A little less friction

I was going to write another Arts & Letters issue (oops), but here is a list of things I’ve been collecting and wanting to share, ahem.

My friend Martin and I have been talking a lot lately about YouTube essays, specifically what he’s coined self-help essays. You know the ones, promising an alteration of perspective so profound, your life will change, delivered in, ideally, under 20 minutes. I have a couple dozen of these videos saved on my “Watch Later” playlist on my YouTube account, bookmarked during times where I feel a surge of wanting to make things better, before falling into another pit of paralysis and uselessness.

A few examples of videos I’ve saved over the years: “the paradox of being ambitious but lazy”, “The BEST Productivity Method Ever for ADHD”, “How to Enter Your ~Discipline Era~”, “Write Notes Like Joan Didion”, etc. etc.

However, the videos in question that Martin had linked me1 is called “you want to be everything so you become nothing | the paradox of choice” by nina montagne and it actually was one of the things that helped me push through with my search for full-time work. (This isn’t the place to distill the contents of the video, but I’ve linked it above in case you wanted to also be inspired to commit.)

Anyway, another video was called “how to make yourself do it: 100% success rate,” and the creator, Gabby, essentially speaks about making it as frictionless as possible to reach your goals. It bears saying that it was a great watch and was very encouraging, in terms of making your goals feel achievable, essentially through doing small steps.

So, reducing friction. What to do?

All of us have different sort of levels and quirks when it comes to getting things done. This is very apparent, especially with the amount of hacks, planning systems, routines popping up online, even after the rise of GTD — can you believe I just used to carry around a stack of index cards as a planner and made it work? — and the Bullet Journal. I think what Gabby’s video really helped me with was demanding honesty from me, right off the bat.

Determining what I do now vs. what I’d like to be doing presents a clear difference, and locating that difference makes it easier to think of ways to change them, no matter how small the step is.

Here are a few things that have helped me lately, divided by arbitrary categories.

My goals for health are very simple. Eat more whole foods. Make it so that I don’t dread the clean up after cooking. Don’t order takeaway. Move more (we’re still working on this one).

1. Make a Fibre Jar — this is the easiest thing. I add sesame seeds, flax seeds, pumpkin kernels, chia seeds, and sunflower seeds in a small jar. I give it a shake, and I spoon a generous amount over food I’m going to eat anyway. You add fibre, texture, and plant variety to your diet instantly.

2. Find one-pot recipes — a recent favourite has been a one-pot Hainanese chicken rice recipe from [@cassyeungmoney] on Instagram. I made it twice last week. Minimal prep and active cooking time (especially if you utilise a food processor or microplane), easy to adjust levels of oil and sodium, easy to clean up after.

3. Write expiration dates on the fridge — I put the expiration dates on produce (especially meat and protein) on our fridge door so that I don’t forget what we have, and also because it dictates what I need to cook first.

I didn’t grow up doing chores, which probably makes me a spoiled child lol, but the wakeup call when I moved overseas? Deafening. I do like doing housework (it clears out my brain and calms me down when I overthink), but sometimes the rest of your life catches up to you, and now you live in a dump again.

1. Clean As You Go — Obvious, but effective. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s the dishes piling up all around me. It’s the worst because it’s a REMINDER of your failure to be a typical functional adult. Another reason why it’s the worst is because it’s so much harder to wash the dishes when every dirty pot, pan, cooking utensil is piled up all around you.

   So, now, when I cook and there’s a waiting time (for things to boil or sear or reduce), I just do some of the washing up. Just finished folding the laundry? Put it away. Did a food shop? Put it away. Unpacking the tote on the dining table does not count.

   1. Clean As You Go, mini version — whenever you leave a room and there’s something that doesn’t belong in that room, take it with you and make the world right.

2. Time yourself — One of the things I also hate is putting away the clean dishes. Sometimes, when I put the kettle on or there’s an ad on the YouTube video I’m watching, I race through the putting away and realise that it took no time at all.

