Renovate your life: Making Exercise, Rest and Relaxation A Priority

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Dearest Devotees,

I know I've been gone awhile and I'm sorry. I've been away discovering myself. I will let you know what I've learnt as time goes on but for right now I really want to talk to you guys about the next step of my renovating your life project: getting physically fit.

Over the past couple of weeks and months I've been experimenting with different exercise methods and routines in a bid to find one that truly works for me and that will not only get my sorry behind out of my bed in the morning whether I'm feeling inspired or not. This has been a very difficult because of two little known facts about me:

1. Despite my love of traveling and meeting people I am a homebody. There are few things I love more than the idea of spending a Saturday at home, lounging in comfortable (yet cute!) clothes and alternately reading for fun/looking out the window at nothing in particular, except for the beauty of the day.

2. I am admittedly and begrudgingly a couch potato. While I love the sense of accomplishment that comes with getting things done, I love resting on a truly comfy couch. And while I do love reading on these couches more than I do watching TV and have been that way ever since I was little, the final outcome is still pretty much the same level of physical activity.

So I'm not a huge fan of most forms of physical activity. This is not to say that I'm not a low energy person. No one that knows me would say this. What it means is that I tend to find more creative ways of using up my energy all day. For a while this meant walking everywhere I could, taking the stairs whenever possible and randomly jumping up and down/ breaking out into dance over the course of the day. This worked, but now I want a little more structure to my exercise routine, so this is what I came up with.

• I start the day with a hardcore full body work out which usually consists of me dancing to my "wake-up!" playlist first and then moving on to practicing routines I'm choreographing for swing or steps I'm learning for hip hop. I love dancing because it's a full body workout and art :). Thirty minutes of this and I'm definitely ready for the day.

• Then some time in the middle of the day, after a couple of hours of work (school or otherwise) I take time out for myself to do something fun that has nothing to do with anything else I usually do e.g. taking a walk down the esplanade along the river, or doing some gentle stretching in my dorm before walking down to the cafe to read for fun for a couple of minutes without interruption from anything stressful. The whole idea of this time is to stop and take a breath and to regenerate for the rest of the day. I once read that some CEOs do this by scheduling "meetings with themselves" in the middle of the day to prevent going crazy because of the work.

• At the end of the day, I wind down with calming exercises like yoga and meditation. The stretching at the end of the day prevents your muscles from tensing up during the night and meditation and if you believe in God, prayer at the end of the day helps to put everything into perspective.

I also various short prayers throughout the day, while moving or transitioning between two activities (pray and worship music, the rosary, short personal prayers) to keep things in perspective.

This is what works for me. I share it with you in case in could work for you. The major idea I tried to incorporate was keeping my interests and needs in mind, by taking into account the fact that nature and art motivates me and by creating a routine that involves art and music, and that is very soul centered I was able to create a routine that appeals to me.

Love you all and Stay inspired,

P.S. So let me know what you think. How high does exercise rank on your list of priorities? What does your routine look like and why does it motivate you? Feel free to let me know in the comments below.

Renovate Your life: Rewiring Your System

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Dearest Devotees,

Oh the ever present rut (and the constant battle to avoid said grueling rut)! Some of you have joined me in this life renovation project because you have the desire to reignite the internal fire that is your zeal for life, a fire that has been snuffed out by the dull stress of your daily routine. If that is the case, then this post is definitely for you.

Over the past couple of months I've noticed just how important it is to "rewire your system" by changing up your routine and doing something out of the ordinary every once in a while. It stops you from becoming to focused on the little grievances you have to endure in the course of your day, and helps you step back and see that there is so much more to life. Personally, it also gives me something to look forward to in a week, because even though I am now spending a lot more time doing creative work that I love, I've realized that it can quickly become boring if it is all that I do. Also doing things you don't normally do opens your eyes to new things and these things could inspire you.

You could easily rewire your system by doing any of the following:

1. Change up your morning routine:

Include things you would make you want to wake up in the morning. For me that involves me making my routine look this:

• Wake-up and stretch
• Pray
• Meditate and/or do Yoga
• Blast "Waking up playlist" while checking emails and plan for the day.
• Cancel one thing from my to-do list (preferably something that would make my day too hectic)
• Choose to do 1 thing from my wild card list (something random and cool that would make me really excited to do in that day)
• Bathe, dress, eat healthy breakfast and leave for the day.

2. Make a date to face a fear and keep it:

Take a trampolining class if you're afraid of heights. Take a swimming/diving class if you are afraid of water. Do karaoke if you are afraid of the stage. Facing yours fear builds self-esteem and reinforces the idea that you are capable of doing much more than you give yourself credit for.

