That will result in

Complaining, self-indulgement and feeling even more resentful.
Relationships with people around me will deter.
I get mad with myself being such a negative and draining person, which -Which- makes me feel even worse.
Do you recognise this downward spiral?

Less thinking when feeling sad or worried will make me happier as -many- much stuff that I think up is not true.
My (negative)feeling causes my negative thoughts. The result will be bad.
I had read that many times before in my life as well, but I did not have the SKILL to influence my thinking.

I started meditating because I desperately wanted to feel calmer. I had no idea of how meditation could do that but because I heard over and over that that was what could happen, I tried.
It did not work. When I started meditation I found out that my mind was all over the place. An uncontrollable wild beast.
But I stuck to it because I did not know anything else to try, and learned very slowly, that even I can take control over my mind. Not always, but more often.
Now I can ‘think less’ more often. Thanks to meditation.
A new skill needs to be practised, so you can learn it and get better at it. In this case the skill I was learning was: let go of thoughts.

When I had learned to let my thoughts go, think less, I could focus on what I feel. Focus on what I FEEL instead of think.
Instead of trying to feel happy and content, I now focus on stopping my thoughts ( let them go, don’t think them through). I do this by focussing on what I feel. Not in words, but feel where it is in my body, and observe that feeling. Let any thoughts float away, go back to the feeling. That calms me down. And strangely enough by acknowledging the feelings they get less strong or disappear totally.
Now I can feel bad shorter, thanks to meditation.

If I had not had the practice with meditation I would not have been able to do this.

Even though I started off not seeing the point of meditation I trusted it to be helpful somehow, and thankfully stuck to it.

Especially the last year I started to understand the impact this learning can have on my life enjoyment. For the first time in my life I feel that I don’t have to be a sad and anxious person forever. I can learn to tame this wild beast, which is my mind.

In short,
I talked about two things I learned from meditation, and still practise to get better at:

Acknowledging my feelings.
Letting go of thoughts.

Two great apps I love to use to learn and practise meditation and mindfulness skills. (You can find them in the App store)

Headspace

Balance

Organise your Thinking

Self-Isolation 3 – Day 21

April 18, 2020April 19, 2020
by Hetty

Exhausted

Today it is April the 11th, 2020. We have been in isolation because of the COVID-19 for three weeks now. I have been exhausted for three days. While I did not have to do anything for two weeks. But I made of my daily to do list to keep myself healthy and happy. It did not work any longer.

I was happy and content for two and a half week. Then I felt so tired. Too tired to sit up. Too tired to follow my daily list to stay healthy and happy. I only had enough energy for eating, reading and sleeping.

Overbusy

Was I obsessed with keeping busy and doing useful things? Yes. Cleaned the kitchen 4 times a day. Minimal. Did yoga, rope-jumped, worked in the garden, walked, read, wrote, called, read the news, looked at Facebook every hour or at least twice an hour a day, followed the news of New Zealand, The Netherlands and the rest of the world. And more. I did not get bored, but I did get exhausted. I was making myself overbusy.

Avoiding feeling

Focussing on the present can be exhausting.
I was focussing on what I was doing, and seeing. But not on what I was feeling.

What was I avoiding? Fear of Boredom. Not doing anything useful. Thinking of what to do with my life after this lockdown. Avoiding feeling lonely, fear of geting sick. Disappointment of not being able to our planned traveling. I was also avoiding ‘having’ to call somebody – as I put that for me difficult activity on the daily-to-do-list.

I was focussed on the doing, avoiding the uncomfortable feeling and thinking.

Do I find it hard to say those fears out loud? Or maybe even don’t want to think about them? I know I am very lucky to be in this beautiful place, be rich, be healthy. It is embarrassing to admit that I am not content and not feeling only gratefulness but still have those worries.

I do not allow myself to feel sorry for myself. And there is no need or reason to feel sorry for myself.
I just have to admit to myself that I am afraid of those scenario’s. Accept those thoughts. Without having to dwell in them.
Talk supportive to myself when I start to worry:
How am I going to contribute to the world after this lockdown time? I could tell myself, to feel better now,’ Looking after the house and garden and be good company for my partner is contributing too.’
Be nice and supportive to myself,’ There will be plenty of opportunities to contribute. Right now not. You don’t know what is going to be possible. You might travel yet. Times are uncertain. Wait and see.’

