Using the Mindful Movement as an Antidote to Stress

 

Give yourself a gift for the upcoming holidays…

Inspiration is difficult to come by these days, but it isn’t completely gone. I find myself to be in a constant pursuit of inspiration to enjoy life.

Experts say that the key to relieving stress is to tune in to what is happening in your body and calming your nervous system. The Mindful Movement is about making this possible. This is what the expression “put your own oxygen mask on first,” and the “buzzphrases” self-care and me time are about.

The Mindful Movement focuses on combining that tuning in process with gentle physical activity and breathing for full mind-body relaxation. It’s all about noticing how you feel when you are moving — being aware of the sensations in your body. This kind of moving is not about the outcome but to bring awareness to your body without judgement.

I’ve found this to be a lovely way to focus on my body and connect to my breath to lower stress levels. It is supported by research proving that the impact of mindfulness reduces stress and anxiety while increasing overall happiness.

I encourage you to give this a try during the during the emotional and physical demands of the upcoming holiday season. It only takes a few minutes a day and will make a big difference. During the rest of the year, you’ll find that it will help with stressful deadlines at work and the chaos of family schedules.

Why not make a new year goal to embrace mindfulness in your life and create a mindful movement routine for yourself? It only requires setting a separate time from your fitness routine to have a clear intention for the outcome.

Consistency is key here. Choose the length of time to devote to mindfulness each day. It can be 5 minutes or 30 minutes but try to do it every day.

It’s important to trust the process — a mindfulness routine takes practice and you will get used to it when you stick with it. The more you practice, the deeper the impact of your mindful movement will be.

The best way to calm your nervous system is to breathe. Be sure to do it slowly and with long exhales. Yoga aims at enhancing the energy that flows through the body with the benefits of breathing. I like to use 10 minute Yin Yoga from YouTube videos (free) to stretch and relieve tension and deeply move my shoulders, neck, hips and spine. These are areas where so many of us hold tension. Try to move with the quality of a yawn or early morning stretch. the goal of mindfulness is for one to focus on the present moment with a “quiet mind”.

At the end of the video, I let myself rest in gravity. This type of active rest allows me to feel a grounding sensation in my body. I take advantage of this “floating” feeling in my head to engage in a 10 minute guided meditation to set intentions for my day. I see it as a way to center myself and relax my mind, without a religious connection. There are literally thousands of videos available for free on YouTube for this as well. In less than an hour, I’ve centered myself physically and mentally before starting my day.

Over time, I can’t say enough about the benefits this brings to your life. It has brought me many positive effects -from health benefits to my outlook on life and a general sense of well-being. Recent studies have shown that practicing meditation daily can even help slow down unwanted side effects of aging.

The point is to try to move and breathe mindfully for a few minutes every day. It is a small price to pay to give yourself the tools you need to help you live better.

The Power of Inefficiency

 

Some things in life just cannot be rushed…

How blessed are we to have modern technology to make our lives easier? We can do things faster and communicate better so that, in our spare time, we can sit around and binge watch our favorite shows.

No, wait, that can’t be right…

I have to admit, it is really nice to have the convenience of technology in our everyday lives. While it feels like we’ve increased our efficiency, I wonder if we have actually gotten more time back and, if so, how are we spending that time? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for progress — self-driving cars, groceries delivered right to our doors, ordering whatever we want, whenever we want with the touch of a button- almost like magic.

It’s amazing that technology can accommodate those who need that extra help. But I wonder if I need that much convenience in my life. And am I willing to work more to afford that life of luxury and comfort? I’m grateful to even have this choice.

What I’m trying to say is that there are some things in life that just cannot be rushed and sometimes the technology that’s supposed to be helping our lives sometimes feels like it’s taking away something much more valuable from us.

This is why the slow living movement really opened my eyes. My idea of luxury isn’t to live a comfortable life where things are just done for me. I want to be fully present for every moment — even if it takes more time and effort.

I think life would be quite dull and meaningless if we outsourced everything and things were just done for us. This is why I’ve implemented some slow living habits that might be more inefficient but provide more value and meaning into my life.

I look forward to going to the farmer’s market or grocery store. It’s not about picking out the meals for the week or getting the best deals. If I’m at the farmers market, it’s about the experience of it all — seeing the artists and their craft, listening to all the interesting stories, being inspired by how passionate people are about their plants, even about banana bread. While it’s not the most efficient way of doing groceries, it’s all about the experience. That, to me, counts for something. Instead of rushing to the things I must do, like my daily chores and errands that I have to run, my routines.

