Getting Your Messy Life In Order
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Getting Your Messy Life In Order
We’ve touched on this before by recommending the book, but today we’re going to give an overview of the absolute most core essentials of the “Getting Things Done” method. If you’re unfamiliar, this will be enough to get you going. If you’re already familiar, this may be a handy reminder!
First, you’ll need:
- A big table
- A block of small memo paper squares—post-it note sized, but no need to be sticky.
- A block of A4 printer paper
- A big trash bag
Gathering everything
Gather up not just all your to-dos, but: all sources of to-dos, too, and anything else that otherwise needs “sorting”.
Put them all in one physical place—a dining room table may have enough room. You’ll need a lot of room because you’re going to empty our drawers of papers, unopened (or opened and set aside) mail. Little notes you made for yourself, things stuck on the fridge or memo boards. Think across all areas of your life, and anything you’re “supposed” to do, write it down on a piece of paper. No matter what area of your life, no matter how big or small.
Whether it’s “learn Chinese” or “take the trash out”, write it down, one item per piece of paper (hence the block of little memo squares).
Sorting everything
Everything you’ve gathered needs one of three things to happen:
- You need to take some action (put it in a “to do” pile)
- You may need it later sometime (put it in a “to file” pile)
- You don’t need it (put it in the big trash bag for disposal)
What happens next will soothe you
- Dispose of the things you put for disposal
- File the things for filing in a single alphabetical filing system. If you don’t have one, you’ll need to get one, so write that down and add it to the “to do” pile.
- You will now process your “to dos”
Processing the “to dos”
The pile you have left is now your “inbox”. It’s probably huge; later it’ll be smaller, maybe just a letter-tray on your desk.
Many of your “to dos” are actually not single action items, they’re projects. If something requires more than one step, it’s a project.
Take each item one-by-one. Do this in any order; you’re going to do this as quickly as possible! Now, ask yourself: is this a single-action item that I could do next, without having to do something else first?
- If yes: put it in a pile marked “next action”
- If no: put it in a pile marked “projects”.
Take a sheet of A4 paper and fold it in half. Write “Next Action” on it, and put your pile of next actions inside it.
Take a sheet of A4 paper per project and write the name of the project on it, for example “Learn Chinese”, or “Do taxes”. Put any actions relating to that project inside it.
Likely you don’t know yet what the first action will be, or else it’d be in your “Next Action” pile, so add an item to each project that says “Brainstorm project”.
Processing the “Next Action” pile
Again you want to do this as quickly as possible, in any order.
For each item, ask yourself “Do I care about this?” If the answer is no, ditch that item, and throw it out. That’s ok. Things change and maybe we no longer want or need to do something. No point in hanging onto it.
For each remaining item, ask yourself “can this be done in under 2 minutes?”.
- If yes, do it, now. Throw away the piece of paper for it when you’re done.
- If no, ask yourself:”could I usefully delegate this to someone else?” If the answer is yes, do so.
If you can’t delegate it, ask yourself: “When will be a good time to do this?” and schedule time for it. A specific, written-down, clock time on a specific calendar date. Input that into whatever you use for scheduling things. If you don’t already use something, just use the calendar app on whatever device you use most.
The mnemonic for the above process is “Do/Defer/Delegate/Ditch”
Processing projects:
If you don’t know where to start with a project, then figuring out where to start is your “Next Action” for that project. Brainstorm it, write down everything you’ll need to do, and anything that needs doing first.
The end result of this is:
- You will always, at any given time, have a complete (and accessible) view of everything you are “supposed” to do.
- You will always, at any given time, know what action you need to take next for a given project.
- You will always, when you designate “work time”, be able to get straight into a very efficient process of getting through your to-dos.
Keeping on top of things
- Whenever stuff “to do something with/about” comes to you, put it in your physical “inbox” place—as mentioned, a letter-tray on a desk should suffice.
- At the start of each working day, quickly process things as described above. This should be a small daily task.
