When our work inspires us, time is our most valuable commodity. New ideas, established projects and evolving priorities compete for attention. In an odd paradox, we can spend a lot of time trying to save time looking into the latest time and priority management tools.

Surprisingly, my studies in yoga and Ayurveda have revealed a new time management secret: Hacking my home life is my best tool for freeing time and focus for my work life.“Hacking” is a way to describe looking for new ways of doing things to increase efficiency. At home, this could mean cleaning in a different way or shopping for groceries online. For me it means getting smart about my self care.

Decision Making Fatigue- Getting Lost in the Mundane

Every day we navigate choices at home and work. Some of them impact our family and relationships, others our health, and some have a ripple effect on our career. Good decisions can have positive effects on our income and career trajectory. At the same time, on any given day we have limited capacity to focus, assess, and make well thought-out decisions.

One of my recent reads- “The One Thing”-  illustrates this brilliantly by describing a review of decisions made by Judges within the Israeli court system. The study showed that the judges made drastically different decisions depending on what time of day they made the ruling and how recently they had eaten. Little, seemingly inconsequential things, seem to matter. When we run out of staying power we turn towards our defaults decisions- the behaviours and choices we are familiar with but which may not result in the desired outcomes. The success of our work is then determined less by our knowledge, skill and experience and more by how much mental energy our day has already consumed. Our daily habits matter.

Making “Default” Behaviour Work for Us

Knowing we have limited capacity each day, what could happen if we re-designed the time we spend AT HOME to create greater capacity at work?  What if we eliminated decisions about our most mundane daily tasks- exercise, eating, and other self care- so all our mental stamina was reserved for solving our most important challenges?

Introducing Routine

Routine. “A sequence of actions regularly followed; a fixed program.” (Dictionary.com)

One of the reasons I was drawn to learn more about Ayurveda was Dinacharya-  a simple routine of daily self-care habits.   This seems ironic given most of my life I have instinctively resisted routine-  I rarely committed to doing anything consistently at the same time or on the same day. I went to the gym when I was motivated. I wrote when I was inspired. Ayurveda taught me to understand this tendency through the lens of the doshas. My airy vata nature leads me to move like the wind between passions, projects and even emails in my inbox without rhyme or reason.

Why Routine Matters

In Ayurveda the element of air reflects movement, change, and diversity. Those of us who are more air element than earth element naturally gravitate to a lack of routine.  We can be in a constant state of re-assessing what we are doing and what we need to do next, creating a lot of inefficiencies as we navigate our decisions for the day.

So what does this have to do with work?

Vata imbalances are exacerbated by use of electronics, movement through space, and a life of complexity and “doing more.”  Many of us work with computers in knowledge-based careers, exacerbating our potential for vata imbalance and making it even harder to focus and make decisions. The very nature of our very work puts us at risk for being less successful in our work day.  One remedy? Take every-day activities like our morning self care and turn it into an automatic routine so that our brain power can be used at the office.

The Challenge of Creating Routine

Changing behavior – initiating new ways of doing things – can be hard to implement and even harder to sustain. I’ve learned that the key to changing behaviour and creating routine is making use of habit changing tools to implement and sustain these rhythms.

My Favorite Tips For Hacking Your Home Life

• Find A Community

The biggest gains I see in my self- care courses happen when the people I am helping connect into a bigger group. By tapping into the wisdom of our own local thrive-oriented community, as well as the books, podcasts and online resources offered by the larger Yoga Healer community, we become much more capable of evolving and changing our habits.  One-to-one connection also helps. I encourage students to form accountability partnerships with other students.  This can work at work too- move into conversation with a friend or colleague who is on a similar path. Turn that into a weekly accountability conversation in the same way that you touch base with your project team.  By using the same kind of muscle you would for an important work project it can give you both more leverage to create shift.

• Start small

Start small- very, very small- so that it is nearly impossible to resist the next step.  David Allen of Getting Things Done teaches us how to start with the smallest “next action” (or kaizen).  If we can’t get moving on a goal, the action we are resisting may be too big. Working out at the gym for an hour every day before you head to the office is daunting.  Doing 5 minutes of sun salutations on your yoga mat at home- less so. We experiment with one small change.  And then another. And learn that a day-by-day 1% improvement effectively creates the shift we want.

Acknowledge Resistance

Resistance is ubiquitous. We know we should be doing more self care, but we spend critical time and energy weighing the pros and cons of our daily workout. Get clear and notice when you are in that debate. Close off the chatter and do the self care. Recognize the impulse to move ahead, name the negative chatter as resistance, and DO IT ANYWAYS. Eliminate the debate at home so your can think clearly at work.

I love my work.  Finding enough time to be the inspiring, focussed and visionary leader I want to be has been a challenge. Time management systems, business coaching and a strong team have given me some traction. Who would have guessed that creating a solid, replicable morning and bedtime routine was what I really needed to uplevel my work life. Hacking my home life is my new secret weapon.

I want to tell you a story about me at age 14 through 21:

In middle school I had really bad acne. I mean really severe, red welts all over my face. It continued until I was about 21. I struggled with body image issues, with wanting to wear a mask and grow a beard—looking at pictures of myself now, I can see how my shoulders caved in and I just looked sad. In those photos I looked like I wanted to hide.

Teenagehood was not an easy time for me, (is it for anyone?) To combat the angry, red bumps, I tried everything—off the shelf scrubs, creams, and masks, medicated washes, cleansers, and topical treatments. I tried prescription pills, I tried natural remedies, urine therapy, even chaparral cleanses—everything except meditation, earlier lighter dinner and no snacking (but that’s another blog post).