I hope that I never forget to enjoy the experience because these simple moments in between the big ones are what make up the majority of our days.

I have to admit — I used to be the person who would speed up the audio on my audiobook. I thought that reading meant I had to read the book from front to back. I just ended up with a long list of books I would completely forget the moment I finished them. I think we all seek instant gratification and I’m also guilty of this. No matter how fast I want to jump to the conclusion, I learned that some things take time for us to fully understand, to grasp the meaning and for us to grow. Creating a piece of art, a sincere conversation with a friend, learning something new, healing from a past — these are things we simply cannot press fast-forward on.

Sometimes it’s not even about the ending but the process itself. I’ve decided it’s better to dive deep while I can and give myself all the time I need without even thinking about the finish line.

I completely understand that efficiency is crucial for busy people. But solely depending on it can take the meaning out of the things that we do. I used to enjoy looking for the right gift for the person that I loved and seeing their face light up with joy. But life got busy so it was much easier to just buy a gift than to make something or take the time to write a heartfelt letter . That’s when the idea of ordering something online and having it delivered right to their door sounded like a great idea — but it never had the same sentiment.

When did relationships get so transactional? Was I too busy for the people that I loved? If so, what was I valuing more?

Something that takes time, effort and heart cannot be replicated or substituted. I’ve decided I never want to be too busy to give a piece of myself to the people that I love. Even with all the technological advancements, the greatest gift that we can still give to each other is our time, attention and our love.

When living a fast-paced life, relaxing feels like coming to a sudden stop on a running treadmill. With that free time, we could be working on our next project, planning our next move, or catching up on whatever we’re falling behind on. But I’ve always wondered how long that would be sustainable. Probably until we hit a wall and feel burnt out. Taking the time to relax and rest cannot be rushed and it’s not a sign of weakness or laziness but vital for our well being.

We can schedule a spa day, listen to a meditation app, buy all the tools to help us relax, but if we can’t learn to slow down our minds and give ourselves some breathing space, there would be no point in just going through the motions.

My favorite way to relax is reading a book, taking the time to do my nightly skincare routine, watching a movie or video while I do things around the house or taking a random nap on a Sunday afternoon after a brisk hike or bike ride. It doesn’t take much but it’s more about giving myself the permission to relax and recharge.

Any machine can perform a task more accurately and efficiently than we can. But is perfectionism really the ultimate goal? If we don’t make any mistakes, how are we ever grow and mold into a better version of ourselves?

I’ve decided that I want my efforts to go into trying and becoming better along the way. I’ve always defined myself by my progress more than my accomplishments.

I feel like the less I depend on technology, the more I depend on myself. Before GPS, how did I ever travel? Before having recipes at my fingertips, how did I ever cook? Before I had my phone, how did I do anything? Sure, it’s nice to have the help sometimes but I’ve noticed that, while technology can add comfort and luxury into our lives, it cannot truly replace the fundamental things.

In society’s eyes, I may be inefficient or it may look like I’m not keeping up with the modern times. But I think there are things in life worth taking time for. There’s more to life than just being efficient and getting things done. There’s more to me than just being a productive machine.

It seems that my whole life I’ve been rushing from one task to the next but I’ve ended up exactly where I’m supposed to be — not a single day ahead or a single day behind. I no longer care about finishing 50 books by the end of the year or seeing how much I can check off my to-do list in a day. In the bigger picture, what value does that really bring into my life?

At the end of the day, I want to know that I still find purpose in the work that I do. I want to know that I helped someone or I felt inspired in some way. And if all else fails, I want to know that at least I had some fun along the way. These are the values I want to live my life by.

It may require me to take the longer path and that’s ok.

Seinfeld is back - and it's a big deal!

 

Society has changed a lot since Seinfeld’s heyday…

I was ecstatic to hear Seinfeld was on Netflix! And yes, I too am watching it and revisiting the familiar characters and the comedic flair of a 30 -year-old show about nothing.

I was more than a little surprised that Netflix acquired the exclusive streaming rights to the show from was it reportedly more than half a billion dollars and began hosting it in October.

I’m thoroughly enjoying its single half-hour episodes sometimes almost playing in the background while I prepare dinner do stuff around the house.

