minimalism – Perfect Leaves

30-Day Minimalist Challenge, Part 3

This is the last post in the 30-Day Minimalist Challenge Series.

21. Journal for 20 minutes

I’m never been much of a diary person, and writing about my emotions felt forced. Instead, I took some time to sketch the plot for a novel. Random story ideas frequently pop into my head, but I rarely sit down and write them down. Perhaps I should take more time to flesh out the ideas.

22. Create a bedtime routine

Right now, it doesn’t seem like I’m at the point in my life where I should create bedtime routines. I’ve tried so many “power morning” and “relaxing night” routines but none of them have stuck. Part of the problem is that I don’t have an addictive personality type; it’s very hard for me to form habits, regardless of whether they’re good or bad. I have to actively force myself to make a change in my behavior for months before the habit sticks. I’ve had the same issue with blogging. I usually sit down and draft three or four posts in one sitting because it’s easier for me to do that than to sit down and write every day.

Eventually I would like to have healthy morning and evening routines, even if they’re small habits, but I think I’ll focus on that a little later in life.

23. Identify your stress triggers

Jeez this wasn’t a fun time. Thinking about stress makes me stressed, it’s one of the things that I’m working on. I won’t post all of my stress triggers because that would be reckless. I will, however, talk about some of them. Being in a situation where I am a student at an institution is a huge trigger for me. I was so stressed for so long that the stress turned into trauma, and now I have full-blown panic attacks whenever I even consider the idea of going back to school. I’d like to continue my education, just not necessarily in a school setting.

Another trigger is tardiness. It’s such a strange one but it’s huge for me. I pride myself on being punctual, so tardiness (even being a late responder to emails or late completing a task I promised I’d do) sends me into a debate over whether I should just give up going to the event/responding to the email/completing the task at all. It’s an incredibly unhealthy thought process but for some reason, being late freaks me out.

24. Practice gratitude

I know a whole lot of positivity gurus swear by gratitude but I’ll be honest: being thankful didn’t change my life. On some level, I always have an underlying level of gratefulness for the position I’ve been born into, but that gratefulness always leads to guilt when I find myself dissatisfied with something. I throw in a random alhamdulillah throughout my day and I truly mean it, yet it seems wrong to complain about the privilege I have, about the roof over my head, the safe neighborhood I live in, and the food in my stomach. Sometimes I wonder what life would be like if I had a more simple life, one where I live off the land with my family. Perhaps I’m not doing the gratitude thing correctly.

25. Leave today unplanned

I learned from the first time I completed this task. I wrote a to-do list like I always do, then I allowed myself to follow my whims. I didn’t guilt myself for straying from the list. Doing this felt much better than going without a list altogether.

26. Go bare-faced

I only wear makeup like twice a year. I don’t even own foundation or concealer. I don’t know how to use highlighter. I guess I could have tried to come up with a replacement challenge for this one but meh.

27. Clean out your junk drawer

Don’t have one of these either. 🙂 I don’t believe in junk drawers.

28. Let go of a goal

I let go of my goal to learn CSS. I’m still interested in becoming proficient in web languages, but it’ll have to be something I do later I guess. Right now, C# has my attention. I want to learn how to use Unity more efficiently.

29. Turn off notifications

With pleasure! I turned off my WeChat, Email, Instagram and Facebook Messenger notifications. They’re the only apps that I use regularly. Without the notifications, my day was much quieter. Turning off the notifications also resulted in my forgetting conversations while I get into my work flow. I can’t say I’m upset.

30. Evaluate your last 5 purchases

My last five purchases were all food and books. That pretty much sums up my life, lol.

If you’ve tried or plan on trying this challenge, let me know! 🙂

30-Day Minimalist Challenge, Part 2

If you missed the first part of this series, you can read it here.

11. Evaluate your commitments

I wasn’t quite sure what could be considered a commitment in this context. I could have chosen to focus on work, or I could have chosen to focus on promises I made to other people. Since my priorities were all personal, I decided that I would define commitments by groups of people. I chose to commit myself to self, family, friends, my significant other, and work. I purposely put work last, even though it ties into self. I have decided that people are more important to me than my job; I don’t want to be the kind of person who gets so wrapped up in work I forget my relationships.

12. Define your goals for 2017

I did this challenge throughout the month of July, which made it the perfect time to re-evaluate the goals and resolutions I made at the beginning of the year. I took each category of my priorities and listed one or two steps I can take towards improving myself, my life, or my relationships in those categories. The major categories are: religion, health, finances and dreams. My goal planning became the beginning of a longer, multi-year plan.

