Brand New Steps
If you’re coming out of (or making plans to come out of) self-quarantine, here’s some quick advice from two months in the future.
Going back to your old routines is GREAT, no doubt about it. But now is also the best time to create some new ones. For better or worse (mostly worse) you’ve been forced to step out of your normal daily life for a couple of months. When else will you be given this chance to reinvent yourself?*
I suffer occasionally from light depression, and it gets way worse when I’m not active. So quarantine wasn’t easy, and I’ve been in a bit of a funk ever since. But what’s really helped is setting a new goal of walking AT LEAST 10,000 steps per day. Going from three months of limited activity in February up to a daily average of 14,156 steps in June has been a lifesaver, and I hope I can build this into my daily routine going forward.
*And yes, the snarky answer to this question is: “during the second wave”. Beijing is going back into temporary lock-down as we speak. But as of now, we’re still hopeful that the same won’t happen here in Shanghai...
The Gift of Boredom
For those of us not in immediate danger, the Coronavirus epidemic has given us a consolation gift. The gift of boredom.
Were it not for the weeks of self-confinement in February 2020, I would not have sat down in front of the piano for the first time in a year. We would not have had daily home-cooked meals. We would not have reorganised our closet and donated boxes of valuable items to our neighbours. And of course I wouldn’t have written this post.
This experience has taught me to accept more boredom into my life, and to allow more time for boredom in my working day. Because for me, boredom breeds creativity; creativity breeds contentment; and contentment breeds productivity.
Coffeeshop Flags
In case you STILL didn’t think I was a nerd... I spent twenty minutes in Costa Coffee testing myself on the identity of these flags. And I got them all correct. 🤓🤓🤓 (Answers below.)
Answers from front to back:
Niger, Bahrain, Lesotho, Micronesia, United Nations, Cape Verde, Cuba, Turkmenistan, Marshall Islands, Bangladesh, Guyana, Panama, Macedonia, Maldives, Lithuania, Uzbekistan, Finland, North Korea, Guinea, Austria, Djibouti, Sao Tome e Principe, Cook Islands, Mongolia, Bhutan, Mali, Venezuela, Russia, Iran, Liechtenstein, Scotland, Somalia, Sweden, Bahamas, Andorra, Australia, United Kingdom, Afghanistan, France, Brunei, Morocco, China, Germany, Chile, Kenya, Sudan, Azerbaijan, Mexico, Ireland, Samoa, United Arab Emirates, Ghana, Chad, Fiji, Greece, South Korea, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Slovenia, Spain, Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, El Salvador, Singapore, Bulgaria, Canada, United States, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Liberia, South Africa, Argentina, Uruguay, Ivory Coast, Papua New Guinea, Dominican Republic, Burundi.
And here are the flags that I always find most difficult to differentiate:
🇸🇳🇲🇱🇬🇳 (Senegal vs. Mali vs. Guinea),
🇲🇩🇦🇩🇹🇩🇷🇴 (Moldova vs. Andorra vs. Chad vs. Romania, I don’t even know the difference between Chad and Romania),
🇵🇱🇮🇩🇲🇨 (Poland vs Indonesia vs. Monaco. Monaco is longer than Indonesia.)
🇮🇪🇨🇮 (Ireland vs. Ivory Coast)
🇻🇪🇪🇨🇨🇴(Venezuela vs. Ecuador vs. Colombia)
🇱🇺🇳🇱 (Luxembourg vs. Netherlands. NL blue is darker.)
🇸🇮🇸🇰 (Slovenia vs. Slovakia)
For the Instagram version, see here.
Secrets of a Podcast Junkie
Here are my secrets to getting the most out of podcasts:
Subscribe to podcasts liberally, including those that you’re not sure about. Turn off the automatic download setting, and only download the individual episodes that pique your interest. If you’re not convinced after listening to a few choice episodes, unsubscribe.
Simply listen to all podcast shows in chronological order as they are published, if you like variety. But by sorting them into channels, you can listen according to mood, avoiding jarring jumps between the intellectual and the inane.
I always start with the news and other time-sensitive podcasts; everything else can wait. Since that’s usually morbidly depressing, it requires an immediate antidote of comedy and pop culture. With my mood reset, I can first venture into light chat, before flexing my empathy muscles with some storytelling, then finally ending with the most cerebral and thought-provoking content. At this point, I’m ready to go back to the news and begin the cycle again.
There aren’t enough minutes in the day to listen to all this content. So let the podcasts build up, and binge-listen on your next train journey, long-distance run, or vacation. Don’t feel bad about deleting the ones you never get around to. And for the truly obsessed, you can save time by listening at 1.5 or 2 times the speed.
For the Instagram version, see here.
For the Facebook version, see here.
For the LinkedIn version, see here.
