habits

My Morning ritual is how I center myself daily

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When I wake up I have a morning ritual that helps me receive the day with a clear mind and leave the house ready for the day. When I arrive at my office I have a ritual which helps me start my work day fresh and focused. At the end of the workday I have a ritual which helps me leave work knowing I got my most important tasks done and ready for next workday and in the evening I have a ritual which makes sure I end the day ready for tomorrow.

Michael Hyatt helped me understand that rituals are a stack of steps you do in the same sequence every time to signal the start and end of events. Rituals set up the stage and reduce the time and energy spent figuring out next steps and also save our mental energy for more important decisions throughout the day.

He recommends having 4 rituals:

Today I will share with you my ideal morning ritual currently. Note that I said “currently” because I try to revisit and update my rituals every quarter as they normally change with different seasons, like school starting and finishing and so on.

  1. Wake up at 5am, wash up and apply face moisturizer to get ready for makeup later (10 minutes).
  2. Go to kitchen, turn on coffee machine and do pushups for 2 minutes while waiting for water to warm up enough. (5 minutes)
  3. Have warm water with half a spoon of honey plus my turmeric and black pepper pill. (5 minutes).
  4. Go to my home office and meditate (10 minutes).
  5. Get my coffee and read A Course In Miracles textbook (10 minutes).
  6. Write in my journal (15 minutes).
  7. Write in my kids’ one-line journals (5 minutes).
  8. Write in my five minute gratitude journal (5 minutes).
  9. Read The Daily Stoic book and answer the prompt (5 minutes).
  10. Text my early risers groups and send them inspiring words for the day, sometimes done at the beginning of the ritual. (5 minutes)
  11. Walk outside with an audiobook/podcast (20 minutes)
  12. Make Sandwiches and place pre-prepared lunchboxes in bags (5-10 minutes)
  13. Apply makeup (15 minutes)
  14. Get dressed (10 minutes)
  15. Lock doors to leave the house (5 minutes)

This ideal scenario ritual takes 135 minutes which is logical in non-school days. However, if I still wake up at 5am in school days I will be leaving the house too late for school. So in school days I either need to wake up at 4:30am or I need to do the non-negotiable crash version of my ritual which downsizes key steps to 5 minutes which are meditation and reading ACIM. I never tried walking in the morning with schools open so I need to test this step or get walking habit back to evening ritual like before as the days are getting longer now in quarter 1 of the year.

Next post I will share with you my workday sartup ritual. Keep reading.

My Morning ritual is how I center myself daily

Digital Declutter Challenge Update-Week 1

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I have started a month-long digital declutter challenge on January 1st 2021. This is my 2nd time so my hope is I have learned from some of the mistakes of my previous challenge that I did almost 2 years ago.

As advised by Cal Newport in his book Digital Minimalism and in his course with Scott H. Young Life of Focus these are the steps I followed.

Step 1: Divide the technologies used in personal life into the below:

  • Optional Technologies (as in being away from them would not get me into trouble): Facebook/Facebook page manager/ Facebook business suite/Instagram/ Netflix/ Twitter.
  • Mixed Technologies:
    • Whatsapp after working ours
    • Gmail: not using it might cause communication hang-ups but also it’s a key source of distraction for me.
    • Audible/Spotify: they are not mandatory of course but they are key source of learning for me. Please note work email is not part of the challenge as this challenge is about personal life technologies.
  • Mandatory Technologies:
    • Whatsapp- during working hours: used for work and meetings updates and also by kids’ school.

Step 2: Remove the optional technologies and set rules for the others:

On day -1 of the challenge I have created the following rules:

  1. Remove Facebook apps from my phone with plan not to check them all month.
  2. Remove Instagram and IGTV from phone with plan to check DMs and comments once a week  from laptop in order to avoid the “forbidden fruit” feeling.
  3. Remove Netflix from from phone and only watch it on big TV screen with family or one show episode if alone.
  4. Check Gmail once a day at a fixed time for 15 minutes
  5. Limit Whatsapp usage time and block it between 6pm and 9pm which is family/homework/bedtime routine time.