I decided to write my worries down, and to mention them to Greg. From then on I felt much better. There are no solutions for the worries, but now I have accepted those worries instead of ignoring them and let them wear me down.

I also decided that I am going to take it slower than I did in those first two weeks. I need more rest than I gave myself in those first two weeks of the self-isolation.

Don’t forget to feel

And of course, try to take note of my worries. Share them with somebody if I need to and then let them go.

Organise your Thinking

Finding a new balance after minimalism

April 17, 2020April 18, 2020
by Hetty

After the minimalism hype on social media (decluttering, tiny houses, minimal interior etc. ), a new trend came up. Blog titles sounded like: ‘Why I gave up being a minimalist’. Was it just a fad this minimalism?

I would never voluntary give up living with less stuff, living a more simple lifestyle, being calmer. I feel so much better.
But I get what they mean. Live starts to get boring if you are not allowing yourself all the fun things.

A lot of stuff that you can live without are the things that you do for pleasure. Buying or getting things gifted to us make us happy. Eating something sweet or fat make us happy. Having an endless amount of clothes to chose from make us happy. Having the latest gadgets make us happy. We think.
And all this and much more fun we are missing out on when we are minimalist in each area.

What happened when I had minimalised many areas?I started feeling bored instead of overwhelmed. I started judging others of having and wanting so much. Not out loud, I am glad to say. Because I knew I was a bit jealous of their fun and colourful life at the same time.

Being bored and judging others. Not at all what I want to be. I did not have this vision in my mind at all when I started this journey. Should I give up on minimalism I wondered? Of course I do not want to go back to my old lifestyle and be overwhelmed half of the time.

Brian Thompson wrote on his website: ‘The path of moderation is the only peaceful way to pass through life.
Be caring but not attached.
Be interested but not obsessed.
Be diligent but desire no reward.
Have mild preferences but empty of any fanatical preferences.

He also writes in the same blog entry: ‘You can’t escape your emotional suffering – It can only be accepted, forgiven and absolved. You must face your fears directly’.

Instead of numbing yourself somehow, like fleeing into buying things, eating, drinking, whatching Netflix for hours, become aware of what you feel, accept the fact you feel this. If possible share it with somebody, or write it down if you cannot share it. Apparently as soon as you have noticed and accepted the feeling (shame, anger, resentment or anxiety) and then idealy share it with somebody you trust, you will be able to let go of this negative feeling.
When this negative feeling has gone you will not feel the need to numb you feelings any longer.

My recent numbing method is being overly busy, so there is no time to think or feel.

I hope to get better at feeling and sharing my shame, anger, resentment and anxiety with somebody I can trust, to be able to let go of these feelings quicker.
At the same time I will add pleasures in moderation to approach a greater balance between minimalism and overindulging.

More feeling

More fun

Organise your Thinking

Prevent and stop anxiety

November 14, 2019April 19, 2020
by Hetty

For years have been searching for ways to become less anxious. I found it hard to figure out but now I have developed a method I use to prevent and stop anxiety.

I wrote a personal experience at the end as I like to get to get to the point of ‘how to’ quickly. But I thought an example of how it works for me, might explain my method a bit better.

But it is all personal as it is the way I cope with anxiety. How I recognise it, how I think and feel. You will have to work out what works for you yourself. My trialled and celebrated ‘method’ is an eclectic collection of many different resources I ran into over many years.

Recognise anxiety

If you can recognise your anxiety as anxiety you can take action to get over it as soon as possible, before it gets worse. The following is how I recognise my anxiety ( might be different for you).

Cleaning or tidying a lot

I get feelings of anxiety, restlessness, want to tidy up places, clean. Control what I can control. ( I am not aware of that in that moment) I never used to recognise this as a sign of stress/ anxiety. But now I am aware of it ( after a few days usually) I can take action to reduce the anxiety. A good warning sign in my case is when my partner cannot find his things because I have tidied them up obsessively, and he let me know when he cannot find his stuff.

Thinking a lot

I start thinking more and more, about many different things, but do not finish any thought. My thoughts are hopping from one starting thought to another. This is tiring as I do not get to any conclusion, it I just chaotic. I find it harder to focus when somebody is talking, and miss the important point in the conversation.

I also will worry about things that are no worry on other days. They are actually nothing to worry about, but I cannot see that then.

