Category: Inspiration // Cool

The three P’s of productivity

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#1: Pomodoro Technique

What it is (in 60 seconds or less): A productivity hack in which you work for 25 minutes straight on something without any distractions. When that 25-minute period is up, take a break.

I try to do 25-minute sprints, and five-minute breaks in the morning/afternoon, eight-minute breaks after 2 pm because, hi, fatigue. My favorite thing about Pomodoro, other than that it works for me, is that it’s named after the Italian word for tomato. Why? The guy who made it up used one of those cute little tomato-shaped kitchen tickers to time his tasks.

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#2: Parkinson’s Law

What it is (in 60 seconds or less): The idea that work will expand to fit however much time you’ve allotted for it.

So if you’ve given yourself a whole day to “blog”… it will take the entire day. Maybe longer. If you, instead, time block the job and write it on your to-do list as a specific directive, such as “9-10 am: Sit the ef down and write your blog about productivity,” it will happen in a much shorter amount of time—usually the amount for which you’ve planned it.  

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#3: Pareto Principle

What it is (in 60 seconds or less): This one’s a numbers game that says 80% of consequences come from 20% of actions.

In terms of productivity, this is just something to keep in mind when you determine what tasks to tackle in a day. If the majority of your benefits are coming from a small portion of actions (or, for example, accounts), say yes to those actions and a #HardNo to the other things you could spend your limited time doing.

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Bonus #4: Pizza

What it is (in 60 seconds or less): It’s pizza.

Because sometimes you just need to treat yo’self for a job well done… or a job not perfectly done, but done nonetheless.

Every image in this blog is from my trip to a hidden gem of a museum in Evanston called the Halim Time & Glass Museum. That is, every image except this image. This image is a gift from the internet. Thank you, internet. Thank you, pizza cat.

Nine things I’m loving this month

Jackie Mantey 5 Comments

Can you believe we’re almost one month deep into 2019? I’ve commenced Hibernation Mode throughout most of it, which you could have probably guessed given the following “stay inside under lots of covers” nature of the following obsessions that have been consuming my January.

P.S. Follow my blog with Bloglovin!

Apartment Therapy’s January Cure

Ya’ll been Kondo-ing like it’s a verb. I’ve been doing something similar. The website Apartment Therapy’s January Cure is a program that breaks down the often overwhelming act of cleaning your place into daily assignments—curing cabin fever and pack rat-ism in one swift swipe of the dust cloth. With assignments like #9 (do a bathroom cabinet cleanout) and #18 (clean the floors and treat yourself to flowers), this is a to-do list I can get behind.

Get it? “Get behind.”

Some of the key projects Justin and I tackled this month: organizing and purging all of our office and art supply cabinets, upgrading our cleaning equipment like the vacuum cleaner and even our guest towels, and sprucing up one room with a few new décor elements. We got a new grid patterned shower curtain from Amazon that we both love and a black and white nude sketch from Etsy that we framed and hung above the towel rack. Racks on racks.

This TED Talk

Therapist Mandy Saligari so wonderfully explains emotional habits that begin forming when we are children—why they happen and what we can do to conquer the unhealthy ones as adults. For a talk about emotion, her logic is surprisingly the most moving part of the whole thing. This one’s worth a listen.

Two new podcasts by writers

Writer Mike Ingram’s new podcast Day Jobs features interviews with artists who are trying to make art while making a living. Though he’s only three interviews/ episodes deep, I enjoy the tips the interviewees offer for how they get creative work done during their day job (ie. a construction worker writes on his phone during a lunch break). It’s realistic and inspiring to hear their stories.

Check out U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith’s podcast The Slow Down.

U.S. Poet Laureate Tracy K. Smith’s podcast The Slow Down is produced in partnership with the Library of Congress and the Poetry Foundation. Regardless of how you feel about the rise of the Insta-poet, I’m all for the growing power of poetry and the myriad ways poetry has become more accessible to the general public in recent years. An Insta-poet Smith is certainly not; she’s brilliant and The Slow Down’s short five-minute episodes—described as “a different way to see the world, through poetry”—have been a welcome meditative addition to my mornings.

Twitter’s #SundaySentence challenge

To participate, post to Twitter the best sentence you’ve read all week with the hashtag #sundaysentence. Or just be a lurker like me and read all the goodies other people post.

Some of my favorite sentences from “Eat Only When You’re Hungry.” “As a dress, it was a raised fist, but in a silent crowd.”
I love this Sontag sentence, too. “Real art has the capacity to make us nervous.”

This Chicago Public Library branch that opened LITERALLY WITHIN A BLOCK FROM MY APARTMENT (!!!!)