- Once a week, do a weekly review to make sure you didn’t lose sight of something.
- Monthly, quarterly, and annual reviews can be a good practice too.
How to do those reviews? Topic for another day, perhaps.
Or:
Check out the website / Check out GTD apps / Check out the book
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Black Coffee vs Orange Juice – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing black coffee to orange juice, we picked the coffee.
Why?
While this one isn’t a very like-for-like choice, it’s a choice often made, so it bears examining.
In favor of the orange juice, it has vitamins A and C and the mineral potassium, while the coffee contains no vitamins or minerals beyond trace amounts.
However, to offset that: drinking juice is one of the worst ways to consume sugar; the fruit has not only been stripped of its fiber, but also is in its most readily absorbable state (liquid), meaning that this is going to cause a blood sugar spike, which if done often can lead to insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and more. Now, the occasional glass of orange juice (and resultant blood sugar spike) isn’t going to cause disease by itself, but everything we consume tips the scales of our health towards wellness or illness (or sometimes both, in different ways), and in this case, juice has a rather major downside that ought not be ignored.
In favor of the coffee, it has a lot of beneficial phytochemicals (mostly antioxidant polyphenols of various kinds), with no drawbacks worth mentioning unless you have a pre-existing condition of some kind.
Coffee can of course be caffeinated or decaffeinated, and we didn’t specify which here. Caffeine has some pros and cons that at worst, balance each other out, and whether or not it’s caffeinated, there’s nothing in coffee to offset the beneficial qualities of the antioxidants we mentioned before.
Obviously, in either case we are assuming consuming in moderation.
In short:
- orange juice has negatives that at least equal, if not outweigh, its positives
- coffee‘s benefits outweigh any drawbacks for most people
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
- The Bitter Truth About Coffee (or is it?)
- Caffeine: Cognitive Enhancer Or Brain-Wrecker?
- Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?
Take care!
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Is chocolate milk a good recovery drink after a workout? A dietitian reviews the evidence
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Whether you enjoy chocolate milk regularly, as a weekend treat, or as an occasional dose of childhood nostalgia, it probably wouldn’t be the first option you think of for post-workout recovery.
Unless you’re on TikTok, perhaps. According to many people on the social media platform, chocolate milk is not only delicious, but it offers benefits comparable to sports drinks after a workout.
So is there any evidence to support this? Let’s take a look.
eldar nurkovic/Shutterstock Rehydrating after a workout is important
Water accounts for somewhere between 50% and 60% of our body weight. Water has many important functions in the body, including helping to keep our body at the right temperature through sweating.
We lose water naturally from our bodies when we sweat, as well as through our breathing and when we go to the toilet. So it’s important to stay hydrated to replenish the water we lose.
When we don’t, we become dehydrated, which can put a strain on our bodies. Signs and symptoms of dehydration can range from thirst and dizziness to low blood pressure and confusion.
Athletes, because of their higher levels of exertion, lose more water through sweating and from respiration (when their breathing rate gets faster). If they’re training or competing in hot or humid environments they will sweat even more.
Dehydration impacts athletes’ performance and like for all of us, can affect their health.
So finding ways to ensure athletes rehydrate quickly during and after they train or compete is important. Fortunately, sports scientists and dietitians have done research looking at the composition of different fluids to understand which ones rehydrate athletes most effectively.
The beverage hydration index
The best hydrating drinks are those the body retains the most of once they’ve been consumed. By doing studies where they give people different drinks in standardised conditions, scientists have been able to determine how various options stack up.
To this end, they’ve developed something called the beverage hydration index, which measures to what degree different fluids hydrate a person compared to still water.
According to this index beverages with similar fluid retention to still water include sparkling water, sports drinks, cola, diet cola, tea, coffee, and beer below 4% alcohol. That said, alcohol is probably best avoided when recovering from exercise.
Beverages with superior fluid retention to still water include milk (both full-fat and skim), soy milk, orange juice and oral rehydration solutions.
