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I need an energy boost!

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Have you experienced something like this: you have all the motivation to do something but when you get home from work you feel tired and not in the mood? Or you need a bunch of coffee in the morning to even get going? If so, then you are like me, always a billion ideas and when it becomes time to do them, I only want to laze around.
To combat that, I went on the hunt for something that will help me be more energetic. I knew one thing was sleep. I often do not get enough sleep but the worst is, even if I get enough sleep, I likely still do not feel super alert in the morning. While searching around, I discovered this app called Sleep Cycle Alarm that will track your movements in bed using your smart phone, and then wake you up during a light sleep phase. When we sleep, we go through cycles of roughly 90 minutes with deep sleep and light sleep. This app helps not to be woken during a deep sleep period.
Startpage – Sleep Cycle alarm clock
I loved the idea and after trying it for a few weeks, I think it can be a good tool. Maybe having the phone right under your pillow might be a little disturbing for people but you can switch it to airplane mode, and it will not emit any signals.
However, it did not work for me. Why? I have dogs. And those guys do not care when my light sleep phase is at all 🙂 So unfortunately I had to abandon this app.

Then I found was an article about morning routines and it often came down to things like journalling, eating well, exercise, and mindfulness. All things I wanted to incorporate in my life anyways.
Morning Routines: How Successful People Start Their Day
But sticking to habits is harder than you think. Again you start out with much motivation and then you forget or find other things to do instead.

Because I love gadgets – although I do not know if that is always such a great thing and I should rather focus on the basics – I found another app to help form habits. It has journeys that will guide you through habits around a specific goal like feeling more energized. It helps remembering and doing habits daily with challenges as well as step by step tutorials for activities like meditation and exercise.
The Fabulous
Great concept and fun app, but I had the feeling I was being rushed through. Suddenly I had a long list of habits that was just overwhelming because none of them I had done long enough to really be ingrained into my routine. At least that is how it made me feel, so I stopped using it (for a while).

Finally something promising popped up. For a while I have been following the blog of Leo Babauta of Zen Habits. I believe I have mentioned him in last post. Recently he promoted his book “Zen Habits”. It was exactly around the problem I have been facing with sticking to habits.
A wonderfully structured, slow but consistent approach including mindfulness that promises to be successful.
I picked exercising as a habit to follow along with the steps in the book. I am about half way through and it really seems to hit a nerve.
My New Book: Essential Zen Habits : zen habits
This is also why I tried to pick up the Fabulous app again. With the method of Zen Habits I am planning on using the app as a tracking tool at my own pace instead of theirs. I hope they are adding a journalling function in the future, because I currently do that in a little book. Although writing in a book may not be too bad either as I can also journal about my day also instead of only related to the habit. I am excited to finish the book, because I am very optimistic.

My plan for this blog however is to go back to progress reports on my arts and crafts projects.
It is due time I create something again and give you some pictures to look at. Ideas and plans I have enough for that 🙂

Until next time!

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