Who’s the luckiest? Me.

“How To Become A Writer”

You gotta read this essay by Lorrie Moore.

Pick Up Limes recipe videos

This blog is run by a dietician who lives in the Netherlands. She’s named Sadia and she’s beautiful. Her voice is beautiful. Her blog is beautiful. Her food is beautiful. Her personality is beautiful… ah, le sigh.

I’ve been watching her YouTube channel’s recipe videos. They make cooking and eating vegan food not seem so terribly challenging. I’m a wannabe-veg, so I’ve been sprinkling her recipes throughout my occasional carnivore eats. One of my favorites right now is the Peanut Butter and Jelly Smoothie Bowl (that’s my beautiful re-creation of it at the top of this blog post), and I’ve been putting my own spin on the Mushroom and Lentil Tacos with Creamy Garlic Avocado Sauce.

New Amsterdam

Until a few weeks ago, “New Amsterdam” was just a TV show that starred the man I know and love as Tom Keen from The Blacklist. Turns out he has a real name (actor Ryan Eggold), AND that he is also an excellent Dr. Max Goodwin, the good-hearted renegade medical director of New Amsterdam Hospital. If you’re hibernating and need an entertaining, feel-good watch, hit up this mind-numbing show that I’ve been binge-watching on Hulu.

Paging Dr. Espionage!

My new fave app reads books for you (!!!!!)

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Remember that age-old party game question: If you could have any super power, what would it be?

I am always prepared for this one because I always answer the same thing: My super power would be the ability to put my hand on a book and immediately have read, understood, and retained all of it.

Then I usually bow.

Because it’s a really great answer. (One I definitely stole from some awesome adult who answered with that when I was a kid.)

I mean, there are definitely books (most books, in fact) that I’d want to take the time to read during my superhero holidays on a secluded beach somewhere, but how cool would it be to read some books faster?

Particularly, nonfiction self-help sorta books. The kind that you’re interested in learning more about, but of which dedicating the time to reading all 200 pages (about, ironically, something like how to manage your time) is a no-go.

My Blinkist app landing page.

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Blinkist!

My favorite new app. I’m still in my free trial week (they’ll let you test it out for seven days before making you pony up—$7.50 per month or $89.99 for the year), but I’ve already decided to, well, pony up. I’ve had my free trial for about two days and have listened to 12 books already.

How it works: Blinkist’s profesh readers (hello, dream job) read self-help, business, and other nonfiction books and then distill each book down to ~15 minute synopses that you can read or listen to. I love it! I just pick a book, pop on my wireless headphones, and listen to the “blinks,” as the book breakdowns are called. I feel productive and have learned a lot listening to them while I do chores around the house, walk to the grocery store, or ride the CTA to the latest superhero convention.

My current library.

Granted, you’re not going to get as much out of the book as you would reading it cover to cover, but with the books I’ve been hitting up with Blinkist (ie. “The Story of Sushi,” “5 AM Club,” “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck,” and “The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning” (ha!)), I get the key takeaways. And that’s really all I want out of books like that anyway.

Try it for yourself or check it out here! And let me know if you have any good “blink” reccos … and/or a better super power wishlist Q&A response.

I’ll be waiting. 😉

Quote: Mary Oliver makes a heart sing

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“I would say that there exists a thousand unbreakable links between each of us and everything else, and that our dignity and our chances are one.

The farthest star and the mud at our feet are a family; and there is no decency or sense in honoring one thing, or a few things, and then closing the list.

The pine tree, the leopard…and ourselves, we are at risk together, or we are on our way to a sustainable world together, we are each other’s destiny.”

RIP poet Mary Oliver

“Bless the feet that take you to and fro…”

Roundup: Cute earmuffs

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Last Sunday, Justin and I grabbed brunch at B’el Bar & Kitchen on the corner of Belmont and Elston. (The crispy hash browns and pressed coffee are da voom.)

When we were leaving, the bartender slid-chased us down the icy sidewalk. I’d forgotten my fuzzy earmuffs on the back of my chair and he had braved the cold to get them back to me. A good man. Nay, a saint.

I thanked him profusely, said a little thank you prayer that we always leave generous tips even if the servers are shitty (this guy was great), and then realized… I would have been OK with leaving behind these muffs—a Walgreen’s “winter section” desperation buy. That’s a sure sign I need/ want a new pair.

I prefer earmuffs because they don’t nightmare my hair. Going bare-eared turns my earrings into icicles. Infinity hats leave me with an unsightly coif crease. Hat hats (ie. beanies) make me look like that lady from Dilbert.