While Co-creator Larry David has continued to explore the same comedy mode in his HBO series, Curb Your Enthusiasm, that premiered in 1999, I never became a fan as much as I was of Seinfeld. Experts in the network television industry state that shows like Seinfeld, as well as Friends, The Office, and The Big Bang Theory, have had staggering streaming-rights acquisition deals over the last few years. These shows are said to be “a carefully calibrated unit of content designed to go down as easy as possible.”

I always thought of Seinfeld as a state of mind and not just a sitcom. To this day, it doesn’t fail to put me in a “Seinfeld mood” in my own life. I’ve been quoting some of the antics from the show long after it aired its final episode. It was a show that invited us to participate in the terminology of the characters (shrinkage, the Jesus Freak, the High Talker, etc.). I still find myself quoting it 30 years later.

These days when I watch Seinfeld, I realize that I’m confronting my age. It takes me back to the days of NBC’s Must See TV — definitely a “must see” in our house. I remember how it made everyone mad when the series finale aired in 1998 — even the DJ’s on the radio were complaining about it.

Now when I re-watch it, I’m taken back to the decade of the 90’s in which the show was based. In particular, the anxieties that belonged to that decade — answering machines, VCR’s, straight characters confronting queer people (“Not that there’s anything wrong with that!”). Most interestingly for me is that the show communicated the things about humanity we are most ashamed to acknowledge. A lot of it was about shame, which is a social emotion that requires other people to function.

Personally, I’m delighted to see Seinfeld now on Netflix, and that others are watching it too. Perhaps even those who didn’t watch it the first time around.

The Pleasures (and Struggles) of Thriving Solo

It’s time to level the playing field…

I recently found out that marriage rates are at a record low and that the number of adults without partners has been rising at a steady rate. However, American society still considers the adult as one with a partner and the standard household as multiple people.

According to the latest count of the Census Bureau, there are about 36 million solo dwellers — making up 28 percent of U.S. households. Even though this trend has been building for decades, single adults living alone still seem to be living in a society that is stacked against them. When it comes to healthcare, work, shopping and housing, it becomes a lot easier if you have a partner or live with family members.

The fact is that each year, more and more single people who live alone are burdened by this.

Just to be clear, those who live alone are not lonely and miserable. According to research, single people are more social than those who have partners.

In her book “How We Live Now: Redefining Home and Family in the 21st Century”, author Bella DePaulo points out some of the pleasures of having your own space: “the privacy, the freedom to arrange your life and your space just the way you want it — you get to decide when to sleep, when to get up, what you eat, when you eat, what you watch on Netflix, how you set the thermostat.”

The downsides of living alone tend to be more on the level of society and not so much on a personal level. Certainly having a partner makes large and small expenses more affordable, from the overhead costs of daily life to utility bills, rent or even a down payment on a house.

A recent study pointed out that, for a couple, living separately is about 28 percent more costly than living together.

Many managers in the workplace presume an employee who lives alone has extra time to stay at the office or take on extra projects simply because they don’t have a family to go home to. Some are not even compensated fairly because managers give raises based on the assumption that an employee with a family has more expenses for child care, etc.

This means that if many workers who live alone end up making less money, they face less favorable pricing options than other shoppers. Buying food in larger quantities at the grocery store is cheaper but people who live alone normally will not consume perishable items quickly enough.

I wish more stores would let me buy only as much of an item as I please, instead of forcing me to buy large package sizes. Even in the case of paper towels or toilet paper that don’t spoil, I don’t have space to stockpile.

There are communities where single residents get to have their own spaces with expansive shared areas where they can run into other people. If you were to need help moving heavy furniture or need a ride somewhere in an emergency, a neighbor is easy to reach. We need more options like this to make solo living easier.

I strongly believe that if housing, health care and education weren’t so expensive, more people would thrive for the joys of living solo.

The Art of Kind Conversation

 

We need to be cautiously aware of the words we use in our communication.

I am amazed at the uncontrolled and selfish conversing I see and hear everywhere lately. In these turbulent times, I see and hear harsh opinions on TV, social media, and restaurants. Have people forgotten “It’s just your opinion”? Just because you have an opinion doesn’t mean you are ‘right’ and the other person is ‘wrong’. It’s just your opinion. We all have a right to voice our opinions but not to insult or antagonize others with it.

