In my last letter, I talked about my morning routine, a subject that I am quite passionate about because I have seen first-hand the many benefits of these habits and the stability they bring to our life. Even though I don’t need any help in this area, I still like reading about it and I came across an interesting book that has a very scientific approach, Smarter Tomorrow by Elizabeth R. Ricker who studied Brain Sciences at MIT and Harvard. This is not a book I would advise to read to help anyone set up a morning routine; she invites you to turn yourself into a rat lab, test yourself every day and keep spreadsheets. I would never do that but I like knowing how things work and reasons behind decisions, being a Questioner in Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies..

One thing that I was particularly interested in was her idea of debugging ourselves by identifying bottlenecks in every area of your life, those things that don’t work, that keep you stuck or annoy you. I would add that you can also do this for your home.

The idea is to consider aspects of your life and make notes of where you feel improvements are needed and then think of ways to remedy them. Ricker looks at ways to upgrade yourself, but I’ve done it in my kitchen because my house is my current project and it was amazing. I rearranged a few things and it made a big difference in the way I feel in there. Next, I’ll rearrange inside the cabinets.

Here’s an example:

Sleep

Possible bottlenecks: poor sleep habits, environment, suboptimal duration or timing of sleep issues.

Possible solutions: body scan to relax each part of the body, wearing an eye mask, pre-sleep routine, changing pillows or mattress, room scent, etc.

Other areas to consider: 

Hydration 

Air quality/ Breathing 

Nutrition 

Physical strength/Bodily energy/Pain

Safety

Social connectedness 

Meaning/Spirituality 

Cognitive abilities 

Skills

Job/Work environment/Colleagues 

House (one room at a time or even one area of a bigger room)

I love the idea of looking at something that bugs me and immediately go to solutions. Looking at one specific area prevents overwhelm and there are so many little changes we can make under five minutes that reduce stress instantly. I highly recommend it. When I was concerned about my cognitive abilities a couple of years ago, I looked for a brain training app and I’ve been using it every day ever since and it quickly made me feel better and confident in my cognitive abilities.

What do you need to debug? 

Valerie 

http://valeriemarsh.com