Inspiration | March 28

DSC_0025This quote from Amy Poehler is a new favourite. 

I watched both Brené Brown’s TED talks this week. She is amazing, and such an inspiration. She gave me so many ideas about how I want to live my life. 

The TED Radio Hour on success was equally inspiring and thought provoking. Amazing. It made me think about how I want to define success for me. 

Incredibly important: Why domestic violence victims don’t leave. 

“We think we’re alone in our fears, but we’re not. We think we’re worse than others in our failures, but we’re not.”

Seth Godin talks about bringing your own chair to the table, or just making a new table. Abundance! 

Hugh Forte is one of my favourite photographers, and his sand dune portrait session this week made me so happy (and made me want to work really hard). 

I liked these thoughts on “running away” from your problems.

Joy the Baker writes some beautiful words by John Steinbeck on her blog. 

Vegan chai ice cream yes please immediately thank you. I’d also like to make chickpea socca and chocolate chip cookies. 

A wonderful reminder: 19 Tiny Things You Can Do to Make the World a (Slightly) Better Place. 

This post gave me serious wanderlust (yes, even though I’m in a foreign country!). 

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This weekend I’m hoping to check out an outdoor market, explore another coastal temple, and spend some quality time at the beach. Have an awesome weekend! 

How I Use My Bullet Journal

BJ3I love to make lists and write things down to keep my thoughts (and life) organized, and over the years I’ve had many different systems for doing so. I had a brief love affair with the Filofax system, but it just wasn’t flexible enough for me. At one point I just wrote things down on a yellow pad of paper, but the lack of organization and potential for sheets to be ripped out or lost ended up stressing me out, so that was short lived. For a couple years now, my go-to has been a simple lined notebook. I’ve used notebooks made by Clairefontaine and Moleskine and I love both.  My favourite size is the Moleskine Large size, 8.25 x 5”.

Then recently I hit upon a new system for organizing things within the notebook itself: bullet journaling! It’s actually a very simple system, but something about the guidelines it sets out has helped me to feel much more organized and in control of all the information I want to keep track of on a daily basis.

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First of all, the system uses an index and numbered pages. I haven’t been too consistent about writing down what pages my lists are on and then looking them up, but the times that I remember to do so, I’ve saved lots of time not flipping around from one list to another trying to remember where I wrote what.

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It also has a monthly calendar and to-do list at the beginning of each month, followed by pages for daily lists. In the monthly calendar I usually just write down the biggest event that day (I have another agenda that I use for keeping track of appointments), more as a memory aid than anything else. I love the monthly to-do list and use it all the time. The items on the monthly to-do list end up getting transferred to my daily to-do lists and nothing is forgotten. Sometimes, when I’m stressed out, my daily to-do list is short and includes easy items like “shower” (see below) so that I feel better about my productivity. It works!

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The daily lists are great, because the bullet journal symbol system makes it easy to incorporate all different kinds of information. The black dot is for ideas & inspiration and might include a book title I heard about that day or a possible birthday gift for a friend. The circle is for events, so this can act as a dayplanner as well. And the square is for to-do list items, perfect for being checked off once they’re accomplished.

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And then, of course, are all the random lists. I constantly have a “catch-all” list on the go for writing down all kinds of “black dot” items (ideas & inspiration), some of which end up being turned into to-do list items. Every few days, as the list fills up, I’ll go back and highlight the ones that I haven’t yet taken action on (for example: looked up, researched, figured out, added to my GoodReads, etc) just so they don’t all blur together. Other examples of lists in my most recent bullet journal include: groceries, Korean bucket list, observations, blog post ideas.

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And it’s really as simple as that. It’s not necessarily ground-breaking, but for me, even just the idea of having different symbols for different types of information was tremendously helpful. I’m still tweaking the system to work for me and coming up with new symbols to indicate different things, but so far I love this simple method. Check out the bullet journal website & video to learn more. Any organization methods you’d like to share? I’d love to hear them! I’m endlessly fascinated by office supplies and productivity tips.

My Favourite Podcasts

Podcasts

I try to surround myself with as much inspiration, positivity and food for thought as I possibly can. I’ve recently begun to realize that consumption is a hugely important part of the creative process, and I think that feeding yourself knowledge and big ideas can make such a difference in how you live your life and what you end up giving back to the world. And podcasts have quickly become one of my absolute favourite ways to learn and to be inspired.

