And the last of the apps is potential project. Mindfulness is clearly having a moment in the biz world right now – this is another one I discovered on HBR.

While this is a standalone app, it’s also an adjunct to a mindfulness business consulting offering**.

The icon looks rather familiar:

This app is really stripped down and minimalist:

Eight guided meditations and a silence with bells:

Again – very minimalist interface for the actual meditation:

And a tracker (of course) – though extremely bare-bones:

What I liked: The minimalist nature of it – no social, very little tracking.
+ Voice is almost robotic – brings to mind a kind of soothing female Japanese robot.

What I didn’t like: Not that I didn’t like it, but I think this is a little too advanced for me. There’s loads of silence and it is an effort to stay on the breath. The large chunks of silence is probably a good thing, but I am not sure I have the mental discipline for this to work for me – yet.
+ ** Can’t say I’m not too keen on the mindfulness as extracting ever-more productivity from harried employees thing.

Things for next time: Increase efforts to focus!

Cost: It appears to be $2.99 in the app store. I got mine for free back in April when I completed the quiz in the HBR article (you can probably still get it that way if you’re interested).

Rating: 4/5 app | 3/5 meditation (but my experience was 2/5 because I found it hard to stay present)

xxx

Now all that remains is for me to decide what I am going to go with!

The second last of the apps under consideration is insight timer. I’ve absolutely no idea where this came from or how I heard about it!

This one is completely free, has over 6,000(!) meditations and is the most social of all the apps. It’s also probably the least attractive of the apps – no cute animations, no roaring fire.

You open the app and you see stats on how many people have meditated today and how many are currently meditating.

Scroll down a bit and you can actually see who is meditating. Creepy?

You have to click around a bit to actually find the meditations (click on the headphones icon). You’re then confronted with an enormous choice – you can view by practice, by teacher, by duration, by All The Things – you could absolutely lose hours here.

After a good deal of dithering, I picked Rise and Shine with Andy Hobson.

The interface for the actual meditation is fairly simple:

After you’re done, you can see who meditated along with you:

And who was nearby <shudder>.

And of course, the ubiquitous stats:

What I liked: Everything is free – there’s no paid tier.
+ InsightAndy is almost as good as HeadspaceAndy – big emphasis on almost.
+ Meditation itself wasn’t too bad

What I didn’t like: Sounds ridiculous – but there is too much choice (way too much choice)! It could easily take 30 minutes to settle on something which is not what I am looking for first thing in the morning.
+ The app is not really intuitive to navigate – so you do spend a lot of time clicking things to find what they do.
+ Way, way too social for me.

Things for next time: If I was to use this again, I would ensure I’d already selected what meditation I was going to do. I don’t need the stress of almost unlimited choice first thing in the morning!

Cost: Free free free

Rating: App 2/5 | Meditation 3/5

Next up is the calm app. Calm is the main competitor to Headspace. I keep seeing references to it all over the place, but I think I first read about it in Tim Ferriss: Tools of Titans

This one forgoes the cutesy animations and adorable graphics. It does however have a really amazing crackling fire! If you don’t care for fires, there’s tons of other options – mountain streams, raindrop, ocean – All The DFH** Things.

There are many less screens to get through than with Stop, Breathe & Think.

I went for the meditation, but there’s a really useful breathe option, which takes you through slow and deliberate breathing – good if you need to quickly calm the hell down.

And I started off with the introductory 7 days of calm:

No stickers (that’s not my jam anyway), but you get a nice calming message.

This too measures streaks and has (minimal) stats:

What I liked: ZOMG the fireplace! Seriously, I’ve been watching/listening to it at other times (like now!) and find it incredibly restful.
+ I’m not having to click through a bunch of screens to get started.
+ Really like the breathe option.
+ No timer on the screen during the meditation (just the fire) – which discourages distracted peeking.

What I didn’t like: Voice is still no HeadspaceAndy and a little too peppy and enthusiastic.
+ A good bit of this was introduction to the benefits of mindfulness / meditation – I understand why, but I just wanted to get on with it.
+ Quite limited free options – after the 7 day introductory, you’re going to have to put your hand in your pocket.

Things for next time: I did this before coffee – well worth the change!

Cost: Very limited free options | $12.99 per month ($4.99 per month if you sign up for a year) – assuming this is USD

Rating 5/5 for the app | 3/5 for the meditation

xxx

** Dirty Hippy

This is definitely one of the more challenging challenges for me. I’d like to get a bit more calm and chill and focus in my life – and to stop the brain running off at a billion miles an hour, every minute of every day.

After a couple of aborted attempts, I wrapped up take 10 on headspace back in June (!). I’m under to illusions that I was doing it at all optimally – settling for after work / before bed because my mornings were too crowded. And let’s be real here – they were too crowded with mindlessly scrolling though instagram and reading blog posts from accounts I didn’t really care for (not yours, dear reader!).

10/10 – Woo hoo!

xxx

After I completed the 10 days, the challenge lay fallow – again – for a couple of months. This recent no internet before work in the morning has been quite amazing for my focus and mood, so I’m trying to add meditation into that mix.

Rather than immediately signing up and laying out cash for more headspace, I decided to give some other meditation apps a bash before I committed.

