sidelines

Bigger, better and certainly faster

/ Kelly / Leave a comment

I’ve been going to the gym very regularly; it’s literally around the corner so it’s super easy to go. It’s as if it’s in our apartment building, but without the increase in strata fees.

Today I did my standard thing, and took some photos and details of what equipment is available at the gym. I am planning on seeing an exercise physiologist that runs for some development exercise programs. I feel like I’ve rehabbed my back and hip sufficiently and now we’re going for progress work.

In my accident prone past, I have seen physiotherapists that do not run, and I have not had a great experience, so that’s my selection criteria for all medical professionals to do with sports injuries, or anything that impacts on my ability to exercise. They need to do the thing that I do.

I’ve also made a list of qualities I’m looking for in an exercise plan, restrictions and guidelines that improve the chance of success.

Firstly, it has to avoid inflaming my foot issue (right foot, capsulitis, second toe). I think I’m on the home stretch with that, but I need to have that sorted before we get really stuck into anything else.

Secondly, I need to even out the strength and ability of each leg. I know that my weak side is my right side. I’ve been doing eccentric one legged squats and concentrating on not dropping my right hip, and that’s easier, but I know I have a hamstring strength discrepancy too. On that point, I want a personally measurable; almost KPI measurement for leg strength and discrepancies.

Which leads into my third goal; I need to work on the musculature that will improve my running form. I’m fed up with tripping up on trail, I need to lift my foot up higher, and I can do it, but it feels unnatural. I think the unnatural feeling is related to muscle weakness, so I want to work on that.

For more specific requirements; I know I’m much happier to do a set time of activity. I’ll be more keen doing something like 2 minute long continual exercises, instead of some arseing about with 4 by 7 sets with 60 second recovery. That just feels like wasting time.

I have a tabata timer on my phone which makes things like 10 times 15 second glute bridges easier, because I don’t have to count seconds and repeats, but I still want minimal stationary rest time. Sitting around in a gym annoys me. I don’t want to piss about.

I need to know how to do an exercise. When I can’t work out how I’m supposed to feel the exercise, I just won’t do it. Activity without obvious purpose is ignored.

The whole show needs to be a maximum of 45 to 60 minutes, in and out the gym door. By the end of that time frame I’m bored. Because I’m so close to the gym I’m not wasting time getting changed at the gym, so it’s not like we need to factor in driving and showering time.

I prefer to do my cardio outside. If you’re putting me on a treadmill then I want to know why. I will happily run in pissing rain and cold, don’t assume otherwise.

I have learnt that I generally prefer free weights over machines, but when it comes to something like abdominals and back extension, machines are more fun because the weights are far far heavier and I’m less likely to injure myself with a poor technique with a machine.

Lastly, I would like to do whatever routine regularly. I pay to access the gym, it’s literally around the corner from my apartment, I don’t mind going frequently. Once a week is nonsense. More is better.

Inbox (momentarily) zero

/ Kelly / Leave a comment

There’s this concept of Inbox Zero, where you keep your email inbox actively empty. (Google it).

I fail at Inbox Zero, but I regularly, actively try and keep it small enough to be manageable. Most of what is in my inbox is part of my to-do list. For advertising emails and mailing lists and media monitoring alerts I have automatic filing rules, and sorting rules, and most of the time I can just run my eye over the subject lines of the emails in my 15+ different folders, and hit delete on the entire lot in one fell swoop. However sometimes everything gets overwhelming, and it doesn’t matter how much I flag certain emails in my inbox as something I need to do, and delete emails that I’ve dealt with, it marches up to 1,000+ emails. Again.

I find this oddly stressful – my brain gets overly worried that I’ve missed something vital, despite the unlikeliness of that actually having happened. If I had missed something, it’s highly likely that the requester would have called me, emailed me again or come up to my desk and asked. Ah, irrational guilt. It’s so helpful.

But worry and stress is never logical, so when I reach that point, I do this, and I recommend you do it to:

  • Sort your Outlook inbox by received date.
  • Collapse the sorting so that the only expanded timeframe that is open is the Older category.
  • Move everything in the Older category to a new folder. Any email that you still have to ‘immediately’ action is younger than this is, because if it was truly necessary then someone would have bugged you about it again by now.

Once you have done this, then:

  • Sort the remaining emails in your inbox by sender, by size, by date received, whichever. You’ve instantly cut out a significant number of emails you need to deal with immediately. Revel in this fact.
  • If you sort by name then you can batch delete all those Australian Financial Review daily emails. All those Book Depository emails. All those emails from Reception confirming your meeting room booking that you had not only already put in your calendar, but you’d already had the meeting.
  • If you sort by size you can now delete or file in your workplace’s electronic document management system that whopping 30MB email with those images you don’t need any more because that brochure has been printed. You can deal with that 17MB scan in PDF format for the document you finished last month and had already sent to your client.

It’s all so much less overwhelming. And when your inbox is down to the things you actually need to do, you feel like you can keep it roughly in shape for a few months.

Now, what about those emails you threw in a folder? The reason why you put them in a folder is that now your problem won’t get bigger. It can’t get bigger. You can repeat what you did with your inbox, and delete or file the enormous emails, the advertising emails, the news provider emails, the “hey, it’s Friday night drinks” emails.

You don’t have to deal with all those emails immediately. Pick off 50 at a time. Say “I’ve got 20 minutes before that client comes for her meeting, I’m prepared for the meeting, so I’m going to spend 15 minutes clearing off some of those older emails.”

Because I also have a physical to-do list I have actually written down “650, 600, 550, 500…” and crossed off the numbers as I’ve taken the folder down to that number. It gives you a feeling of satisfaction; everyone loves crossing things off a to-do list.

Incremental decrease in size is still a decrease in size. Don’t let it overwhelm you.