The Actual of Week 1:

  • Facebook: I needed to check a replay of a webinar on Facebook that  I subscribed to before starting this challenge so I opened facebook on web browser to watch it and wasn’t really the least interested to see what those red notifications were about. I’m also opening it temporarily for few days to follow up on a limited-time group for very useful decluttering challenge  where I saved the Facebook group link for direct access skipping newsfeed and can’t see any notification.
  • Instagram: 100% commitment, at the end f of week 1 I  spent 20 minutes checking and replying to DMs and comments on my posts through Facebook business suite on web which feels like an email manager without all the scrolling, Thanks to my friend Nadia for this idea.  I also set up auto-reply telling friends I’m away for the month with my email address, so I am not sure I’ll log in to Instagram next week. Confession: I asked a friend to tell me how many followers I got while she was already on her Instagram. It is worth mentioning, however, that  I felt relieved a bit of the commitment/pressure to post and engage regularly. I’m gaining back space and renewing my creative energy that I can use for other types of content that matter so much to me like my podcast and blog. 
  • Netflix: 100% commitment.
  • Gmail: 100% commitment but noticed that I prefer to check it right after lunch break not in the morning, as a transitional leisure time back to work. I noticed also that what really wastes time is what I actually click on in my gmail not gmail itself. Clicks takes me to so many places: shopping, reading, checking statistics of my content, and guess what? Instagram missed me and sent me an email update at the end of week 1 for the number of followers I got! feeling so threatened dear IG? that was funny, i didn’t even realize instagram sends emails, or actually most of us are not giving them the chance to. Back to gmail, I’m trying to be more mindful about not opening new links without reading those opened links in my tabs from the day before.  I might also consider feedly again, but not sure yet.
  • Whatsapp: What’s working: 6pm-9pm Whatsapp block is working so well for me. What’s not working yet:  I set out to use Whatsapp 45 minutes only but that was unreasonable compared to my previous behavior of 60-90 minute average so I tried 75 minutes but time was up by 2pm then I tried 90 minutes and time was up by 5:30pm. Then, I started experimenting  limited hourly Whatsapp time dividing 120 minutes by 14 waking hours (minus the 3 hours blocked), so I get around 8 minutes /hour and the app I use helps me track that so I’ll try this technique between 9am and 6pm and report back.

A funny cosmic incident happened in week 1. My smart watch galaxy e-fit-which was only allowed to show SMS/Whatsapp sender names notifications plus calls- stopped pairing with my phone! I guess/wish it is conspiring to help me in this challenge, I hope it’s a temp hiccup and that I don’t need to replace it. I’m happy it’s working fine as my steps tracker though.

Finally I am excited to report that I am enjoying my evening times the most with this challenge plus less kids’ homework load during January , so more fun time with kids. I’m putting them to bed then checking my Whatsapp which has become like a treat.

You can listen to this update in Arabic in episode 14 of my podcast below.

Digital Declutter Challenge Update-Week 1

Goal Setting Series: Part 3- Write Your Goals-The Why

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“The reason we don’t set goals is that we’re afraid. We’re afraid of saying a goal out loud, even to ourselves, and certainly afraid of writing it down. We’re afraid of trying to achieve a goal and failing. And, surprisingly, we’re afraid of reaching our goals, because reaching them means our lives will change, and change is often at the center of our fear. “

Seth Godin

We all know that writing something makes it easily remembered. In this post I gathered for you some resources to convince you that writing your goals is very important for achieving them.

In Your Best Year Ever, Michael Hyatt shares the research done by Professor Gail Mathews who conducted a study that confirmed the power of writing down our goals.  

“She tracked 267 professionals from several different over 5 weeks by dividing them into five groups.  men and women from all over the world, and from all walks of life, including entrepreneurs, educators, healthcare professionals, artists, lawyers and bankers. 

She divided the participants into groups, according to who wrote down their goals and dreams, and who didn’t.

Matthews discovered that the simple act of writing one’s goals boosted achievement by 42%. “

Who of us wouldn’t like more chances of goals achievement? Writing them does that.”

But why is this the case? 

Let’s talk about writing longhand and what scientific studies tell us:  

Study after study shows you will remember things better when you write them down. Typically, subjects for these types of studies are students taking notes in class.  