“Hello. I like wearing winter hats.”

Online shopping I went. I found a lot of cute options made from a variety of luxe materials. I like the poofy, bombastic ones best, but, depending on the material, your ears can be as coy or as loud as you like. Regardless, they’ll be warm. And that’s the real reason for the season.

Swooning for these faux fur lovelies from Etsy shop ElleVintage369.
The thin band is a bonus for thick-haired girls. $35.

On writing: Radical acceptance’s role in creativity

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On my recent interview with The Unruffled Podcast, I listed the “DBT Skills Training Manual” as one of my essential/most helpful tools for getting and staying sober while increasing creativity.

The skills in DBT, which stands for dialectical behavior therapy, are deceptively simple and designed to help you learn to cope with overwhelming emotions. Its creator, Marsha Lineham, compiled these skillsets to help patients with Borderline Personality Disorder, but I have found them really useful even though I don’t have BPD. In fact, I think they’d be helpful for any human, really. Especially humans who are deeply sensitive. And of that I can definitely be accused. 😉

The skills have helped me learn how to be more mindful of what I’m feeling and, from there, address that feeling immediately. Addressing it sometimes just means acknowledging it and letting it go. Sometimes it means reframing the emotion toward gratitude. And sometimes—most of the time—it means just admitting that it’s there.

I know. Eureka! But seriously, how many times have you experienced an uncomfortable emotion and just pushed it down and then wondered why you feel gross two hours later? What she prescribes after seeing that emotion rolling in is some good old radical acceptance. Radical acceptance is that totally unsexy thing in which all sexy solutions can be found.

In this video Lineham explains how, “Suppressing what you want is not the way to go. You have to radically accept that you want something you don’t have—and it’s not a catastrophe.” And once you get used to the fact that not having what you want is not a catastrophe, you’ll be better equipped to start a plan to get that thing you wanted OR get closer to being a peace with not having it.

“Radical acceptance would transform everyone if it’s a regular practice,” Lineham says.

In terms of creativity, I think that’s a really powerful tool. I’ve been struggling lately with taking the time I need to make new work. I feel like I’m not getting enough done quickly enough, and as deadlines I’ve set for myself just cruise on by undone, I feel worse and worse.

I know I’m not alone in this. Writer Anne Helen Petersen’s recent Buzzfeed article “How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation” went viral for a reason. And it’s not just Millennials. We are all so used to moving so fast—for financial survival, social validation, “self-preservation,” and a million other reasons—we’ve never learned how to get used to taking things slow. Taking things slowly makes us uncomfortable. It seems misaligned with how we’ve always lived our lives, achievement- and extra-curricular and pleasure-chasing culture that we are.

Plus, for me at least, going slowly also seems to be a direct affront to how much we recognize we have. As we are exposed more than ever to the injustices of this world, we feel gratitude for the unfairness we do NOT face. With that knowledge constantly top of mind, it feels like a waste of all of this privilege if we don’t do a million and one things with it; to do “nothing” with the advantages we have feels disrespectful to those who don’t have them. On top of all that, when we feel so ultimately powerless to change the world, “getting shit done” seems the least we can do.

But what, truly, are we achieving by burning ourselves at both ends? What do we avoid accepting? What real or powerful change do we avoid making when we go for the quick hits instead?

Personally, I want to take more time this year taking my time. I want to practice acceptance. And accept that I need to practice. Practice is progress and progress is better than perfection.

Perfection might get shit done faster on the surface. But usually everything is burning underneath.

TLDR:

Art you should know: Sally Nixon’s 365 Insta challenge

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Little Rock-based illustrator Sally Nixon illustrates colorful scenes from everyday life. Their bright colors pull you in, their keen observations of human movement make you stay a while, and their dynamic characters keep you coming back.

One of my first-favorite Sally Nixon illustrations (I now have too many to call it my favorite-favorite) was an illustration of a girl taking a shower and absentmindedly making shapes out of the strands of hair on her shower wall. I totally do that, too! I imagine a lot of us with long hair do. But it was the first time I had seen that private moment shown to me by someone else.

Observation and relentlessly relatable documentation is Sally’s art super power.

She draws all kinds of people but mostly women. Women eating. Peeing. Hanging out. Thinking. Not smiling, but not not-smiling. Women just being ordinarily ordinary people—which is exactly what makes her work so extraordinarily compelling.

Well, that and all the bright details in her backgrounds. I wish there was an Airbnb with rentals composed entirely of Sally Nixon apartments and rooms.

"Bri" by Sally Nixon
I’m also endlessly attracted to Bri, fab pizza-getting undercover spy queen. She’s got secrets and pepperoni up her sleeve! My kind of girl.