These days, a lot of us have hundreds and thousands of ‘friends’ on social media that we don’t even know personally. Remember, all those friends have their opinions, too. Also, let’s not forget that communication includes tone of voice, body language and facial expressions that cannot be used when texting or posting.

Have you been unfriended or unfollowed? Do you do that to others? I know family members who have done that with each other. This would mean they are disengaging from an environment that was built to connect us. I do it when it’s obvious that certain people have not learned the skill of kind conversation.

If you feel strongly about an issue, you can get support for it by joining social media groups that support your opinion. There you can openly voice your beliefs and support others. You can even create your own group!

If you prefer to do this face to face, you can join or create your own Meetup.com group. This is a platform that allows people a way to meet locally or online to discuss interests, passions and opinions for varied purposes.

It’s important to consider the source of your opinions. Where does your opinion come from? Did you inherit it from your parents or through religion? Are you clear on the facts behind your opinion? Would you be able to argue it if you were challenged?

Consider challenging yourself from time to time to determine how deeply your opinion is rooted and if you have an open mind for discussion when you are face-to-face with someone. Our opinions can sometimes be changed or modified — even yours!

You can open yourself up for alternative options from the privacy of your home. You can read controversial articles or turn on the TV to an opposing channel and listen with an open mind. You can turn on YouTube and watch videos that declare a different opinion than yours.

Documentaries are a great way to do this because they are based on facts. They can make you aware of things you were not aware of before watching the video. You can have alternatives to your thinking instead of ‘black and white’, ‘right or wrong’.

Labeling tends to create division instead of togetherness. Why do we use terms like conservative, liberal, left wing, right wing? How about the labeling of races… aren’t we just all human beings?

We need to be more cautiously aware of the words we use in our communication.

If someone wants to push their opinion on you, you can leave a confrontation decisively and calmly. You can delay the conversation and state: “This is not the time or place for this conversation. Can we pick it up later when I’m more prepared to answer?”

You can also respond by saying “I appreciate you sharing your opinion. You have the right to yours as I have the right to mine. Your friendship is more important than our differences”. You can even add, “Let’s go to dinner, watch the game, get a coffee.”

It’s important to remember that relationships are much more important than opinions. Life would be short and sad if, at the end of the day, you are sitting all by yourself tightly surrounded by your opinion.

12 Great Tools for Teaching Yourself Anything

 

The ultimate active learning experience...

I was recently inspired by a quote by Howard Gardner — “ You learn at your best when you have something you care about and can get pleasure in being engaged in”.

This should be the principle for anyone engaging in any self-learning routine. If you’re studying in some kind of institution, you may have classes that you have a lack of interest in. But, despite your lack of interest, you end up studying the different classes because you need to get your diploma.

When you’re self-studying something you like, there isn’t any type of diploma waiting for you at the end of the line. This is especially true if you’re studying for entertainment purposes and not because you’re going to self-apply for some kind of exam or test.

If you’re going to study something on your own, you need to find a purpose or enjoyment in the process. Without these, you’ll fail sooner or later.

In my opinion, self-directed learning is the ultimate active learning experience. We tend to encode information and retain it better because nothing is being handed out to us. This type of learning is very special because each step of the learning process is ours to decide. Our progress is ours to evaluate and the methods and time management we employ is ours to choose.

However, self-learning is very challenging. It requires a specific set of skills that allow the learner to actively engage in the required activities without external stimuli. Although it may not come naturally to everyone, it’s definitely achievable through the right means.

You really need to identify the purpose of your self-learning before you start thinking about anything else. Are you learning to prep for an exam but can’t afford the prepping program or are you learning because you enjoy engaging in the activity of learning — such as playing an instrument?

It’s important to be practical and really understand where you really want to go with this journey and establish smaller goals. Maybe you want to be able to have a conversation with someone from another country when you go travelling next summer, or maybe to want to be able to play the opening song to that show that you really like. Either way, there should be a smaller goal there and it should have a date. You could write down a list of these goals and mark on your calendar when you should achieve these goals.

Since you won’t have any professors looking at you with disappointment and there’s no possibility that you might end up being the laughing stock of your class when you end up with a poor grade, it’s a good idea to come up with an accountability system for yourself. You can tell a friend or a family member about your self-learning and communicate your goals. Build a spreadsheet that allows you to periodically check in with yourself and monitor your progress. This will turn you into your self-accountability system because no one likes to break a streak or leave those check marks empty for too long.