“Mueller and Oppenheimer (who conducted this study) postulate that taking notes by hand requires different types of cognitive processing than taking notes on a laptop, and these different processes have consequences for learning.  Writing by hand is slower and more cumbersome than typing, and students cannot possibly write down every word in a lecture.  Instead, they listen, digest, and summarize so that they can succinctly capture the essence of the information.  Thus, taking notes by hand forces the brain to engage in some heavy “mental lifting,” and these efforts foster comprehension and retention.  By contrast, when typing students can easily produce a written record of the lecture without processing its meaning, as faster typing speeds allow students to transcribe a lecture word for word without devoting much thought to the content. “

and this study:

“Writing things down happens on two levels: external storage and encoding. External storage is easy to explain: you’re storing the information contained in your goal in a location (e.g. a piece of paper) that is very easy to access and review at any time. You could post that paper in your office, on your refrigerator, etc. It doesn’t take a neuroscientist to know you will remember something much better if you’re staring at a visual cue (aka reminder) every single day. 

But there’s another deeper phenomenon happening: encoding. Encoding is the biological process by which the things we perceive travel to our brain’s hippocampus where they’re analyzed. From there, decisions are made about what gets stored in our long-term memory and, in turn, what gets discarded. Writing improves that encoding process. In other words, when you write it down it has a much greater chance of being remembered. 

Neuropsychologists have identified the “generation effect” which basically says individuals demonstrate better memory for material they’ve generated themselves than for material they’ve merely read. It’s a nice edge to have and, when you write down your goal, you get to access the “generation effect” twice: first, when you generate the goal (create a picture in your mind), and second, when you write it down because you’re essentially reprocessing or regenerating that image. You have to rethink your mental picture, put it on the paper, place objects, scale them, think about their spatial relations, draw facial expressions, etc. There’s a lot of cognitive processing taking place right there.”

And Finally, once more in “Your Best Year Ever” , Hyatt makes a compelling case to go ahead and write our goals due to the following reasons:

1. It forces you to clarify what you want. Clarity is a precondition for writing.

2. Writing down goals helps you overcome resistance.

3. It motivates you to take action.

4. It filters other opportunities. Establishing your priorities up front equips you to intentionally avoid what some call “shiny object syndrome.”  

5. It enables you to see—and celebrate—your progress. Written goals can serve like mile markers on a highway. They enable you to see how far you have come and how far you need to go. They also provide an opportunity for celebration when you attain them.  

Ready to write your goals? Dedicate a notebook for your goals and start now. This doesn’t have to be perfect, make a mess now.

Next post, you will learn how exactly to write our goals in a way that helps you achieve them.

You can listen to this blog post in Arabic through episode 9 of my podcast:

https://bardees.simplecast.com/episodes/9

Goal Setting Series: Part 3- Write Your Goals-The Why

The Journaling Habit- Your Guide To Journaling

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My gratitude Journals from the past years.

Part 2: Your guide to Journaling

Why journal?

I write to stop thinking, I write to think, I write to look at my emotions and understand them, I write to feel better, I write to complain,  I write to pray, I write to remember and I write to forget. I write to focus on problems, I write to come up with solutions, I write to plan the future and I write to honor my past. I write nonsense and I write gems. Most importantly, I write every day.

Writing in a journal helps you clean your mind’s slate, so your mind is better used for creativity and solving interesting problems not storing trivial matters which our brains are not so good at already, this way you put your mind at ease instead of having it nagging you to remember. Writing freezes your thoughts on paper so that you can, detach from them, examine them as an outsider and see which of them is true and what’s obsessive repetitive thinking that is simply not serving you. You can tell paper what you cannot tell people. As Anne Frank said in her famous diaries Paper Has More Patience Than People. Keeping a journal helps you connect the daily events into meaningful conclusions. You understand your patterns, your triggers, what makes you thrive and what shuts you down, improving your self-awareness. Writing helps you put your heart’s baggage on paper instead of carrying it around. You feel lighter afterwards.

In Essentialism Greg McKeown reminds us: “The words journal and journalist come from the same root word.”  Instead of writing meaningful stories to an audience of a newspaper, covering the who, what, when, where, why andhow of a story; keeping a journal is about being a journalist of your own life.  

Journaling is a mix of keeping a diary and introspection for me, and the difference is that diaries are for logging what happens in your day while introspection could include reflecting about the meaning of events and your responses to them and planning for the future.  Naming this habit as keeping a diary is more helpful to people who are about to start it. Why? Because when I tell beginners to journal by reflecting on their emotions and thoughts many would get too overwhelmed to start.

Accordingly, I divided journaling into 3 styles. Writing any of the below on consistent basis is journaling, start where you feel most comfortable.