Check out Sally’s Etsy, her book “Houseplants and Hot Sauce: A Seek-and-Find Book for Grown-Ups,” or her Instagram, where it appears she’s doing the 365 day creative challenge and posting a new work every day. I can’t wait to see what mundane moment she makes feel like magic next.

My list of books to read this month

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Severance by Ling Ma

I activated my Book of The Month Club membership again. I have started and stopped before, based on no fault of theirs, just my indecision about whether paying $15 a month for a book is worth it when I can request and read it for free from the library.

Here’s what I’ve decided: While it’s true that I’d save money if I just used the library, I’d also have to wait a long time for my turn on the wait list. With new releases, I always have to wait at least a few weeks. That means I’m never really sure when my request will come in, so I end up borrowing other books, and then when the book finally does come in, I have to drop everything to finish it before it’s due back. There’s no way you’re getting an option to renew on a HOT new book with a wait list. It’s stressful!

Therefore. I found a compromise. I bought a year’s-worth of BOTM membership so I don’t have a weird, unnecessary panic attack every month I get charged for a book. I saved a little buying the 12 books up front, but I did it more for the mental freeeeeedom. Now that it’s all paid off, I feel like I’m getting gifted a free book each month!

AND IS THERE ANYTHING BETTER THAN THAT?

First up, I chose “Severance” by Ling Ma. Three reasons.

1) My brother, who is a voracious reader and librarian, recommended it to me.

2) It has a really rad minimalist book jacket that I just want to own and have on my bookshelves. I’m so book-basic sometimes and I don’t even care.

3) The story sounds really intriguing. Candace Chen is a first-generation American, busy New Yorker, and #bossbitch Millennial doin’ it fo’ herself… and is increasingly disillusioned by what all of that means—and doesn’t. Soon, Shen Fever consumes the city and, in its zombie-crusted aftermath, Candace joins a group heading to Chicago for survival. However, Candace is hiding a mystery that could soon put her in danger with her apocalyptic pals.

“Rather than an Average Joe, Ma gives us a Specific Chen, conjuring an experience of the apocalypse through the lens of someone whose variegated identity is not an exotic distraction but part of the novel’s architecture. The chapters of ‘Severance’ alternate between the narrative present—in which Candace, having been rescued by the survivors fleeing New York, tries to adapt to their tense group dynamics—and extended flashbacks that take us through her life, in reverse. The layers of Candace’s distinctive personal history are peeled away slowly, imitating the tentativeness and ambivalence with which many second-generation immigrants reveal themselves, caught between the desire to belong and the longing to be known.”

“Ling Ma’s ‘Severance’ Captures the Bleak, Fatalistic Mood of 2018,” from The New Yorker

The Best American Essays 2018 edited by Hilton Als

I so enjoyed my recent read of “The Best American Essays 2016,” I decided to give the newest edition a go. Editor Hilton Als won the 2017 Pulitzer in criticism, and I look forward to reading his picks.

I’ll admit, I didn’t understand what an essay was before I read the compilation in BAE 2016. I’d wager my misconception is common, since the literary version of the form is so different from what we all slogged through in undergrad. I think they’re so great! A potent mix of journalistic technique, creative narrative, and critical transience, a well-done essay can give your brain something to chew on for days, months, years.

Most pumped for: Leslie Jamison’s entry, “The March on Everywhere.” I just read her book “The Recovering” and am, predictably, smitten. Aaaaand, turns out she edited BAE 2017, which means my to-read list just got one entry longer.

On writing: How to survive the Taste Gap

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A goodie from the one and only Ira Glass.

Just. Keep. Working.

Even when your output sucks. Because it’s going to suck. For a long time.

I love this video by artist David Shiyang Liu.

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish somebody had told this to me: all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there’s, like, this gap. For the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good. It’s not that great. It’s trying to be good. It has ambition to be good. But it’s not that good. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. Your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you. You know what I mean? A lot of people never get past that phase. A lot of people, at that point, they quit. The thing I just would like to say to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste and they could tell what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be. They knew it fell short. It didn’t have the special thing that we want it to have. And, the thing I’ll say to you, is everybody goes through that. And for you to go through it, if you’re going through it right now, if you’re just getting out of that phase, you gotta know that’s totally normal and the most important possible thing you could do is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week or every month you know you’re going to finish one story. Because it’s only by actually going through a volume of work that you’re actually going to catch up and close that gap, and the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions. It takes a while. It’s gonna take you a while. It’s normal to take a while. You just have to fight your way through that.

OK?”

Ira Glass