Continuing on last week’s theme of productivity.. After not having Facebook on my smartphone, I would pick it up and either open a browser and some website automatically, or stare at it for a split second trying to figure out how to distract myself. That’s no good.

So I changed my Android home screen to replace the hot key for Chrome with an ebook reader app. I moved the browser icon to a secondary screen a swipe away. It is such a tiny change, but it still is an extra barrier to get to the browser. So now, two things happen. It is not on my main screen so I don’t think to open it that often. Second, during that split second while I’m swiping screens to get to the browser, I may realize that I’m about to procrastinate and then I can make the decision to not do it.

I’m still paying attention to my sleep. If I don’t get to sleep enough one night, I get to bed early the next night and allow myself 9 hours of sleep. Also, I mostly wake up by myself about 30 minutes before alarm clock, which is great. Some of it may be because I have gotten used to getting up at the same time. Another side effect that I have noticed is that I’m more hungry (or so it seems) and I snack more when I’m tired and haven’t slept fully. I wouldn’t have thought that benefits of getting enough sleep are so varied! This brings me to realization that before the trip I probably worked at 80% energy level most of the time and thought that it is was my normal capacity (though I knew it was not nearly as much as I used to have one summer in college where I had two full time jobs and did well on both of them, plus slept 8 hours every single day). Now though I can reach and sustain 100% of my energy capacity, which is super exciting! Indeed, nothing feels impossible!

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Another thing I noticed, I’m indeed more of my own person and I act according to my “true self”. I went to a happy hour with a meetup group. We were sitting outside in the courtyard and it was a bit cold so I ordered a hot tea. That is such a small tiny thing, but it is huge at the same time. I have the power to be just myself and do exactly what I want, even if it is ordering a hot tea instead of alcohol just because it is happy hour and everybody else is doing so. Also I had no issues with staying in Friday night and reading.

Instead of integrating back to normal life I can create an extraordinary life. Part of it is being exactly who I want to be instead of succumbing to social pressures.