This body of research indicates that when it comes to rehydration after exercise, unflavoured milk (full fat, skim or soy) is better than sports drinks.
But what about chocolate milk?
A small study looked at the effects of chocolate milk compared to plain milk on rehydration and exercise performance in futsal players (futsal is similar to soccer but played on a court indoors). The researchers found no difference in rehydration between the two. There’s no other published research to my knowledge looking at how chocolate milk compares to regular milk for rehydration during or after exercise.
But rehydration isn’t the only thing athletes look for in sports drinks. In the same study, drinking chocolate milk after play (referred to as the recovery period) increased the time it took for the futsal players to become exhausted in further exercise (a shuttle run test) four hours later.
This was also shown in a review of several clinical trials. The analysis found that, compared to different placebos (such as water) or other drinks containing fat, protein and carbohydrates, chocolate milk lengthened the time to exhaustion during exercise.
What’s in chocolate milk?
Milk contains protein, carbohydrates and electrolytes, each of which can affect hydration, performance, or both.
Protein is important for building muscle, which is beneficial for performance. The electrolytes in milk (including sodium and potassium) help to replace electrolytes lost through sweating, so can also be good for performance, and aid hydration.
Compared to regular milk, chocolate milk contains added sugar. This provides extra carbohydrates, which are likewise beneficial for performance. Carbohydrates provide an immediate source of energy for athletes’ working muscles, where they’re stored as glycogen. This might contribute to the edge chocolate milk appears to have over plain milk in terms of athletic endurance.
The added sugar in chocolate milk provides extra carbohydrates. Brent Hofacker/Shutterstock Coffee-flavoured milk has an additional advantage. It contains caffeine, which can improve athletic performance by reducing the perceived effort that goes into exercise.
One study showed that a frappe-type drink prepared with filtered coffee, skim milk and sugar led to better muscle glycogen levels after exercise compared to plain milk with an equivalent amount of sugar added.
So what’s the verdict?
Evidence shows chocolate milk can rehydrate better than water or sports drinks after exercise. But there isn’t evidence to suggest it can rehydrate better than plain milk. Chocolate milk does appear to improve athletic endurance compared to plain milk though.
Ultimately, the best drink for athletes to consume to rehydrate is the one they’re most likely to drink.
While many TikTok trends are not based on evidence, it seems chocolate milk could actually be a good option for recovery from exercise. And it will be cheaper than specialised sports nutrition products. You can buy different brands from the supermarket or make your own at home with a drinking chocolate powder.
This doesn’t mean everyone should look to chocolate milk when they’re feeling thirsty. Chocolate milk does have more calories than plain milk and many other drinks because of the added sugar. For most of us, chocolate milk may be best enjoyed as an occasional treat.
Evangeline Mantzioris, Program Director of Nutrition and Food Sciences, Accredited Practising Dietitian, University of South Australia
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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What Actually Causes High Cholesterol?
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In 1968, the American Heart Association advised limiting egg consumption to three per week due to cholesterol concerns linked to cardiovascular disease. Which was reasonable based on the evidence available back then, but it didn’t stand the test of time.
Eggs are indeed high in cholesterol, but that doesn’t mean that those who eat them will also be high in cholesterol, because…
It’s not quite what many people think
Some quite dietary pointers to start with:
- Egg yolks are high in cholesterol but have a minimal impact on blood cholesterol.
- Saturated and trans fats (as found in fatty meats or dairy, and some processed foods) have a greater influence on LDL levels than dietary cholesterol.