3.Change your personal style. Radically:

Are you a pretty conservative dresser? Embrace your quirky side. If you were previously a pretty expressive dresser try out a more minimalistic approach to your style. It's not so much what style you try in as much as it is the excitement of the change. Changing your style could influence you to change your lifestyle as well as your perception of self. By dressing more conservatively you might begin to see your self as more levelheaded and responsible or by dressing more originally you might begin to see yourself as more creative. Changing your personal style could lead you to know more about yourself.

4.Plan a weekend getaway:

Block out a weekend to get away from your usual place of residence and don't let anything stop you from going. Plan your schedule as best as you can around this time, and try to accomplish enough things beforehand so that you can go away with as few worries as possible. You don't have to go anywhere truly exciting. Sometimes being in the same place for a long time is enough to make us feel bland. A weekend away, spent with family, friends or even on your own should cure you of your bland feeling and get you seeing things in a new light.

5. Go to the park, playground, library or movies spontaneously:

Some day, after a particularly hard day of class/ work, wind down afterwards by visiting the park or seeing a movie. Or get together with a small group of friends and go to your neighborhood playground after dark. Honestly who says your childhood is gone?

6.Go on an artist date:

Do something to enrich your artistic soul like going to a photography gallery or a nearby art museum. See if you can find free viewings or special student or member discount rates if you are still in school. Especially if you a student interested in the arts, this is the best time to explore everything because of the amazing student discount rates.

7. Redecorate your inspiration board:

Set out an afternoon to update your inspiration board and include things that inspire you now and goals that you are working towards today. Having these things somewhere you can see them regularly, enables them to become embedded in your subconscious and helps you to begin to work towards them.

8. Recreate your schedule:

If you are anything like me, the best way to remember to do something you find important, be it exercise, studying, attending classes/work, or hanging out with friends is to make it an actual part of your schedule. When I decided I wanted to make exercise a priority I signed myself up for dance classes and put them in my schedule. I have been dancing every week for the past 6 months. I used to only put classes and other "official" activities on my schedule but by including other parts of my life in my schedule I've given them more importance and as a result of this, I am closer to becoming the well-rounded person I want to be.

I hope these ideas help you inject more fun into your days.

Love you all and Stay inspired,

P.S. So let me know what you think. How do avoid the dreadful " rut" ? Feel free to let me know in the comments below.

Renovate Your Life: Prioritising, Reorganising and Outsourcing

My Darling Devotees,

Now that you have re-organised your room, you may be revelling in the freedom and joy that comes from the ability to know where your things are when you need them (I know I am), and may also be looking for other ways to extend this freedom to the rest of your life. Well, I'm all about productivity right now and making the best use of the time that you do have in a day in order to a avoid ending up with a foot long daily to-do- list, so I have devised a system for turning the conquering of each day into a more manageable feat. Warning: some of these things may be hard to hear coming from me but these are the lessons that I've learn't the hard way. I only tell you these lessons, because I have found that they actually work. Also, this process ( like most Renovate Your Life processes) needs time investment, so make yourself comfortable as you work through it (possibly grabbing a cup of iced tea and playing some soothing music), at your own leisurely pace.

1. Identifying:
Identify all the things that you do in an average day, week, month and year, that take up a lot of your time. If you have to pick, I would start with what you do in an average day, because it usually gives you a pretty good idea of where your time goes on a large scale. Write all these things down. Also, identify all of your major and minor long term and short term goals (all the things you want to do, that would probably lead you to the kind of person you want to be). Write all these down too. Make sure they are in separate columns or are at least in separate lists.

2. Evaluating:
Compare the two lists. How much of the stuff that you want to do do you actually do each day? How much time do you spend doing things you don't love/don't really care about? Why? Evaluate your goals. How much time do you spend working towards them each day? Are all your goals still concurrent with the person you are? What are the really large goals? Can you break them down into smaller ones? After answering all these questions, you should have found the goals that are are actually on track with who you are, and should also have gotten rid of/modified the goals that no longer appeal to you.

3.Prioritizing:
Divide your remaining major activities/goals into 3 major categories:
Things you have to do, but don't particularly like/are not really good at: (e.g. chores you don't like, etc)
Things you like/love to do, that are important to you
Things you don't have to do/ are not really good at, but that are important to achieving your goals.

Arrange these as much as possible according to level of importance (something along the lines of 1 star for least, 3 stars for most).

Note: I only mention these 3 categories, because really life is too short to spend time doing things you don't like, don't need to do, and that are not important to you ( or your loved ones)

4.Reorganising:
Reorganise your schedule by doing the following:
Allocate the most time to the things that are most important, that you are good at and that you love. Spend as little time as possible doing the things that you are either not good at, or that are important but that you don't like doing.You can do this by only working on the things that you need to do but that you are not good at, during your least productive times in the day. For example, if you are a writer, but you know that it is near impossible for you to get any work done during the afternoon from 1-4pm, you could use that time for your errands. By doing this you will be getting all the things you need to get done in a day, by using your least creatively productive time for something else that you need to get done, instead of wasting it by making mind to work yourself work through your low productivity periods. Also, I've noticed that errands become a lot more appealing when I am sick of doing school work, so I am more willing to do my errands at these points in time.