Journaling Type 1: Keeping a diary

Why

  • It marks your days because they are not the same and we humans are forgetful by nature, so we need something to remind us, better in our own handwriting. It’s like writing your own personal history book.
  • It helps you catch your patterns in terms of (good) days vs. (bad) days so you identify people and activities that make you feel alive the most. For example, you start noticing that when you eat a certain type of food you feel bad few hours later. Or when you talk to someone your heart beats faster than normal.

How

  • Write down about your past day and how you spent your time. What happened? Who did you meet with? What did you do? Where did you go? What did you read or listen to? What did you eat? What did you buy? What is something you want to remember about your day?  Your mood from 1-5? Your energy level?

Journaling Type 2: Reflection

  • You may practice gratitude by aiming to list 3 to 5 things as an answer to What and who am I thankful for right now?
  • You may scan your body for emotions. What am I feeling right now? It is important to name your emotions to defuse their power over you, which helps you watch them as an observer with acceptance and understand the events and thoughts that caused them. For example, you examine yourself and find you’re not feeling great, journaling about it may lead you to learn you’re feeling lonely, so you acknowledge the emotion and take action if possible to change it, by seeking companionship for instance.
  • You may practice what is called expressive writing, by describing important past events, and your deepest thoughts and feelings by asking what am I feeling? What am I thinking?  Privately exploring past negative experiences in expressive writing for few days scientifically proved to help long term recovery from high stress levels caused by them.  It is not recommended, however, to do it for too long for one event, neither to overthink positive events to keep their magic.
  • You may write about a situation from someone else’s point of view to understand their behavior and reactions. Attempting to see what they see and feel their fears increases your compassion and empathy.
  • You may talk to God in writing prayers about your most pressing issues. You may try writing God’s answer too which is always loving and all-understanding.
  • You review your day by what is called daily check-in by asking What went well? What didn’t work? What did I learn from this? How will I be smarter tomorrow or next time I face this? This helps you derive insights about yourself and people around you that improve your life steadily.

In practicing reflection, it is recommended to avoid asking why questions as your mind will come up with answers upon demand that may not be accurate and will not always support your growth. For example, why questions may lead you to act like a victim, example: why me? Replace why with what. What is going? What does this remind me of? And so on.

Journaling Type 3: Planning

  • You use your journal to set your intentions and organize your thoughts about upcoming events or your future goals by asking What kind of person do I want to be today? What am I going to do next to move forward with my goals? What can I be excited about today? If I get stressed today, what will I do or who will I contact to feel better? What is my most important task for the day?

One of many examples when journaling solved a problem for me was a couple of years ago. While I am a positive person and complaining is not a habit I like to indulge in with colleagues, I confided to paper how I felt every day about my workday. I logged the events. I reflected on them noticing how I could learn from them for next time. Reading my journal entries, however, I found a consistent negative pattern in my feelings about my job. Then, with time, I felt I was not learning as the lessons were just reruns. I realized it was time to move on, especially that my feelings were not improving. As a result, there in those journals, I decided it was time for change. I came up with a plan that started with updating my CV and pursuing certificates I was putting on hold, until I successfully managed to change my job one year later.

Are you ready to start journaling? Keep reading.

Tips to Activate the habit of Journaling:

  • Start with keeping a diary and gratitude practice then expand to other journaling suggestions.
  • Start small. Just one page every day, no matter how tempted you are to write more. Still too much? Use or create a one-sentence-a-day journal.
  • You can start with journals that have built in prompts to answer everyday so get your habit going. Such as (what are you grateful for? How do you feel today? What is the important task of the day)? Check bookshops for beautiful notebooks to use.
  • Place your journal on your pillow if you want to write at night or by your coffee mug if you want to write in the morning. If I had not done this I would have simply forgotten or ignored my new routine because the notebook is out of sight.
  • Some of my friends worry about their privacy and tear up their negative journals. I say that’s perfectly fine. The act of writing itself is therapeutic. The act of keeping paper, not so much.
  • Some of my friends choose drawing instead of writing in their journals to express themselves and track their days. I believe this is a form of journaling. Go for it if it gets you excited and committed.

Finally, increase your self-awareness by reading your older journals. I usually read my journal at the end of each month or quarter. This always reveals something about myself and my happiness, especially my gratitude journal. I recommend planning a time to read yours. Maybe you would find something interesting that you wrote casually the other day or remember some past dreams and ancient heart songs that ignite your passion for life. Who knows?