How to stop anxiety

There are quite a few actions you can take to prevent anxiety to take over. Try the next things when you feel anxiety creeping up:

Having routines and follow them. (I will write some examples of routines I have followed in another post.)
Extra Exercise especially when I start to panic. This makes it easier to feel instead of think. Also the hormones that will come free when exercising make you feel better, (after a while).
Tell yourself that this horrible feeling is not going to last forever. Which makes it easier to believe you will come out at the other end again. There where you can feel the sun shine.
Stop thinking, observe your feelings instead
Try to figure out what you need
Request or organise what you need ( connection to others/ a project to stay focussed on or something physical e.g. food, relaxation, exercise) Some things you can request e.g. time alone, a hug, somebody listening to you. Other needs you can organise for yourself, e.g. not eating sugar, taking a walk. (This idea – observation, feeling, need, request- I learned from the book Non Violent Communication, by MarshallB. Rosenberg. I find it a very useful technique for when I am upset with somebody, or just feel angry about something. Find the book here)
Review possible factors that can cause anxiety like hormonal changes (e.g. pre-menstrual, menopause) sugar intake, alcohol consumption, food intake ( being hungry can make me feel very low).

Realise when it comes. Think of what tools I am going to use. Try all of them! That should keep you busy for a while.

How to prevent anxiety

What do I do to stay on track, the happy track? All the things listed in the ‘what to do’ paragraph will help to prevent anxiety ( or worse depression) coming up.

I know that when I meditate regularly I am able to recognise my thinking patterns, in this case unhealthy thinking patterns and can often take action before I talk myself down too much. I use the above toolbox. In my prevention toolbox are my:

daily routines and
my goals I set myself each day.

For both my routines and daily goals I keep three areas in mind:

connecting to others: Who am I going to contact today? How am I supporting my community?
creating: What project am I going to work on e.g art, writing, cleaning, building etc. What do I want to learn?
health: mentally/ physical/ food (Lonerwolf .com)

For each area I decide on what I need. And then how I can create the opportunity to fulfil this need. Here are some examples of activities that can fulfil needs in each of the three areas:

Connecting to others:
volunteering
exercise/hobby in a group
play games in a group
call somebody

Creating:
cooking and baking
visual arts; e.g. colouring, drawing, gardening, design, crafts
Writing, journaling
dancing, making music
programming
Repairing, restoring

Health:
eating healthy; limit sugar and alcohol intake. Eat regularly as waiting too long can influence my mood hugely, in a negative way.
regular exercise
meditation as that helps me to recognise unhealthy thinking, obsessive thinking, and changes in thinking.
rest, sleep

For me personally it is important that I stick to routines: exercise and meditate nearly every day, eat healthy and regularly, have a daily goal, and make sure I meet other people on most days keeps me happy. I like to change my routines often.

What do you need? Find out and organise yourself as well as you can to try and keep the anxiety away. You can print and fill out this sheet to get a better idea of your needs. This information will help you building good routines and when you feel bad, you can easily check what you are skipping or what is missing.

An example: How I stopped anxiety

How I get trapped by my thinking

I am thinking a lot when I am anxious, or maybe that IS my anxiety, the worrying thinking. Then I genuinely think that I have a problem. That thought up problem makes me then scared, angry or sad. And I believe I have a real problem.

That thinking when I am having high anxiety or feeling unsettled is dangerous as I can make up any story, and believe it and feel horrible because of what ever I made up. At that moment I still believe my story is true, and I have a real problem!

Stop thinking

I have to stop the thinking and get to the feeling. Observe how I feel. Then I know what I need and I can request it, or organise a way to fulfil my needs. (Which I described above)

Feel, need, request

Feel my body

Often I do not know what I feel besides being upset. ‘Lonely’ or alone, empty, sad, tired that kind of thing. Not very specific. But even though I can not pinpoint it clearly, it points me in the direction of what I need, just trying to think of what I feel in my body.

The only thing I allow myself thinking about is what do I feel in my body, and where. That gives me clues about what I need. ( e.g. Empty stomach, maybe I am hangry? Or tired: I need rest. Overwhelmed: I need time for myself)

Talk with my inner child

Another way of finding out what I feel and what I need is imagining myself sitting next to my younger self and talk with her. (Maybe more about this in another post?) It makes it easier to think of what I need and how I would like to be helped. Usually I need a hug, or somebody just listening to me, or somebody letting me know that they love me. Or it makes me admit that I feel scared. I tend to be more honest, and worried about what the other will think of me.