5.Outsourcing:
Refer to the list of things that you are not good at/don't like but that need to be done, and that are not really important to you, as well as the things that you are not good at, but that need to be done in order to achieve your goals. For these two categories I suggest outsourcing as much as possible. You are only one person, you cannot do everything yourself, and even if you could I don't think you would want to. If you're not good at taxes or finances get help during tax period or, if you can, get a financial advisor or make use of a finacial assisting program like mint.com. If you are a budding director but for the life you can not figure out how to dress your cast, team up with a budding costumer.
In fact, when I was thinking about how to outsource things I need help with, I went back to my list of goals, and began to look at the intermediary goals I had added because I thought that I would need to do that in order to achieve another goal. After evaluating some of these goals, I realised that I would not mind outsourcing a great deal of them, if it would mean I would get to spend more time doing things that I was really passionate about. After realising this, I was able to make my goals a lot clearer and more streamlined and defined. I was able to identify the things that were most important to me and separate them from the things that I would be interested in trying out at some point simply for novelty's sake. For example, I was able to realise that creating the storyline and storyboard for a music video was a lot more interesting to me than actually filming and editing so I will team up with a friend of mine to work on the video rather than filming, editing and creating the video all by myself. This doesn't mean I'll never do the actual filming myself. It just means that it isn't one of the top things I want to do with my time right now.

By going through this process I was able to find out where all my time goes in a day and figure out where I want it to go. I was able to find my priorities and make sure that I was actively working towards them. But most importanitly I've learnt how to use my time so I don't feel like I'm running against a ticking clock.
It's all about making the best use of your time.

Love you all and Stay inspired,

P.S. So let me know what you think. Have you ever outsourced certain activities? Do you regularly evaluate your goals? Feel free to let me know in the comments below.

P.P.S. I hinted that I would be gone for a week because of finals and because of travelling home. I'm home now, and although I'm a little jet-lagged I'm back to the blogosphere after focusing on my finals and doing really well on them :) Thanks for sticking with me through this darlings. I love you!

Renovate Your life: Organising your personal space part 2

Steps on the road to an organised room:

Make a list of things you need to do to get your room organised.

Have an idea of why you want to do it, i.e. I'm overwhelmed by the mess, I cant get anything done, it's holding me back, I'm holding onto something, etc. I personally need a more streamlined lifestyle so I can travel easier. Keep this in mind or even write it down and keep it in sight as you embark on this task.

If you can, enlist a friend to help. It makes things so much easier and funner, and you can encourage each other as you work through the mess. If your friend also needs help, volunteer to help each other.

Get rid of all the trash and stuff that you do not need: Choose a particular spot and work round. Start by having a box or bag for all the stuff you definitely want to keep, one you might want to keep, stuff you want to giveaway or recycle and a bag for all the trash. Things that you initially find hard to get rid of can be kept in the might box for closer inspection later( talk about later on how after everything is done they will have to face that box and sort it into 4 places: refer to the organisation piece on sentimental clutter note if there is no space for it get rid of it. ) At this point you are not trying to put things into specific places yet. This is mostly just to get all the stuff that is not where its meant to be to where it needs to be.

Divide your stuff into categories: Create different categories in which your things can go. The best and most efficient way I've found is to divide your things based on function. Even if all you have is one room model it after a home. Keep all your kitchen stuff in one place and all your linens somewhere else. Have everything down to the smallest detail on a nice piece of paper. Write it in this way: 3rd drawer on chest of drawer on the right will have all my medication and first aid things. This paper will be your guide and treasure map.

Begin to arrange the room based on this guide. I usually suggest starting with the closet because that is the main storage unit in most rooms.

The closet

Laundry stuff, linens, and medium sized storage boxes for appropriate things should go in there.

Shoes can go on the bottom and clothes should be hung with all the hangers facing the same direction. As much as possible, when using single hangers keep the amount of clothes hanging on it down to one so that it will be easier to find what you're looking for when you need it.

If you have enough space in your closet and especially if you are pushed for space (i.e if you're major personal space is your college dorm room), keep your laundry in a basket/ laundry bag in the closet, preferably under your detergent and other cleaning items and housekeeping items.

I've found it really helpful to hang my belts, scarves and really long necklaces, so that they are easy to reach and kept in sight.