Note: I’m in gratitude to Michael Hyatt, Ryan Holiday, Austin Kleon, Greg McKeown, Brendon Burchard, Tim Ferriss and Tasha Eurich whose valuable work and advice I included in this post. Thank you.

Find the above journaling guide in Arabic by listening to my podcast here:

https://bardees.simplecast.com/episodes/5

The Journaling Habit- Your Guide To Journaling

Digital Declutter Challenge in Review

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Last week my digital declutter challenge was officially over. In this post I will share with you my insights about this experiment and how I spent the new free time I had.

As the challenge progressed a lot changed in my rules, they actually became tougher. By the mid of the month I announced on instagram that I removed Netflix from my phone, and would only watch it on TV in social situations or as quality time with my husband. Those limited 10 minutes of streaming shows on the phone as per my original rule were not worth it anymore. The pain of the interruption of entertainment outweighed its pleasure. Now, when I watch my shows on TV, it feels way more intentional, therefore more enjoyable and truly entertaining. Plus, streaming shows has become more inconvenient because I can’t watch any while the kids are still awake, so it is now a very limited window that is not one click away as it used to. Inconvenience is a secret to getting rid of negative habits and it definitely curbed this tendency of mine.

During this challenge I generally committed to my whatsapp rule of 30 minutes per day and none after 7pm. The evening rule was not easy to apply whenever I had an outing where we confirmed time and locations of meetup so I think that is ok. The rule was easier to apply after I turned off whatsapp notifications, a highly recommended strategy. Funny thing is that I used to have so many unread whatsapp messages before this month, but now I have none as it’s practically the only app left with connection to the outside world. I also recommend using whatsapp web at work which makes the experience quick to the point and less distracting.

In the last week of the challenge, I uninstalled instagram as a last tweak to my rules, thus removing the 10 minutes allowance I enjoyed during the month. To my dislike, It turned out to be too hard in the first couple of days. I still had the compulsive habit of looking for instagram as a quick way to “feel connected” which I thought I got rid of by reducing my scrolling/story checking to 10 minutes. Not true. It turns out that I scattered using those 10 minutes throughout the day so the habit was not vanquished. What I should have done instead is to specify a certain time of day to check instagram during the challenge, not just limit it for 10 minutes to be consumed whenever I wanted. Interesting indeed, no?

I managed to unsubscribe to a lot of noisy commercial emails in my personal email and that way I was able to see the important content I pre-subscribed to and overcome my FOMO by hitting unsubscribe to some other newsletters I kept convincing myself I would get to someday. It’s still a process I have not completely finished.

I noticed I can now read longer articles because they feel fresh to me as I was hardly consuming any text content during the challenge. I also noticed that my online attention span on desktop is increasing versus my previous behavior of switching tabs for checking later.

How did I spend the leisure time I had thanks to my digital declutter during March?

Overall I felt I had more time at hand. This time was spent being more present with my kids and getting more done at work as I had no other choice but to finish what I had to do. I managed to commit to my 10-minute exercise habit right when I got home which is great; creating this habit was on my goals since the beginning of the year.

I applied Cal Newport’s advice of spending more time on real-time conversations with people that matter in my life instead of counting on post likes and quick texts to show we are still in touch. I started telling friends that they can call me anytime between 5pm and 6pm during workdays as I would be driving home in my usual long commute. This indeed made a difference as I specifically managed to contact 2 important friends who live abroad.

A peculiar thing happened too during this month;, I took really long naps every weekend. It has been so unusual for me. I don’t know if it was boredom or I was generally following my body’s rhythm and listening to it. I really wonder if it was some sort of me running away from the quiet. I didn’t think I depended on social media that much during weekends before this challenge, as my usage dropped in general. But I can’t help linking long naps and no phone together. I’m still figuring it out to make sure it’s only about resting and not numbing, all while embracing those feel good mid-day naps.

Your attention is one of the most valuable things you possess, which is why everyone wants to steal it from you. First you must protect it, then you must point it in the right direction

-Austin Kleon, Keep Going 

At the end of the challenge I felt a bit of agitation as an achiever type. I could not show certain work accomplished during this month other than the above mentioned observations.  My analysis is that I have not specified enough the activities I would pursue in the newly found free time as Cal has advised in his book as one of the secrets to succeed in this digital declutter experiment. My new free time was in fact small pockets spread over the day. I was not spending stretches of long time on my phone before but I definitely was a compulsive screen checker. Even though, it would have been much better if I was more specific on the activities I would pursue during the challenge.

