Summer Progress Report – How Am I Doing?

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It’s been…a busy few weeks, which, as I talked about last month, was entirely my own fault for taking on too much.

I’m realizing that more than anything else, my tendency to say “Yes” to things (sometimes with an exclamation point attached) is really having an adverse effect on my productivity, because not only does having more things to do quantitatively reduce my amount of free time, it also pulls me in multiple directions, giving me more things to juggle and making me exponentially more stressed.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to make this problem better, and though the solution definitely involves taking on less things, making this happen Continue reading »

I Don’t Drink As Much As I Used To, and I’m Cool With That

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At no time in my life was I ever a marathon drinker, but I definitely went to my fair share of parties in college and the years after.  The most drinking I ever did was probably during my first time in Japan, where I used to meet coworkers and friends for drinks almost every weekend and fairly often during the week.  Drinking during the week back then wasn’t much of a big deal, since I started work at noon and had plenty of time to sleep a hangover away.

More recently, back in America most of my hangouts with friends and family included drinks of some kind, though never to any kind of excess.  I also used to pick up new beers to try at home, usually with dinner, but occasionally after a hard day (or a very hard day) at my Day Job.  Drinking alone wasn’t (and still isn’t) appealing to me unless it’s a new, interesting, or Continue reading »

Don’t Reach for Your Phone When You Have a Few Minutes to Kill

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Earlier this month the Japanese emperor stepped down and abdicated, beginning a new era in the Japanese calendar (Reiwa) and giving everyone in Japan a ten-day Golden Week vacation.  So that was awesome.

I spent four of those vacation days working at home, one of those days relaxing, and five of those days traveling, first over the Tateyama Alpine Route through the Northern Japanese Alps, then to visit friends in Yamanashi, and finally a stopover in Tokyo to visit another friend and enjoy some sweet Japanese Taco Bell (which was of far higher quality than its American counterpart).

It was a super-fun trip that also involved a LOT of waiting, first in the massive lines for cable cars up the mountain, then on the local trains, then waiting for friends.  I’d downloaded a week’s worth of podcasts and packed my e-reader in preparation, but more often than not I found myself reaching for my phone to mindlessly scroll through social media, which I realized I’m fucking sick of doing. Continue reading »

Sometimes I Don’t Finish Everything, and That’s OK

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Yesterday was Sunday, and as usual I started the day by laying out everything I needed to do.  I’d fallen behind on my Japanese studying the week before, and in addition to being a big 日本語 catchup day, I also had some cleaning to take care of.  My plan of attack in order from start to finish looked like this:

  • Finish Japanese Kanji Lesson
  • Practice all Japanese vocab
  • Finish Japanese Speaking Lesson
  • Schedule Blog Post
  • Reply to Important Email
  • Respond to all Texts
  • Clean Shower and Sink
  • Glue Bedframe
  • Clean Out Closet
  • Go Grocery Shopping
  • Work on Story/Poetry Reading for Lit Mag

I decided to start with Japanese studying because it was the most mentally intensive task for the day, and because I wanted to Continue reading »

I Stay Away from Jerks and So Should You

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Two years ago I posted a piece called Is Your Workplace Socially Toxic? where I talked about how your coworkers play a BIG factor in what kind of experience you have at your Day Job.  If you work with people who are cool, laid-back, interested in the same things you are, and have a similar attitude toward work, then congratulations, because you’re in for some smooth sailing.

BUT, if your coworkers are boring, manipulative, gossipy, mean, passive-aggressive, the type to throw you a lot of last-minute deadlines, or some combination of the above, you’re in for a rough ride.

I’m lucky enough in that my coworkers at my Japan job are pretty cool to work with—though I imagine the language barrier helps protect me from most of the negative stuff ;-)  Continue reading »

Daily Creative Work Schedule in Japan!

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(This one took a couple of tries to iron out…)

After I got to Japan, I had trouble sorting out the best way to schedule my creative work time—like, a lot of trouble.  I finish work at 4:00 every day and get home soon after that, so it seemed pretty simple to walk in the door, throw down my bag, and get right to work on the novel, right?

Negative.