Keep bathroom items together in a shower basket in an easy to reach place

Hats and bags: Keep them together as much as possible. I keep mine in this pretty purple storage bin that is relatively light, has tons of holes that I can see into the bin through, and fits in with general color scheme of my room.

Chest of drawers

If you have a chest of drawers or something you could use in a similar manner for the storage of any clothes you couldn't fit into your wardrobe, use it in a specific and clearly outlined way. A lot of people suggest that you should only arrange keep two layers of clothes per drawer, but I have found that this is completely unreasonable for me given my current college dorm room accommodations. Therefore, I suggest that you break down your clothes into certain storage categories and assigning them to definite drawers and sides in the drawers. For example, my current system is as follows:

• top drawer: delicates/underclothes
• second drawer: tops (that I wear on a daily basis)
• third drawer: bottoms that I wear on a daily basis
• fourth drawer: first aid items, medicine that must not be kept upright on the left, and pajamas on the right
• fifth drawer: tops that I do not wear often (nightclub gear, etc) and cardigans (in the middle of the summer these can't qualify as regular wear)

The dressing table (or you could use the top of your chest of drawers)

Jewelry trees and boards:I have this jewelry tree that I absolutely love for hanging my shorter necklaces, bracelets and anklets, and storing my everyday cocktail rings. A friend of mine also introduced me to the idea of storing my earrings by poking them through a board made of foam of cardboard and arranging them in layers. Alternatively, you could keep in a wire frame for this purpose.

I own a lot of hair accessories and keep them all together in one of the drawer divider bins that I've placed on my chest of drawers. The other one contains my larger jewelry like my cuffs and small box sets of jewelry. I have about 3 or so actual jewelry boxes that have my jewelry arranged according to level of formality of the occasion it would be worn to.

My makeup and beauty care products are all arranged here as well as my health care products like my medication that must be kept upright, my cleansers and my creams.

The Desk

I have all my regular use books lined up on the shelf on my desk, with their backs facing me for ease of access.

School supplies are all in this really cute set of tiny storage drawers I got from Barnes and Nobles at the beginning of the year.

My calendar hangs by my desk and all the wires that would usually run across my room are kept out of sight with the excess in a tiny brown basket under my bed.

My laptop and printer have a pretty constant place on my desk while the drawers that come with my desk have art supplies, tech stuff and papers arranged into each of them.

Everything Else

Suitcases and boxes used for travel and storage units that take up excess space are all kept under my bed through the use of bed risers.

Final Actions and Words:

Go through the box of might keep stuff: choose only the stuff you really need, will use, like and have space to keep. If the item doesn't meet any of these criteria please give it away or throw it away. You will feel so much better for it.

Congratulations! You have cleaned house! (Clean House show reference anyone? No? okay).

Love you all and Stay inspired,

P.S. So let me know what you think. How do you organize your room? What are your favorite tips? Feel free to let me know in the comments below.

Letter to my Body (The letter that kicked off Operation Organise)

Dear Body,

I am sorry that I don't treat you well enough. I stuff you with junk food that is really not good and that you don't even recognise as food. I don't get as much as exercise as I know I should. The amazing gym just down the street barely knows of my existence. Also, I barely sleep. Fours a night is not acceptable by any standards, especially considering how much I make you do during the day. To top everything off I stress you out to no end with needless worries and unflagging anxiety brought on by my disorganised state. It isn't right. I promise all this will change.

Love,

Aury.

One night, after realizing and being appalled at the vicious cycle of stress I found myself in, I sat down, wrote this letter to my body, and made a decision that set me on this new path to a life of purpose. I've always had goals and aims and pretty ambitious ones too, but for quite a while I'd felt stuck. I realized then that the reason I wasn't moving forward in my goals was because I lacked an organized system to support them. I like think of it in this way: My goals and dreams are castles built in the sky; without a sturdy support and foundation to back them up they will fall apart. It's sort of like my joy actually; without the foundation that is my faith in God, it would fall to the floor, and I would be swallowed by despair.

With all that is on my plate I need to organize. I really feel that I've come as far as possible without structure. Now it feels like every time I try to juggle everything, something falls by the wayside. I try to pick up the fallen item and something else falls. After high school, I wanted nothing to do with structure because I felt like it was a crutch being used to hinder my creativity but now I feel like it's the support I need to give me back the freedom needed to create. I'm aware it's a huge undertaking, trying to organize and instill structure to something as big as one's life, but in the long run I imagine it would surely be for the best. As I conquer each step I will let you know how I did it and what I've learnt from the process. I really hope I'll be able to help anyone who's looking for more structure in their lives as well.

Love you all and Stay inspired,

P.S. So let me know what you think. Have you ever felt this way? What did you do? Feel free to let me know in the comments below.

Photo from: We Heart it