13. Clean out your dresser

I clean out my closet every year and donate the clothes I no longer wear, but I rarely go through my dresser. It took me several hours to sift through the three drawers, and I discovered tee-shirts and underwear that date back to kindergarten. Talk about embarrassing. I gave the tee-shirts to my mom so she could have keepsakes from when I was younger, but I donated the vast majority of the pajamas, socks, and miscellaneous clothing items.

14. Take a step towards a new skill

As a multi-potentialite, I want to try out and become proficient in a number of different skills. Though people like me have been historically called Jacks of All Trades (and masters of none), Emilie Wapnick suggests it isn’t always necessary to have “one true calling.” Since learning Blender (a 3D graphics engine) was next on my list of projects, I watched a few tutorials and made donuts dance. I also worked on an embroidery project I’ve had on the back burner for a while.

Decided to learn some basics of 3D modeling and the dancing donut makes me laugh lol. #Blender #3dmodeling #WIP #summer

A post shared by 潭●燕歌 (@sarabineventide) on Jul 16, 2017 at 1:41pm PDT

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15. Examine your daily habits

My daily habits suck, I’m not even going to lie. While I do get in a fair amount of reading and blogging, I also spend entirely too much time watching television and scrolling through social media. I only really watch TV when I’m in my parents’ house, but trying to kick the social media habit has been a serious challenge for me. Mindless scrolling makes me blissfully numb. It’s cathartic to scroll through everything while looking at nothing.

I’m also trying to balance my social media use as a blogger. I feel like we have to use Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc more and more to be successful. To be honest, I haven’t yet seen the fruit of my efforts, so perhaps its time for me to change tactics.

16. Don’t buy anything for 24 hours

This one was easy. I don’t buy much anyway. I bought bus tickets to New York for my friend’s engagement party, but that was it.

17. Practice single-tasking

I’m not even sure I properly completed this challenging. I single-tasked while doing a tea tasting, but I was taking notes and mentally drafting a post. Does that count? I set aside separate time for reading and watching TV, instead of reading during the commercial break which gives me a bit of a headache anyway.

18. Leave today unplanned

THIS WAS THE ABSOLUTE WORST CHALLENGE. Leaving the day unplanned gave me so much anxiety because I kept feeling like I was forgetting a really important task. I have a questionable short-term memory, especially when I’m stressed out so I have to write things down. Without my to-do list I felt lost all day. I prefer to have my day planned and allow for spontaneity. I don’t mind abandoning the list if I have one, but I can’t do without writing the list in the first place.

19. Go for a walk and practice mindfulness

I don’t go for walks in my neighborhood. Instead I waited until I was in New York to complete this challenge. I was walking around Times Square at around 6:30 AM and I must say it was an absolutely wonderful feeling. At that hour there is almost no traffic– neither pedestrian nor otherwise– but you can still experience the sights and sounds of the city. I felt the breeze on my skin, I heard far off traffic. It was exhilarating.

20. No TV all day– read instead

This one actually wasn’t too hard for me. I was traveling to New York so I didn’t have access to television anyway. I don’t really stream things on my phone, so I had no choice but to read. I think I was reading The Prophet and the Messiah at the time, but I eventually put the book on hold to read Astrophysics for People in a Hurry.

I truly enjoyed the minimalist challenge. The tasks gave me something to focus on during my long, uneventful summer days. Look out for the third and final part in a couple of weeks. If you’ve tried any of the tasks above, or if you have ideas for a new challenge, let me know!

30-Day Minimalist Challenge, Part 1

Originally, I planned on writing another tea post for today, but my general lack of inspiration forced me to change my plans. I came across a 30-day minimalist challenge a couple months ago, and I’ve been working on the mini-challenges throughout July. I’ll share the first 10 challenges today, and post the remaining two-thirds in a couple of weeks. I invite you to try this challenge for yourself, I’ve found it quite relaxing. I took pretty pictures for the post, but since I didn’t plan to post this while traveling, I left the photos at home. Please forgive my plain text post~

Stay off social media all day

At the time I started this challenge, I was using my phone more heavily than usual. Without school or work to keep be busy, I spent hours texting friends or aimlessly scrolling through Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. It happened to be a Saturday when I started the challenge, and ever since I’ve been trying to create media-free Saturdays. I had so much more free time on my hands when I wasn’t using my phone of scrolling through feeds. I started learning a new skill. In the future, I’ll be more strict about my media-free Saturdays.