As I practiced digital minimalism I also really started to notice the amount of clutter in my physical space and this is driving me to take my decluttering initiative to my home in the 2nd quarter of this year.  Not an easy task I tell you.

In the coming posts I will share with you how my digital life looks like now. As Cal says in his amazing book, it is not a onetime process but a new life you choose for yourself and keep improving to reach your sweet spot.

Adopting digital minimalism is not a onetime process that completes the day after your digital declutter; it instead requires ongoing adjustments. In my experience, the key to sustained success with this philosophy is accepting that it’s not really about technology, but is instead more about the quality of your life. The more you experiment with the ideas and practices on the preceding pages, the more you’ll come to realize that digital minimalism is much more than a set of rules, it’s about cultivating a life worth living in our current age of alluring devices.

Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism

 

Digital Declutter Challenge in Review

Digital Declutter Challenge-10 Days In

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Via Unsplash.com


Digital declutter during weekends has had a completely different vibe for me compared to work days, where weekends so far have been easier for disconnection versus being at the office in front of a tempting computer screen most of the day.

As the work week started I found myself missing my personal email the most. It turns out I am addicted to the stimulation it provides, even more than Facebook because, surprisingly, I hardly miss the latter.
My personal email is mainly made up of favorite blogs subscriptions, amazon deals and make-up and kids’ clothes deals, in addition to linkedin updates. As a result, my initial rule of checking it during the weekend for 30 minutes only could not stand, so I amended it to checking it daily, only on desktop, for 5 to 10 minutes while the timer is set and running. I also started unsubscribing to many commercial newsletters because they are crowding my email that I can’t find the important communications fast.

I have also modified the Netflix rule where I can now watch 3, not 2, episodes of Netflix a week. I did this because I mostly watch comedy series which usually take 20 minutes per episode and that would have finished my allowance in 4 days only according to my 10 minute rule which was too extreme for me.

As a matter of fact, minimizing streaming entertainment has been the most challenging for me, 10 minutes a day only is not easy, where I mentioned before that I already have this particular habit of enjoying evening meals while watching something, mostly comedy, on Netflix. I used to think of this time as my mental break, so it is going to be interesting to see what will happen in the coming 20 days as I change my relationship to entertainment , not that it is harmful or anything, but I do believe that depending on something this much must be unhealthy for us and a red flag we need to take care of.

During digital declutter I also noticed I’ve been missing local news, because I barely listen to any radio show and never buy newspapers and Facebook and twitter were my sources. Since I’m not using them now I decided I need to stay more tuned to morning radio shows to keep up to speed with local or even international news that are relevant to us and maybe read news online once in a while.

I also happen to love music apps, like anghami, and I didn’t even consider them in my digital declutter challenge. However, I noticed a funny thing about the human brain; we always want a way out. So, skipping songs and looking for the perfect song or playlist has become my new thing while working or while doing house chores. Our brains got so used to entertainment that even music apps could be addictive and time wasting. This is not a totally finding, I experienced this in my reading fasting last year.
Don’t worry though, I have not set rules for those apps during digital declutter. It’s just about mindfulness of the exit strategies we implement to avoid the present moment.

It’s been indeed a very interesting challenge so far, and I wonder what more insights I would enjoy finding out during the remainder of the month.

Stay tuned.

Digital Declutter Challenge-10 Days In

#DontBreakTheChain : The Habit Tracker I Love The Most

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November was one of the best months I had during the amazing year 2017. A year that I consider a turning point in my life.

I started the month with this post on Facebook. Inspired by Seinfeld and Austin Kleon’s post about this topic in his book “steal like an artist”.

Then, every day for the next 30 days I posted on my social media the “X”; crossing the day off to indicate that I committed to my #dontbreakthechain challenge of waking up early and doing my morning routine.

It was the first time for me to be public about my 5am habit although I shared it here before, but few people only knew about my blog. And although it was a fairly regular habit for me that I got back to in October after summer craziness and September’s adjustments; being committed publicly like that felt so different and gave me such happiness and a purpose boost that I didn’t expect.