As a result, I developed really good hygiene habits and a consistent home practice of caring for my skin every damn day. I became religious about my skincare regime. I both loved and dreaded that time I would spend in the bathroom examining my skin to see if what I had tried the day before was working—if only I knew about emotional ama (toxins) back then.

Reflecting on that that time in my life with the knowledge I have now, I recognize the lesson I learned in caring for myself and establishing that daily habit and home practice might have been the best thing that could that came from that experience. While I stayed home and tried to get my “beauty sleep” my friends stayed up late smoking dope and drinking. I noticed that the swelling in my face went down when I got more sleep.

Creating habits and daily home practice is a constant process and application that includes these principles—know your why, get specific, start small, take aim, take action, practice, and repeat.

1. Know Your Why:

This is key in honing your senses and locating your real reason for taking action.

For me, my why was superficial at first—I wanted the red welts gone. But there was also another deeper, reason: I wanted to be liked, I wanted to be kissed by a boy, I wanted to make friends and change the world. I wanted people to take me seriously and treat me with respect. I thought that if I had clear skin these things would happen.

2. Choose a time of day:

What will you do and when? Get specific about time of day, duration of practice, and location.

Morning and evening routines were a must as a teen. I would set my alarm an hour and a half early so that I would have time to wash and treat my skin. I didn’t wear face makeup, that just irritated everything, but I did wear mascara—lots of mascara.

Now my daily routine goes something like this: alarm rings at 5:50am (time trigger). Open my eyes and take five conscious breaths. Then I get up, walk into the bathroom, scrape my tongue, wash my face, pee. Then I walk into the kitchen and drink 1 liter of warm water.

3. Start small 

It’s important to start small because you don’t want to give yourself backlash (whiplash in real life).

My acne didn’t all arrive at once, I started with products I had at home first, and then the glaring blisters got worse and my WHY (see Know Your Why) became more important, my actions got more rigorous and I became more disciplined. I started with small steps to clear my acne.

Not used to waking up early? Start with 15 minutes earlier than you usually get out of bed. Don’t dial the alarm back by a whole hour… yet.

Lastly, decide how many days of the week is reasonable for you to feel consistent and disciplined without being too rigid. As a friend of mine once said to me, “If it’s going to cause more agony not to eat the piece of chocolate, then just go ahead and eat the piece of chocolate.” Or said another way, for high velocity types like me, “too rigid” leads to brittle and cracking (The opposite of ease, which is another blog post waiting to be written.)

Happy Home Practice and making Habits Stick!

Until soon,

Shinay

Time and again I hear from the Living Ayurveda Course students that self-massage has changed their lives.

The practice of self-massage is simple. In fact, here is a handout to print and post on your fridge until it becomes second nature. In Indian culture, where Ayurveda originates, it’s a daily practice that you would have first experienced in utero. Then, when you were born, you would have received “infant massage”. Infant massage leads to toddler massage. Toddler massage leads to small child massage. Etc. Etc. Etc. Soon you have cultivated an adult that knows how to take care of themselves by simply taking their health into their own hands.

What are the benefits of self-massage (abhyanga)?

What I recommend is to give yourself a massage (instructions here or below) and then assess how you feel. Sure, you can read this commonly printed list of benefits. While some benefits come from claims from the ancient Ayurvedic texts, studies are actually being done to qualify or dismiss these claims. Here is a list of claims commonly found on websites, substantiated byMAPI.

• Increased circulation, especially to nerve endings
• Toning of the muscles and the whole physiology
• Calming for the nerves
• Lubrication of the joints
• Increased mental alertness
• Improved elimination of impurities from the body
• Softer, smoother skin
• Increased levels of stamina through the day
• Better, deeper sleep at night

How to give yourself a massage:

Set aside some quiet time for your massage. 5-15 minutes is enough time to massage the oil on your body (preferably before you shower)– though if you have no time, rub the oil on your skin (instead of soap) in the shower. Do this daily.

You will need:

• Warm room: make this a comfortable and special time for yourself.
• Oil: sesame oil Vatas, sunflower or coconut oil for Pittas and olive or mustard oils for Kaphas.
• Squeeze bottle: for easy access throughout the massage fill a squeeze bottle with oil
• Hot water in a bowl or in the sink: put the squeeze bottle in the warm water and allow the oil to warm to at least body temperature
• Towel or mat: choose something that you don’t mind getting oily. You might want one to stand on and one to dry off with.

How to give yourself a Self-Massage (technique)

• Undress completely and stand on your towel or mat.
• Starting with a small amount of oil in your hands begin to gently rub the oil into your scalp. Massage the oil into your scalp and hair with your fingertips. If you would prefer to keep the oil out of your hair simply omit the use of oil for this part of the message.
• Vigorously work down your body until the oil has been massaged into every part of your body. Use long strokes on your limbs and circular strokes over all your joints, chest and abdomen. Cover every inch of skin, attuning to your bodily tissues with your hands.  Spend extra time on areas that are less integrated (for some this is thighs, buttocks, breasts).
• Take ample time to massage the soles of your feet as this can have a particularly relaxing and soothing affect.

Rinse off the oil in the shower. Take time in the shower to allow the oil on your hands to mix with the water from the shower to massage your face and ears. Use gentle circular strokes to massage your cheeks and forehead, move out towards the ears in stroking motions around the eyes and lips. Soap is drying to the skin, including to the anus; try switching to oil instead.

Print this handout and post on your fridge until it becomes second nature.