And on the other hand:
- Unsaturated fats (e.g. from fish, nuts, seeds) have anti-inflammatory benefits
- Fiber-rich foods help lower LDL by affecting fat absorption in the digestive tract
A quick primer on LDL and other kinds of cholesterol:
- VLDL (Very Low-Density Lipoprotein):
- delivers triglycerides and cholesterol to muscle and fat cells for energy
- is converted into LDL after delivery
- LDL (Low-Density Lipoprotein):
- is called “bad cholesterol”, which we call that due to its role in arterial plaque formation
- in excess leads to inflammation, overworked macrophage activity, and artery narrowing
- HDL (High-Density Lipoprotein):
- known as “good cholesterol,” picks up excess LDL and returns it to the liver for excretion
- is anti-inflammatory, in addition to regulating LDL levels
There are other factors too, for example:
- Smoking and drinking increase LDL buildup and cause oxidative damage to lipids in general and the blood vessels through which they travel
- Regular exercise, meanwhile, can lower LDL and raise HDL
- Statins and other medications can help lower LDL and manage cholesterol when lifestyle changes and genetics require additional support—but they often come with serious side effects, and the usefulness varies from person to person.
For more on all of this, enjoy:
Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!
Want to learn more?
You might also like to read:
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Strawberries vs Raspberries – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing strawberries to raspberries, we picked the raspberries.
Why?
They’re both very respectable fruits, of course! But it’s not even close, and there is a clear winner here…
In terms of macros, the biggest difference is that raspberries have moderately more carbs, and more than 3x the fiber. Technically they also have 2x the protein, but that’s a case of “two times almost nothing is still almost nothing”. All in all, and especially for the “more than 3x the fiber” (6.5g/100g to strawberries’ 2g/100g), this one’s an easy win for raspberries.
When it comes to vitamins, strawberries have more vitamin C, while raspberries have more of vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, E, K, and choline. Another clear and easy win for raspberries.
In the category of minerals, guess what, raspberries win this hands-down, too: strawberries are higher in selenium, while raspberries have more calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, and zinc.
Adding up all the individual wins (all for raspberries), it’s not hard to say that raspberries win the day. Still, of course, enjoy either or both; diversity is good!
Want to learn more?
You might like to read:
From Apples to Bees, and High-Fructose Cs: Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?
Take care!
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Get Well, Stay Well – by Dr. Gemma Newman
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Dr. Gemma Newman is a GP (British equivalent of what in America is called a “family doctor”) who realized she was functioning great as a diagnostic flowchart interpreter and pill dispensary, but not actually doing much of what she got into the job to do: helping people.
Her patients were getting plenty of treatments, but not getting better. Often, they were getting worse. And she knew why: they come in for treatment for one medical problem, when they have six and a half medical problems probably a stack of non-medical problems that contributed to them,
So, this book sets out to do what she tries to do in her office, but often doesn’t have the time: treat the whole person.
In it, she details what areas of life to look at, what things are most likely to contribute to wellness/unwellness (be those things completely in your power or not), and how to—bit by bit—make all the parts better, and keep them that way.
The writing style is conversational, and while it’s heavily informed by her professional competence, there’s no arcane science here; it’s more about the system of bringing everything together harmoniously.
Bottom line: if you think there’s more to wellness than can be represented on an annual physicals chart, then this is the book to help you get/keep on top of things.
Click here to check out Get Well, Stay Well, and do just that!
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Mango vs Pineapple – Which is Healthier?
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Our Verdict
When comparing mango to pineapple, we picked the pineapple.
Why?
It was close! Both of these tropical fruits have almost identical macros, and when it comes to vitamins and minerals, mango has slightly more vitamins while pineapple has slightly more minerals, so that balances out too. Their glycemic loads are 11 and 13 respectively, so: very low, and very similar.
See also: Which Sugars Are Healthier, And Which Are Just The Same?
In terms of what sets them apart:
Mango has a lot of vitamin A, to the point that it can interfere with blood-thinners if you take those.
Pineapple has bromelain, an enzyme with unique anti-inflammatory properties that we must devote a Research Review Monday to one of these days, because there’s a lot to say, but the short version is, it’s very powerful.
Since bromelain is found only in pineapples, whereas vitamin A is easy to find in abundance in many foods, we went with the pineapple.
Enjoy!
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