Meditate for 15 minutes

To be honest, I kind of failed at this one. The first time I attempted the challenge I forgot to meditate; the second time my mind as racing. I eventually just started counting my prayers as meditation. Considering there are at least 5 in a day, and each one is at least 5-10 minutes, I get about 40 minutes of “meditation” in each day. I find that the regular prayer/meditation punctuates my day and helps me mark the time.

Declutter your digital life

My phone and desktop are already organized. I don’t like to see too many icons on my screen. I make extensive use of folders and only keep the most frequently accessed folders and apps on my screen. To further declutter my devices, I went through every folder on my phone and got rid of apps I don’t use anymore, then I went through each folder on my bookmarks bar and deleted the bookmarks I no longer needed. I had bookmarks dating back to high school. Some of them were of recipes and clothing. I used Pinterest to save the items I wanted to keep. Now all of my bookmarks fit neatly under my browser’s search bar. I never have to hunt for a link anymore.

Don’t complain all day

This challenge reminded me of one of my friends. She’s constantly complaining about something, be it work, school, or social life. I listen to them like the dutiful sounding board I am, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t sometimes get annoyed at the constant complaints. Seeing as I spend most of my time around the house these days, I don’t have much to complain about. To make Day 4 more challenging, I decided that I would not even express dissatisfaction. If I thought mom kept the house too cold, I would simply put on a jacket. If I thought my meal needed more salt, I would just add it. After doing this I realized how many unnecessary complaints there are in a day. Most situations are simple fixes. If we spend less time vocalizing the minor complaints, people will take our major complaints more seriously, and will be more willing to help us solve the problem.

Identify 3-6 top priorities

I decided to name broad categories of commitments for this challenge. In relative order, they are: religion, health, finances and dreams. By narrowing my focus, I can funnel any other additional commitment through this lens, and determine whether it will advance me in one of the categories. Under each priority, I listed a few ways I could improve myself or other in those categories.

Follow a new morning ritual

I tried and failed this one so many times that I gave up. I don’t really like following a ritual first thing in the morning. There are things that I do pretty much every morning though. I’ll check for any important messages and make a note to respond to them first when I’m ready to start my day. Afterwards I usually get up, drink water, brush my teeth, and have breakfast (sometimes I have breakfast before I brush my teeth). I consider my day officially started when I have made my bed, and I always make by bed after I’ve eaten. Folding the covers makes me less likely to go back to sleep (it doesn’t stop me from sleeping on the couch or the floor, but at least I think twice about sleeping once my bed is made).

Streamline your reading list

…Pahahahaha telling a bookworm to streamline their reading list is like telling an child to stop using their imagination. I didn’t streamline my reading list. Rather, I selected a few that I absolutely wanted to get read by the end of the summer and made a list in order of importance. I’ve been chipping away at the list ever since, and posting the reviews here (hence the seemingly random selection these days). Having a shortlist has kept me focused and relatively on track. If I didn’t have to handle business in other cities this past week, I’d probably have knocked two more off the list.

Take more time for solitude

I’m alone pretty often, but for this challenge I decided to block out time where I wouldn’t answer my phone. My friends are already used to the time lapses between my responses, so they weren’t too bothered by the strange new gaps. This particular brand of solitude felt forced, though. I think I should try to have more regular, focused solitary time.

Downsize your beauty collection

I don’t wear much makeup as it, but I threw out makeup that I don’t wear or that was too old.

No email/media until lunch

The email part was pretty easy, because I don’t like to check my email until I’m on my computer, but resisting the urge to look at Twitter first thing in the morning was a struggle. I managed but I definitely felt the pull. I tend to scroll in the morning to see if I missed any important updates during the night, and I scroll throughout the day when I’m bored. I realized that I’ve become hopelessly addicted to social media this summer. I’m better about it when I’m busy, but when I don’t have a schedule to follow, I tend to waste a lot of time. I’ve made a note to change this habit.

Evaluate your commitments

I grouped my commitments into two main categories: self and others. Under myself I listed my priorities and chose one action item to focus on for each priority. I’ve been working on these solidifying these new habits and completing the action items throughout the month. The “others” category has three subgroups: friends, family, strangers. I essentially wrote these out to remind myself to be kind and patient with everyone, no matter who they are or what their relationship is with me. In both the friends and family categories I listed one action I can do that will improve my relationships. For the sake of privacy, I won’t list the items here, but I think I’m making pretty decent progress.