My goal is that by the end of this holiday (Friday), I’ll have chosen an app to go with. If I meditate every morning between now and the Big Day I’ll count this one as achieved (though obviously I’m trying to go beyond the birthday!)

First up Stop, Breathe & Think. I can’t even remember where I heard about this – maybe HBR, maybe lifehacker?

Lot’s of screenshots follow (this one has most screens to click through of any of the apps).

First up, the app has you check in – how you feel physically, mentally and has you pick 5 words to describe how you’re feeling. This is the only app I’ve tried that does this and I think it’s pretty excellent. If you know what you want, you can bypass this and go directly to particular types of mediation.

As I did this on the first day of my holiday, I was feeling pretty gosh-darned terrific!

Based on your mood, it then suggests a selection guided meditations:

I chose the 6 minute loving kindness with Jamie – because I’m all about learning new ways of foisting kindness on my enemies. In all seriousness, I find Chade-Meng Tan’s I wish for X to be happy really powerful and use it frequently.

When you’re done, you get a wee trophy and a sticker.

And the app includes a progress tracker – which measures streaks and weekly settledness.

What I liked: I really like the checking in and the suggestions for meditations based on your current state.
+ There are a huge number of free options.

What I didn’t like: The actual loving kindness meditation! I found it a bit too wordy/chatty for my liking.
+ May they always have positive experiences and happiness as a kind of mantra is a bit much for my brain to get itself around.
+ I don’t think Jamie’s voice really resonated with me in the way that HeadspaceAndy’s does – to be fair, Andy has a fabulous and very soothing voice.
+ I also had no idea that the mediation was over – after a while I realised the silence at the end was not an intentional sit quietly and observe your thoughts thing and wrapped it up!
+ I’m trying to stop relentlessly and obsessively tracking myself – so a tracker would be BAD for me.

Things for next time: It occurred to me that I should probably not drink coffee before I meditate as it doesn’t help at all with racing thoughts.

Cost: Basic = free | Premium = $15.49 per month ($7.17 per month for if you sign up for a year) – I’m not entirely sure if that is USD or AUD

Rating: 4/5 for the app | 2/5 for the meditation

I’ve really enjoyed wandering down to the park with Don on the last couple of Sunday afternoons to watch the Sydney Winter baseball league games. And fortunately before we became completely bored with it – today was the Grand Final.

It was absolutely freezing compared to past weeks, so we suitably geared up in coats, scarves and hats and brought along my (former**) park reading blanket.

It was a pretty intense and relatively fast-paced game and a much higher standard than the previous two we’d watched. The score was 0-0 until the bottom of the 9th when LocalSportsTeam hit a home run and there was much rejoicing among the 100-or-so spectators.

I say this all the time, but I do need to get out in the neighbourhood more. There’s a whole bunch of suburban stuff going on that we’d never ordinarily discover and that doesn’t really appear on the InformationSuperHighway.

Now we wait for Local Cricket to start.

xxx

** I now have precisely zero chances of reading in the park at lunchtime, so admitted defeat and brought it home.

World’s Best Teens Compete in Microsoft Office World Championship

There’s a whole wide world out there – of science, of art, of literature, of well, everything – and these teens choose to become experts at using the microsoft office suite.

#getoffmylawn

Not quite everything was crossed off my list today. I did get some (though not all) project supplies, I did go to pilates (awesome) and I meditated (slightly less awesome, but I will persist). Cooking is carried over to tomorrow for I was driving around the place getting stuff (or trying to) in the time that I’d allocated for stock and bikkies.

100 days

I didn’t pick today as the start of my break for any 100-days-until-my-birthday reasons, but it has a kind of nice symbolism (though strictly speaking it’s probably more symbolic to be 50-days-until-my-birthday). My plan is to focus the next 6 days on crossing some of the more creative items off my list and set myself up for some of the others.

I have a whiteboard on my desk:

I have supplies:

Let’s do this!

the paradise which is daiso

It’s the eve of my week off, I’m wildly excited at the prospect of some uninterrupted time to myself.

Tomorrow:
➕ Meditate
➕ Write giant holiday Action Item list
➕ Pilates
➕ Buy project materials
➕ Make chicken stock
➕ Make ganching’s scandi coconut biscuits
➕ DO NOT check work emails or slack!

Today, I achieved peak wanker.

(yes they do sit funny – I have weird ears)

“better”

It’s only day two, but so far the no-internet-before-work experiment is going unexpectedly well. I feel more focussed and less scattered. I’ve not forgotten anything in the bike commute, which must be some sort of record.

Obviously it is not quite the same thing, but this is definitely easier (so far) than the no-internet-in-the-evenings project. That one had the unintended consequence of really ramping up my morning internet activity to crazy levels.

I don’t know that I’m especially more productive, but that wasn’t really the intent – I’m a big fan of the calm and quiet and maybe I can get back to that learn meditation project.

xxx

The no-afternoon-coffee has delivered the expected headaches, and is serving to make me pretty ravenous. Clearly was working as an appetite suppressant. 

I don’t have any intention of giving this up permanently, but it is good to have periodic resets I think.