Monthly favourites — January 2019

🎞️	Marie Kondo	Grace and Frankie	Counterpart
🎧	Daily Habits	Making Work Meaningful	James Blake
📖	Quiet Leadership	All That I Am	Beloved
📱	Smiling Mind	Flo	Nutribullet
➿	Doing less	Inbox zero	Daily affirmations
🎒	How to sew	Google Analytics	About gut health

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🎞️ Watching

Marie Kondo (TV show)

I devoured Tidying Up with Marie Kondo (the Netflix show) and proceeded to ‘Kondo‘ everything in the house. I wish I had taken photos beforehand; you’ll just have to trust me, it was chaos.
— Jess

Grace and Frankie (TV show)

So, like Jess I also watched Marie Kondo! I read the book a few years ago, and now after watching the show and seeing Jess’ update I’m even more eager to get at my wardrobe! But I’m here to share my current “Aimee time” show: Grace and Frankie! I’d been eagerly awaiting the next season (5), and it just dropped in Australia! I’m halfway through it, and honestly, I just love Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda so much ❤️
— Aimee

Counterpart (TV show)

I cannot get over the amazing shows SBS gets their mitts on. How do they do it? Counterpart is a brilliant, science fiction/thriller series. It’s American-made but filmed in Berlin. The plot is gripping, as are the cast. And lucky us, season two is about to drop!

Sidenote – I too love me some Grace and Frankie, and was very excited for season five 😁
— Lil

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🎧 Listening to

Daily Habits (podcast episode)

Every now and then I decide to search the podcasts app on a topic to see what comes up. Being January, I searched “habits” and found this gem: ‘Daily Habits that Change the Game with Brendon Burchard’ (an episode of the RISE podcast).

It goes for an hour so if you don’t have that kind of time, here are a couple of the key takeaways:

• Set goals that stretch beyond your current capabilities, and further into the future than the current year (try three years ahead). Then figure out what you would need to learn to meet these stretch goals: mentors to meet, courses to do… think about how you might build the required capability for yourself.
• Set daily habits that make you feel good and recharge, and be clear about your motivation. Telling yourself to go to the gym every day is likely to be an uphill battle unless you can automate the decision, until it becomes easy and comfortable. You have to have things that make you want to do it.
• The most productive people take breaks every 50-75 minutes. Even if you think you don’t need a break, take one! It’ll help to stop you from burning out by dinner time.

— Jess

“A lot of people go week by week by week but they never ask themselves, what made me feel good this week?”

Brendon Burchard

Making Work Meaningful with Kate McCready (podcast episode)

Lil came across the All Being Well podcast by Kayla Robertson and sent me the link thinking it’d be right up my alley. Safe to say, she knows me well! 💁🏼‍♀️ I want to listen to ALL the episodes. However, having to start somewhere I started with the episode: Making Work Meaningful with Kate McCready.
— Aimee

“The idea of having work on one side and life on the other doesn’t really make sense, because there’s a connecting element between the two – the self. We have one self and one life and we cannot separate them out.“

Kate McCready

Assume Form, by James Blake (album)

It’s been a while between albums. James Blake’s newest offering feels fresh, while retaining the electro-meets-ballad style we know and love. my fave track is Where’s The Catch. It features André 3000!
— Lil

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📖 Reading

Quiet Leadership (book)

“For one whole week keep a tally of the number of times people give you advice, and the number of times it is useful. At the end of the week do the math to see the percentage that advice was useful to you. See what happens in how you approach others around you after that.”

David Rock

All That I Am (book)

Beloved (book)

This book was recommended to me (thanks Mum), and I’d never heard of it. Now that I’ve started it, I can’t put it down, and I’m wondering how I missed such a stunning piece of work for so long. Beloved is written by Toni Morrison, an African American novelist, editor, teacher and professor emeritus at Princeton University. It’s an incredible piece of fiction, inspired by the story Margaret Garner, an African American slave. The research is incredible, as is the blend of poetic prose and magical realism. One for the ages 🙏
— Lil

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📱 Using

Smiling Mind (app)

The Smiling Mind app is the single-most beneficial addition to my life in 2019 so far. It’s a free app developed in consultation with psychologists, offering guided meditations and mindfulness. They’re categorised by age, mood or situation — I’ve found the sleep series particularly helpful on restless nights to help me drift off. I’m curious about whether the Workplace Program may be worthwhile too (has anyone tried it?).
— Jess

Flo (app)

Flo is the number one women’s health app. I downloaded it purely to track my cycle, but since using it I’ve found it provides so much more than just tracking! It gives you health insights, allows you to analyse and track your symptoms. Their site even provides a lot of great content on women’s health.
— Aimee

Nutribullet (appliance)

I’d basically forgotten smoothies existed until Melbourne’s recent heatwave. Now, I’m all about them. I’ve been working my way towards the ultimate breakfast smoothie – I’m not quite there, but once it’s down pat, I’ll share – promise.
— Lil

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➿ Practicing

Doing less

Among all the new year’s resolutions and a constant self-improvement bent, I’ve been reminding myself that it’s okay to do less. In fact, it’s probably better. This year I’m hoping to slow down, lower productivity, and be calm and selective with my time.
— Jess

Inbox zero-ing my personal email

I’ll admit it… my personal inbox is a mess! My work email, it’s beautiful, but then log in to my personal email and it’s like you’ve just walked into a room that you’ve only just started to Kondo! Things are everywhere!

After reading Jess’ post on her inbox zero method, I’ve been making a conscious effort to do some tidying of my personal inbox. There’s order and structure to my work email, but I’ve never worked out where to put things in my personal inbox. Seeing Jess’ practical example applied to her personal inbox really helped me visualise how I could make the system work for me!

p.s – it feels good to get that off my chest 😅
— Aimee

Daily affirmations

I’ve been working on making tiny changes to boost my mood and mental health. Daily affirmations sound incredibly cheesy (to me, at least), but after giving them a go I have to confess that I’ve come around. My system is pain free – I jot down a few bullet points each morning, whatever I feel (or want to feel) on a given day. It’s also a great way to keep loved ones – who may not be with us – present in our lives.
— Lil

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🎒 Learning

How to sew

I’m back on the horse sewing machine again. I took a beginners sewing course years ago, made a cushion, and have hemmed the odd pair of jeans, but finally have a new project: turning an old denim jacket into a gym bag! Watch this space. If I never mention it again, perhaps it didn’t go so well 😂
— Jess

Google Analytics

I’ve been wanting to up my knowledge across Google Analytics and Tag Manager for a while now. So, as a starting point, I signed up for the Google Analytics Academy I’m starting from the basics and have watched a few of the pieces in the ‘Google Analytics for beginners’ section. My plan is to work through all of the sections, and then I’ll seek out some further learning if I’m still craving more knowledge.
— Aimee

About gut health

I just finished a gut reset. Four weeks of rebuilding my gut micro-biome. In summary, I gave up alcohol, caffeine, dairy, sugar, legumes, gluten, and all grains. Was it totally bonkers? Yes! Does my tum tum feel amazing? Yes!
— Lil