Learn how to self-learn. There may be information on the internet that tells you how to self-learn your topic specifically. Language learning is an example of this, but you can also find specific information for other skills and subjects.

Consistency is key and so is your calendar. Self-learning is difficult because you need to build your own system and be consistent. Your calendar can be your best friend in this instance. Being consistent means scheduling your learning or practicing sessions in your calendar at a time that will allow you to exploit the maximum capacity of your brain.

Find help and share. By searching the internet, you can find platforms and communities created and managed by people learning the exact same things you are currently learning. Send out emails with your questions and try to be more engaged. This will help you find tips and tricks to speed up your progress.

Don’t forget the basics. Every so often, go back and review the basics of the subject you’ve chosen to study. It’s important to make sure that whatever the foundations of your area of knowledge are, they’re set in stone. This means you can continue pursuing your self-directed learning journey without anything holding you back.

Be skeptical. This is ridiculously important if you’re self-learning. The information you come across may not be verified. You need to be able to challenge the data you find, especially if you’re not taking your information from recognized sources. A good way to find this out is to submit your information to the community of self-learners recommended earlier or trying to find information about the author who wrote it.

Although it can be overwhelming at times, this freedom can be immensely positive. You’re allowed to delve into subjects at a much deeper level instead of looking at the tip of the iceberg as it happens in most college level studies.

Our Most Valuable Resource

 

And how to manage it wisely…

I don’t know about you, but I’m finding time to be extremely valuable now more than ever. The reality is we all have the same 24 hours in a day. So why do some people say they don’t have enough hours in the day and others get a lot more done in the same time? It’s beginning to be less about time management and more about attention management.

With the internet and all the distractions we have in a day, we have to manage our attention in order to make better use of our time. We have to be aware of where we are putting our attention.

Spending an hour, one day a week, writing down what you want to get done throughout the week. This is a way of planning ahead and organizing your time. This could involve meal planning, writing down appointments, etc., a rough draft of what you want to get accomplished that week.

Separate your tasks into “batchwork”. Doing all the laundry in one day, email and file organizing another day, batch similar projects on the same day.

Have a separate “work” calendar and “life” calendar. It can get very confusing keeping work and life tasks on the same calendar. Keep these at a location where they are both easily visible.

Instead of stressing out to get everything done, remove non-essential tasks from your day. There are days when we have to focus on urgent tasks, consider eliminating tasks that can wait until the following day. Some days, there is just not enough time to do everything.

Set a time limit on some tasks. You can use the timer on your phone for this. Timing tasks sometimes allows us to avoid distraction, knowing we only have a certain amount of time to complete get the task done.

Delegate things to other people. Give children small tasks to do around the house. Outsource the duties that are taking a lot of time away from your important tasks.

Minimize social media distractions. This applies specifically when you’re trying to get a task done and your phone notifications are sucking your attention. It’s a good idea to log out of social media apps until you get done what you really need to accomplish.

The point is to use our time in a way that makes our life meaningful. Knowing where you’re spending your time allows you to focus your attention on the things you really want to do in life.

Change Your Mind Change Your Life

Read short and uplifting articles here to help you shift…

How Does Clutter Impact Your Mind?

 

There are psychological effects according to science!

Nobody has to sell you on how clutter makes you feel, right? You just FEEL it. We can all empathize with feeling defeated by mounds of clutter.

On the other hand, we can all get a sense of peace from just letting things go. When you release painful or stressful things from your environment. It makes you feel better. It optimizes your space and your mood at the same time. Let’s face it, when there’s clutter in your home, there will be clutter in you in some form.

There is scientific evidence to support the negative feelings that we get when we are surrounded by clutter and the positive feelings that we get when we are decluttering or making space. Our environment is always a reflection of our minds.

As a matter of fact, our environments have big mouths — they say a lot about us. If most of your clutter belongs to somebody else, it can be an indication that you have issues setting boundaries. If your clutter consists of things you’re holding on to for the future, it could indicate you have distrust in the future. You may feel like you need to hoard — as a squirrel does for the winter, like a buffer of security for the future.

If you’re holding on to stuff you don’t use anymore like your kid’s old clothes or your old things from high school, it could mean you have trouble letting things go, that there’s a part of your life you haven’t worked through or that you feel your best years are behind you.