(The website Lonerwolf.com has got a lot of information about the inner child.)

High anxiety

Sometimes a very dark, depressed feeling comes over me. This is where I need some loving attention. I can request that from my partner. I don’t know (yet) how I can get it from elsewhere…But what I can do myself without needing my partner is following the other steps in this post.

Because I cannot love myself when I am feeling high anxiety or depressed. I cannot love anything or anybody at that dark place, but especially not myself. This talking to my little self creates a distance I think that just makes it possible to be compassionate towards ‘her’.

When I am in this depressed state I just survive. I decide to stay alive till it is over. But of course I want this horrible feeling to be over very soon. So this is what I do: Remind myself of that it will go away again this very bad feeling. My thinking caused this bad feeling, I will have to stop thinking about it, because the more I think about it, the longer the bad feeling will take.

I have to focus on what I need, and Request what I need. Requesting is really hard for me! But I did. And it made me feel better. Because I got what I needed most.

It was just a hug from somebody I love.

Organise your Thinking

How to stop procrastinating

September 19, 2019April 20, 2020
by Hetty

The more stimuli around you the more reasons your mind finds to procrastinate. So, yes decluttering will help most people to procrastinate less. But there are other actions you can take to stop procrastinating.

Reasons to procrastinate

The activity you should do, or the job you were going to finish or start today, they can wait a little longer. There are so many reasons to procrastinate:

Phone. First I will listen to this podcast – when you see your message on the phone. First I check Instagram or Facebook.
Places that need a clean
A messy garden
Anything that looks more inviting than what you be doing
Anything you also would feel bad about if you do not do it. ( Which makes you feel better about procrastinating.)
Helping others

Those were a few favorites of mine, what are your ways of avoiding to start or delaying the start?

What is there to gain from procrastination?

If you want to change your habit of procrastination, you will have to understand deeper why you are doing it.

Short term gain

Short term gain might be; If I do not do this task, my life will be easier and more fun.

Often the task you should do is a task that is not fun or it is one that you might fail at. If it a not so fun task you might just be avoiding (probably mild) suffering. In the last case you are avoiding failure.

The start of a job might also be difficult because you are in a different headspace, and do not want to enter the headspace you will need for the job you need to do or the project you thought you should do.

Long term gain

Let’s say you do something else instead of your planned task. What is the long term result of this decision? In 5 years time will you be pleased with this decision? Or would you have been happier if you had done the (procrastinated) planned task?

How I stop myself procrastinating

Goal of the day: writing

Today I decided to write for a few hours on this blog. And I procrastinated. I saw the terrace needed a sweep. It would be so using much more enjoyable spending time on a clean deck. I decided that was a good reason to do the sweeping first. Then I decided I should drink more water. I filled my bottle and went for a walk while drinking the water. I should do exercises and found something heavy enough to exercise my arms.

This way I delayed my start of my daily goal with an hour, but I also did all those useful and healthy things. In the back of my head is always a list of healthy habits I want to keep doing regularly. (If you want to read more about how to set priorities in your life click here) Exercise, eating healthily, meditation, journaling, decluttering…It is important to me to keep focussed on my specific daily goal (writing in this case) though as it makes me feel like I live a purposeful life. Hadn’t I set this goal of writing for a few hours in the morning and prioritised it, I would have just walked into random distraction after distraction.

However I did procrastinate, I at least did activities that are useful to me. They were important enough to delay the start of my writing task I set myself. My priority task kept calling in the back of my head, and got done after all. At the end of the day I felt fulfilled and happy because I got things done that I found important.

My reflection

I will be happy in 5 years time that I have developed a healthy life style, and kept to it. I will not be happy if I still had not be writing my experiences down in 5 years time as it is my dream to be able to write on my blog when traveling the world. This writing is a step towards it. I might fail writing a blog and enjoying that, I don’t know that yet. But at least I should try I believe. So, it is important in the long term.

Looking back four years

When my home was full of clutter, loose things spread out through the house, I would not have the peace of mind to start writing at all because all this tidying up and cleaning would have to be done first. That is my reason of having a organised calming home. Now I do not have to think about every item I see, and I could do something with. I leave the project that I find the most important at the moment visible, to remind myself of taking it up. The projects that I do not want to spend time on I take out of sight. Out of sight is often out of mind!