Podcasts aren’t just being made in someone’s basement anymore (although some are, and some of those are awesome too!) – the format is now an outlet for really high quality, well-produced radio content. Maybe the word “podcast” still has amateur connotations for you, but I’d urge you to give it another chance because there’s so much out there now that’s worth discovering. I’m the first to admit I’m still only scratching the surface of this wonderful world of podcasting, and I’m constantly stumbling upon amazing shows that already have hundreds of episodes in the archives.

Here are five of my current favourite shows: some are old faves, some are recently discovered, but they’re all great.

This American Life / In my mind, this show is the gold standard for podcasting. Put simply, in their words: “each week we choose a theme and bring you a series of stories on that theme”. The theme can be anything from strange coincidences to secret identities and everything – and I do mean everything – in between.  The stories can be in the form of spoken fiction or interviews basic reporting style, or even voice actors doing a play. No matter what the theme is, the show is always endlessly fascinating. Sometimes I’ll read the description and think it sounds boring or weird, but once I actually listen to what they’ve put together, I am never disappointed. Plus, the host Ira Glass’ voice is so quirky and captivating, and he asks fantastic questions.

The Savage Lovecast / Dan Savage is smart and respectful and unafraid to tell it like it is. On the podcast he answers all kinds of questions from callers about love and sexuality and I’m continually impressed and fascinated by two things: 1) he rarely seems surprised by a question and is hardly ever unkind; and 2) the diverse experiences, relationships and sexualities that callers talk to him about. He is no-nonsense, straight forward (his favourite thing to say is “use your words!”), and practical. His advice is always excellent. The show has broadened my worldview and taught me a ton.

The Joy the Baker Podcast / Joy and Tracy are best friends and they make me want to be their best friend too. They talk about all kinds of “totally important, unimportant things” like TV shows or baking tips, as well as answer questions from listeners, and they do it all in the most hilarious, endearing way. They are smart and accomplished women but they’re also so down to earth and charming. I look forward to this one every week.

TED Radio Hour / This is a new one I’m just getting into, but so far I’ve really enjoyed it. The show weaves together recordings of different TED talks as well as interviews that relate to a chosen topic. The topics are always fascinating: one I listened to was on the simple art of happiness, another about the sense of identity. A recent one I listened to about solutions to various social problems literally brought me to tears. The format is great: they don’t play the entire talk, only the key ideas, and deliver the whole show in a conversational, interesting, and coherent way.

After the Jump / Another recent addition to my podcast arsenal, but it has been informative and interesting thus far. It focuses mostly work and life balance, productivity, and creativity. I’ve been going through the archives and just picking out the episodes that sound the most interesting (“Live the Life You Want to Live”, for example) and so far I’ve really enjoyed them all. Each one has given me lots of things to think about and apply in my own life. 

Bonus: Guinea Pigging Green / I just had to throw this one in there! This is a podcast I host with my good friend Laura about all things health + wellness-related: mind, body and soul. We like to talk about everything from peanut butter to meditation, and this week’s episode is about taking risks and tips on making big life decisions. 

Happy listening!

Inspiration | March 21

DSC_0003These three questions that determine if you have long-term potential with someone as a romantic partner are quirky and seem silly, but at the same time I have pretty strong answers to all of them, so maybe they’re on to something! (For the record, my answers: I hate them. Yes, and it was wonderful. Yes, but only if we could still find ways to work, be creative, and contribute.)

The number I’ve read of this list of self-improvement books is pretty low, but it’s made my “to-read list” much longer. 

I’ve never been that into makeup but I must have watched 30 of the videos from this Youtube channel this week. 

This interview on MarieTV with the founder of Pencils of Promise both touched and inspired me. 

I liked this interview with Austin Kleon, especially the quote “you’re only as good as your last post”. 

Reading about this notebook made me positively giddy. I am such a paper person but I also love having everything organized on the computer…#geek

I want to make and eat these things: Baked Carrot Cake Oatmeal | Double Chocolate Chip Banana Bread | Chilled Chocolate Torte | Grain Free Chocolate Granola

This episode of the TED Radio Hour made me cry. 

I loved these 6 minute minimalist workouts. Simple but effective. 

I’ve also been filling my brain with lots of podcasts lately. I’ll be sharing my favourites on Monday! 

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This weekend I have plans to go for a hike, get to the beach, and explore a beautiful temple. The weather is supposed to be really lovely too, and I’m excited! Have an awesome weekend. 

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