A study done by UCLA revealed that clutter contributes to stress and increased cortisol levels. Excess cortisol can actually alter the structure of your brain, making you more sensitive to stress and giving you chronic stress as a result.

Clutter influences how you think and feel about yourself. Having your living space all together usually correlates to you having it all together — especially for women. Cluttered environments can result in feelings of low self-worth and can even result in depression. Your environment is influencing your thoughts because you’re surrounded by it every single day. It indicates what you’re willing to tolerate in your own life.

Clutter distracts you from focus. It tricks your brain into switching into a “multitasking” mode — jumping back and forth from thought to thought — greatly distracting you from what you’re trying to focus on. In today’s day and age, multitasking and juggling a million things and thoughts seem impressive but, in reality, it’s decreasing your efficiency and the effectiveness of anything you’re trying to do.

Clutter impacts our behaviors and our kid’s behaviors too. We derive our energy from our environment. Would you feel rejuvenated and rested in a haunted house? You can walk into a day spa and immediately feel calm, relaxed, a release of anxiety.

Our environment is the feedback loop. If you’re looking to create something or up-level your life in any way, the first place that you should start should be your home space or your habitat. Make sure that your environment is supporting the energies that you’re trying to make.

How I Organized My Digital Life After 60

 

Simple ways to reduce the overwhelm…

When I think about it, clutter in technology is not that different from clutter at home. The more disorganized I get, the more overwhelmed I feel and the more frustrating technology becomes to me.

It seems to me that it doesn’t take long for my devices to be full of unused apps. Photos, files and emails are bunched up without order or a system, in various places. Once I feel lost, I feel the need to do a clean up — here are the steps I took to get there.

Tidying up my inbox

Like most of us, I’m guilty of maintaining thousands of emails in my inbox. The issue is my inbox is not a storage bin . I had to learn to treat it like my mailbox at home. It should only have the new mail that hasn’t been opened or processed.

The best way to do keep the inbox from overflowing is to empty it every day. I had to make it a habit. The best way is to review each email and either respond to it, delete it, or move it to a designated folder for future reference.

Email providers give the option to create folders to help keep our space organized. I decided to use this feature and create folders by a person’s name, a topic or an entity.

Since my inbox was already overflowing, I started the clean-up process by bulk deleting emails, especially junk and take control of the email situation. There is also an option to remove all emails at once. This helped me to get back to zero, or at least a manageable number. I also searched the inbox by a sender’s name, and then deleted or but the bunch in a folder.

When I decided to devote half an hour a week to the cleaning up process, I managed to stay out of overwhelm.

Training the Spam Filter

These days junk mail is unavoidable. The spam filter can catch a lot of the garbage so I don’t have to deal with it. However, to get the most of the spam filter, I had to train it by marking it as junk instead of just deleting it. I’ve also gotten into the habit of checking my junk/spam folder once a week to make sure relevant emails are not accidentally caught by the spam filter.

Once I cleaned up my junk email, I started unsubscribing as new unwanted emails came in.

Photo Management

One of my favorite benefits of having a smartphone is that I have a camera everywhere I go, so I don’t miss out on life’s best moments. The downside is that I have photos of every moment and I have multiple shots of the same thing to make sure I got the perfect one. I use a few different methods to keep my photos organized. I take some time after a vacation, or as I’m flying back from a vacation or special event, to go through the photos and delete all except the best images that I want to keep.

There are special recognition filters that makes organizing photos easier. With Apple or Google Photos and multiple other apps, I can assign faces to named people. Photos are automatically sorted into albums by names. All it takes is a little time to get it organized and set up.

Fortunately, cloud storage has gotten very affordable and easy to use. I’ve learned it’s best to back-up my photos to a cloud service in case something happens to my device.

File Organization is Key

My main objective in organizing my digital life is being able to retrieve things when I need them so organization is vital to file management. The search function on my device and computer can be handy to find files, but I can’t just rely on that. I had to set up some critical systems to make my digital life more functional:

• I set up a naming method for my files that is detailed and consistent
• I used dates and keywords in file names
• I created folder structures for high-level categories such as finances, home or Medical. I tried not to make it overly complicated.
• I put digital files in the appropriate folders quickly when saving

I’m making it a practice every quarter of the year to clean up my device and getting rid of every app, game, and file I haven’t used in 90 days. I ask myself: Do I really need this? If not, I delete it!