Looking back, I wasted a lot of time when I first got here, especially in the afternoons between 4:00 and 5:30, when I’d come home, plop down on my bed, and scroll through my phone or listen to a podcast for longer than I intended.  I was also losing a lot of time after dinner to inactivity Continue reading »

Stuff I Do Before Bed to Help Me De-Stress

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Two weeks ago I talked about reducing stress and slowing down, a subject that’s been on my mind a lot lately as I work to, well, feel better about things.  And getting a decent night’s sleep is a big part of that.

Let me rephrase—when I say “getting a decent night’s sleep” I’m talking about more than just the actual body-rejuvenating sleep I try to get eight hours of per night.  I’m talking about an overall end of the night routine that’ll relax me overall, and that includes the part before I actually go to sleep.

So here’s a list of things I do before going to bed—I don’t manage to do all of them every night, but I think of them as general guidelines I like to follow.  (On a side note, I once had a friend who kept an elaborate 3+ hour going-to-bed routine from which she never, ever deviated, to the point where Continue reading »

A Kind of Sappy Post About Why You Should Keep Your Space Clean

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This is my Japanese-style shower.

It’s a separate room from both the sink and the toilet, with stone walls, a stone floor, and a sliding plastic door.  The bathtub is deep enough so you can sit with your knees hugging your chest with the water up to your neck, and it’s surprisingly comfortable.  The shower head detaches and can be held in your hand, fastened up high (my preferred style), or clipped at waist-height so you can wash yourself while sitting down.  Because the walls, door, and window are all watertight you can spray water anywhere you want, and it all runs down that big drain in the lower left-hand corner.

I’m showing you this because 1) It’s a pretty cool way to take a shower, and 2) It’s a bitch to clean. Continue reading »

Don’t Just Say “I’m Too Busy”

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I’ll try to keep this one brief, since I’ve got stuff to do today.

I don’t like saying “I’m too busy” when someone invites me to something or asks me for a favor.  It feels like a copout—because in a lot of ways, it is.

If have a chance to pick up a new editing job or write something or even just go out for drinks with friends, I try to think about the other things I’m currently juggling in comparison to this new opportunity.  Do I really want to do this new thing, or would I rather focus on what I’m already working on? Continue reading »

A Short Piece (Promise!) About Making Good Use of Your Time

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I think a lot about time.  Namely why I never seem to have enough of it.

I think about the things I do in the short term to waste time, like scrolling through news after work and watching chains of Youtube videos after dinner and lying in bed too long on weekend mornings.  When these things start to become habits, that’s dangerous, because the amount of time they take away increases over a longer period and you lose even more of your time in these small chunks.

So, I’ve been trying to catch these habits and get rid of them before they do more damage. Continue reading »

Why I Blog About My Shortcomings

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A few weeks back I was talking to a friend about this blog, and he summed up the entire thing like this:

“It seems like you’re always talking about some problem you’re going through, and how as soon as you’ve dealt with it you’re FINALLY going to get some work done for serious this time.”

As usual I’m exaggerating, but his point was basically the same: I often sound like a procrastinator who’s vowing to finally get down to work as soon as the latest distraction is out of the way.  Especially in the wake of my last post about kicking bad habits in Japan, I’ve been thinking: have I fallen into a pattern of letting one distraction after another interfere with my work?

Here’s an even crazier thought: have I fallen into a pattern of blogging about these same distractions so that everybody can see how inefficient and easily distracted I am?

To supplement my point, here’s a list of distractions and difficulties I’ve written about since I started this blog: Continue reading »

Bad Habits I’ve Fallen Into in Japan

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Opportunities aside, a big disadvantage with packing up all your stuff and moving halfway around the world is that it screws up your rhythm big time.  Back home I had a set work schedule, a familiar desk where I could write, and ingrained habits for how to get my shit done.  In Japan, not so much.

Part of why I love schedules is that they help me develop better work habits: by doing my work at similar times of the day in similar ways in a similar place, the process becomes more familiar and less intimidating, thus helping me ward off procrastination and save time by getting down to work faster.

This is the same reason I do things like make my bed every morning and eat a similar breakfast (eggs over easy with toast if I have the time, cereal with milk if I don’t) so that instead of having to think about how to get my day going I can just do it, like a kind of reflex or muscle memory.  Get enough of these little routines Continue reading »