Looking back, spending all that time decluttering has been worth the effort. I gained a lot of calm from it. So much that I can now finally see what I find important and what I should spend time doing. The core base is knowing what you find important in your life. Read more about setting your intentions in this other post.

Tips on how to stop procrastination — How to stop procrastination

How to stop procrastinating:

Set an easy specific goal for the day ( e.g. work related, exercising, decluttering, fixing something, gardening) you want to reach for your most important project. You can do this in the night, and write it down, to reread in the morning. Or you can do it in the morning before you start the day.

My goal I set today is ‘Write for at least two hours’. Don’t make your goal too big. It is very rewarding and motivating to conclude at the end of your day that you reached your set target. And you are likely to want that feeling of success again tomorrow.

Every little step brings you closer to your dream goal.

What if you still try to procrastinate?

Her are 4 strategies that will make it easier to start. Because you take away distractions out of the environment, or you will make the dreaded to-do job more attractive.

1 Declutter till starting will be easier

If you feel you are not able to start yet, fill the time with declutter actions that will make the start (in an hour, or tomorrow) easier, or more fun:

Make your work environment a little more comfortable, or tidier, and thus more inviting.
Put everything ready to be able to start tomorrow without a fuss.

2 Develop a routine

For example; Make a cup of your favourite tea, put on some nice music you like to hear while working. Reread your goal. As soon as you have followed this routine for a few times, it will ease you into your working mood. Being able to enjoy what you like will put you in a better mood and that makes it more likely that you take on the challenge this day.

3 Set a minimal time you will work on your project today

I often use an hour as that doesn’t feel too long and hard, which makes it less overwhelming. If your goal is getting into an exercising routine an hour might feel mighty long though. In that case 10 minutes might be challenging enough. You have to find the right ‘size’ of goal for yourself. Better too small then too big. You reach more in a day if you finish this small task today than if you don’t start at all.

4 Choose a (smallish) part of the bigger goal to finish today

I like to finish a job, so I often like this better than a set time. For my painting it could be ‘Today I paint the background’.

A small, not overwhelming goal is more likely to get you started. Often it is easy to keep going for longer once you have started. And if not, at least you have been successful and came closer to your bigger goal.

5 Start with the easiest of most enjoyable part of the task

Why not make your experience a pleasant as possible?

6 Check in on how you are doing so far in relationship to your set goal of the day.

Ask yourself: ‘Is what I am doing possibly making a positive difference to my life in a years time?’ .

Has it anything to do with what I want my life to look like in 1 years time, or even in 5 years time?

This might motivate you to quickly start doing what is most important to you at this moment.

The 5 years time check is especially helpful if you tend to spend time on activities like watching Netflix series, obsessive cleaning (or decluttering!) or checking Instagram and Pinterest.

Category: Organise your Thinking

No-sugar experiment

That Sugar Film

Why do a no-sugar Experiment

Diabetes

Annoying issues

My no-sugar experiment regime

What I am consuming very little/not

What I am eating in limited amounts

What I can consume unlimited

Candida diet stages and supplements

Stages

Supplements

Rest and Relax

What happened when I did the no-sugar experiment?

First week

Second week

Third week

Support during the no-sugar experiment

Conclusion

How Meditation Helped Me To Think Less

Self-Isolation 3 – Day 21

Exhausted

Overbusy

Avoiding feeling

Don’t forget to feel

Finding a new balance after minimalism

More feeling

More fun

Prevent and stop anxiety

Recognise anxiety

Cleaning or tidying a lot

Thinking a lot

How to stop anxiety

How to prevent anxiety

An example: How I stopped anxiety

How I get trapped by my thinking

Stop thinking

Feel, need, request

High anxiety

How to stop procrastinating

Reasons to procrastinate

What is there to gain from procrastination?

Short term gain

Long term gain

How I stop myself procrastinating

Goal of the day: writing

My reflection

Looking back four years

How to stop procrastinating:

Every little step brings you closer to your dream goal.

What if you still try to procrastinate?

1 Declutter till starting will be easier

2 Develop a routine

3 Set a minimal time you will work on your project today

4 Choose a (smallish) part of the bigger goal to finish today

5 Start with the easiest of most enjoyable part of the task

6 Check in on how you are doing so far in relationship to your set goal of the day.

What is your goal of the day for tomorrow?