3. Make the bed — When the bed is made, I’m deterred from climbing back in for the rest of the day.

This is a bit general, but this category is for addressing some deep behavioural and attitudes I have. Again, be honest with the kind of person you are and the bad habits you have cultivated over the years, and then think about what would realistically help you to not be that person.

1. Have a place for everything — Remember: this is about reducing friction! And I have observed that a major reason why I don’t do the things I intend to do is because these things are always, somehow, in an inconvenient place. I want to complete my 5-year-journal as best as I possibly can, so I put the journal by the bed with a pen I like to use. I want to read more, so I have my Kobo reader under my pillow. I want to drink more water, so I use a flask instead of a glass so I don’t have to fill it up every single time, etc. etc.

2. Plan your outfits in your head — This probably sounds dumb, but it helps me calm down about future events. I don’t lay the clothes out for the next morning or whatever because that stresses me out, but I do ruminate about what to wear a few days or hours before said event. If it doesn’t work, then I make a swap, but thinking about it ahead of time does relieve untrue thoughts of “I have nothing to wear” and the panic that ensues.

3. Plan your day as if it’s your worst day — I have insane energy fluctuations, and I am a fool that says yes to everything. I’ve limited my “big” tasks or events to 3 a day now, and if there is no room for a new thing, then there is no room. This was a hard transition at first, but being honest with my capacity as a low energy person definitely helped alleviate the inevitable guilt and shame that comes with being unable to deliver or show up.

4. Habit stacking —A classic, because it works. Say you want to lessen bedrotting. Get out of bed, make your bed, put on the coffee machine, write your morning pages: ta-da! You’ve now started your day. The completion of each action signals another action, or should anyway, and before you know it, you’ve completed the morning routine of your dreams. Friendly reminder: your phone does not belong in this stack!

   I’m so bad at this, but it does work so well when you just try and not reach for your phone, first thing in the morning. Do I mostly do it under the guise of “checking the time”? Yes, and now, I’m trapped.2

1. Just get ready — Jumping off the above: those habits are stacked and that stack signals your brain that you’re getting ready. I dread getting ready, especially with the idea of having to do something, time so by getting ready regardless, I have eliminated this weird psychological aversion I have to getting ready.

   For me, “getting ready to go to the studio” is a very big block. Sometimes I spiral about the thought of getting ready so much that I don’t even realise that I’d been finding other things to do, and then it’s 4 p.m., which is an unreasonable time to head out to go to the studio and attempt at some semblance of doing work. Just get ready. It doesn’t matter if you’re going to be staying in all day. The point is that if you needed to head out, you won’t be trying to avoid the getting ready part.

2. Make it granular — As you can probably tell, get very easily overwhelmed by Big Tasks. I like to break them down into really, really small tasks. Like, stupid small. And I get a dopamine hit crossing off those small tasks. “Write a book” is obviously way more daunting than “finish writing one chapter.” Heck, “Finish writing one paragraph” is good enough, honestly. Is it a small step? Yes, but it’s a step that you actually took.

I feel like we expect way too much from ourselves, and it’s hard not to. When your primary thought often is “how do I pay my rent and feed myself next month?”, the driving force is, obviously, trying to earn money. And the job market is bleak. And the things people seem to place value on are, in the kindest of words, strange. And this weird environment perpetuates overconsumption. Even though we literally cannot afford to be buying more stuff, both financially, and just general human capacity. And this disconnect and dare I say, despair, makes you feel so incredibly far and detached from everything else in your life that it feels impossible to move forward in the ways that feel valuable to you.

And like, maybe these are silly little tips. The world is burning, and your voice feels impossibly small. How can you think about self-improvement when there are wars and injustices you don’t feel like you can actively contribute to righting? How can you even think beyond trying to survive within a system that rewards people who constantly seem to break people like you down?

Making a fibre jar feels quaint, in the face of everything else. But it is an action that takes care of you and your body. And I think that these tiny acts of trying to better your life is an act of resistance, no matter how small.

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