The outcome I really did not see coming though was how many of my dear friends encouraged me and approached me via their messages, wanting to know how I did it and why. Their genuine curiosity was refreshing and I realized then that I started meeting my tribe. Little did I know that some were actually starting their own chain challenges because they got so motivated by my posts.

Weeks later, I received an overwhelming thank you note from an old friend whom I admire sharing with me the impact of my daily progress on her and how she applied it herself in her own way and succeeded.

I had goose bumps reading her message! As my sister said in alignment with great spiritual teachings that what you give, you give yourself. My friend motivated me when I needed to hear it.

My sweet November was indeed an experience worth sharing and repeating. It led to deep conversations and exchanges with wonderful people that I’m truly thankful for. That’s why I started the challenge again in January. I’m a better person when I wake up early to have my alone time to write, meditate and plan.

I also don’t know who else would I be helping by posting my daily X. I’m showing up consistently and I know for sure that new people will reach out to me with the same curiosity and I will welcome them to my tribe.

#DontBreakTheChain : The Habit Tracker I Love The Most

No Snooze Challenge

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On August 14th, I started a personal “No Snooze” challenge on Snapchat by writing down the dates of the upcoming working days for a 4-week period on a post-it. Every day I succeed, I cross it off on this post-it and share the picture on my Snapchat. I don’t have many friends there yet, just close ones but enough to push me through.

The “No snooze challenge” was another way of saying I want to wake up earlier. Having kids naturally mean I wake up early. But earlier than them is my goal. Having an alone time where I can get centered before the day starts is just so rewarding.

So how did the challenge go?

  • I told my friends the night before I started about it and shared the Post-it photo with them.
  • I set the alarm at 5:45 AM everyday,  placed my mobile few footsteps away from me in order to leave the bed to turn it off.
  • The first few days were not so difficult. Why, you ask? Accountability, my dear friend. That’s the word that made me stick to my challenge. It’ crossing off the day and sharing it proudly with friends that kept me going.
  • I successfully stuck to my challenge for 18 out of 20 days!
  • The first time I didn’t  was not because I slept in. That day I did wake up on time and started my morning routine as usual. Thirty minutes later, however, I still couldn’t open my eyes because I stayed up late the night before, so I got back to bed and slept for 30 more minutes.
  • Next day, when the alarm went off, I  moved up my waking up time 15 minutes later to 6 AM instead and woke up immediately when it rang. That’s why I have mixed feelings regarding crossing off this day.
  • Few days later, I also slept late but managed not to hit snooze in the morning. Nevertheless, the tempting idea of going back to bed kept me out of focus, until I decided I needed to wake my body for real. Therefore, I put on my  headset and played the most upbeat music I have and started jumping up and down in the kitchen. Can you imagine? me jumping to music in the kitchen at around 6:15 AM while everybody was peacefully sleeping in the house without any clue on the craziness happening under their roof. It was fun really, glad I made that choice.

The feeling of being control of my day during this challenge was amazing. I started the day with reading a page of one of my favorite inspiration books then meditating for 10 minutes. Next, I listened to some prayers or  conversations and  interviews with spiritual leaders while getting everything ready in the kitchen like lunch boxes (if not prepared the day before), milk bottles and coffee. Afterwards, I wrote in my   “one sentence journal for mums” highlighting the most important thing about my kids’ previous day.

Next in my routine was writing a page in my journal  about the happenings of the day before. Followed by waking up everybody and getting ready to leave the house. I even had time to apply the kind of makeup I like which is a feel good booster in itself to me. Of course this also led to getting to work on time everyday.

After this challenge we had long national holidays. Getting back to waking up as early as 5:45 AM was so difficult to me especially that fall started which means  it was getting darker in those early hours.

Luckily, I ran into “How to become an early riser” by Steve Pavlina. Recommended by Mark McGuinness in his new awesome Free ebook “productivity for creative people“. That’s all the push I needed to get back on track, thus writing these words at 6:45  in the morning!

I am now waking up at 5:30 AM  (3rd day now) and planning to continue to do so to pursue my creative interests, such as writing in this blog. I didn’t share this update on Snapchat yet because it’s now a commitment not just a challenge, although  I have a new post-it and I’m crossing off the days when I wake up.

I believe this challenge was the first step towards a series of changes to a better and fuller life. Join me!

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No Snooze Challenge