Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Week 3 Already?!

Hey y'all! I cannot believe that I have already finished 1/5th of my internship! I thought that it would be a struggle to get up early in the morning and go to work all day, but I absolutely love it. Well, maybe not the getting up early part. But I do love the structure that having a full time job brings.

I'm all about structure as my past roommates could probably tell you. (Sorry Dev, Emily, and Alex!) I like to have everything in its place. And what do I do when I have a lot to think about or am stressed? I clean. And organize. And reorganize. It doesn't matter what it is: drawers, closets, craft stuff, bookshelves, everything. It somehow calms me. And there were even a couple of times this past year that I would have so much to think about that I would clean all of my 1/4th of the room and then move on to other people's areas. Oops! Sorry again, roomies!

The structured part of me also loves routines. I have the same routine every morning and every night. I've been in the bad habit of watching Netflix (specifically Psych right now) until late at night because let's be honest, it's way to easy to press the "next episode" button. Anyway, recently I've been trying to keep myself from looking at any time of screen (tv, laptop, or iPad) for at least an hour before I go to bed. I'm using that time to get in my fun/personal reading (instead of reading for work), get ready for bed, do devotions, etc. This allows me to slow down at the end of my day as well as make sure that I'm working through my personal reading list.

Quick side note: I just finished reading Emma by Jane Austin and loved it. Of course, I knew that I would because I love all of the movies and loved Pride and Prejudice. Part of me wants to read through all of Jane Austin's books in a row, but the other part wants to spread them out and read some other books. Do y'all have any good suggestions?

Now for the getting up early part. Am I scatterbrained or what?! I have a rough time waking up, like most people, and was in the habit of pressing the snooze button multiple times. One of the main problems with that though, was that I would forget how many times I had pressed snooze. It would be the fifth time I was pressing it (with 5 minute intervals) and think it was only the third time. I was then rushing around trying to get ready which just starts of my day wrong. I decided that that needed to change and ideally I would say that I bought a Jawbone UP bracelet, but sadly I did not. (I've been craving that bracelet ever since my favorite blogger did a review on it.) But, I did go with a cheaper option. I found an app on my phone called SleepBot and it's been so helpful! I set my alarm to go off at 7:00 AM and press "Going to sleep...". Then I place my phone on the bed next to me and go to sleep. Through the night it tracks my movement (and even records noises during the night if you want it to. How cool if you talk during your sleep!). Then, in the morning, it wakes me up when I'm at the most shallow part of my REM cycle and within 30 minutes before my alarm. So when I set my alarm for 7:00 AM, it will wake me up between 6:30 and 7:00 AM. The first morning I tried it, I heard the alarm and went to press snooze (as a terrible habit). Before I hit the button though, I realized that I was awake and didn't need it! I've been using it for 9 days now and it really does work! I can also go back through my log and see each day individually (with a graph of my movement, sound recordings, duration of sleep, sleep time, wake time, a star rating of how well I slept, and notes of what I dreamed of which can be pretty funny), or I can see a trend of every day in a month and how I'm doing with my sleep. I've set a goal in the app of sleeping at least 8 hours every night and it lets me know if I have a sleep debt and the average amount I sleep every night. Maybe I'm just a nerd, but I love all of these stats! This app is for an android phone, but there are tons for iPhones as well. Let me know if you try one and how it goes!

Final note: I really enjoy getting comments and feedback because then I feel like I'm talking to people instead of just myself :) Also, I'm always looking for book suggestions or blog topic suggestions! So ask questions about my internship or life or anything, and you'll be helping me out!

No comments:

Post a Comment