Lo-tech – Silicon|Sutra

Going Nuts: Ways to combat COVID-19 Cabin Fever without losing your mind

I think most people have some cabin fever right now, with many places continuing to have a shelter in place requirement. As a physician, I understand the reasoning behind requirements, and make sure my family is doing all we can to continue to flatten the curve to help make sure my hospital system and other systems around me have all the ventilators, ICU space and PPE they need to take care of critically sick people. I also appreciate that I am lucky to have a place to live, work to do, and still see people I care about at home. There are so many who have lost their jobs, their health insurance, and family members. Having a sense of gratitude that feeling bored by social distancing requirements is in some ways, lucky, is important. This doesn’t mean, however, that I wouldn’t love to take advantage of some of the beauty and culture that the Pacific Northwest has to offer. In my work as a psychiatrist, I hear a lot of variations on these feelings:

“I’m so sick of being cooped up in my apartment.”
“I feel stressed by the news and am trying to avoid it.”
“I miss other people.” (Or alternately, “I’m going to end up divorced if I spend 10 more minutes with my partner.”)
“I feel stagnant” or “oh-please-no-more-Netflix-or-I-will-lose-my-mind.”
“I wish things could go back to normal right now.”

Fortunately, there are a lot of things to help with these feelings! Let’s take each situation and offer some options to help combat those feelings, while acknowledging that many people are also feeling the same way.

Help for being sick of being cooped up:

Consider virtual travel: If I want to tour a different place in the world, I’m either taking a ride in a foreign country on the Peloton (Switzerland is on my bucket list to visit now) or watching Rick Steves tour places I would like to visit. It’s not just escapist, but gives me some ideas for later! I’m making lists of places to travel in Evernote, dreaming of times when we aren’t having to worry about our collective responsibility for COVID-19 and comply with social distancing. Also, there are tons of places offering virtual tours right now. Consider taking some of the tours on the Digital Giza Site or multiple museums offering free tours (see this article from Travel and Leisure). Consider it a virtual scouting trip for places you might opt to visit, not because you’re stuck at home! Even my beloved Portland Japanese Garden is offering virtual tours.
There are lots of amazing travel writers, both in media (consider the New York Times’ “52 Places to Go” series) and books. I’m a long-time fan of Jon Krakauer and Paul Theroux.

Help for feeling trapped by bad news:

I give you permission to not keep absolutely up to date with the news. Consider a media diet. Decide what amount of news you need to keep up with to be safe and feel like a good citizen, and schedule that for your day. Then disconnect. If you need more help disconnecting (because the lure of social media is real), consider reading this article .

There is good news online. Check out the goodnewsnetwork.com!

I miss other people

Consider a specific app to keep in touch with people. I have a regular Houseparty date with my best friend, and send videos to friends with Marco Polo. Consider taking your communication off social media if social media has an adverse effect on your mental health. For an example, it is a friend’s birthday today. I sent a birthday card, and sent a text as well. I’ve been keeping up with some older adults via written letters. The written letters I’ve received are much more memorable and tangible than any email I receive, which are generally forgotten as soon as I’ve read them. Consider taking a walk in your neighborhood! Say hello to your neighbors- nothing prevents us from making eye contact and greeting people who live around us! I have noticed some people chatting from their porches, providing a wonderful sense of neighborhood cohesiveness that I don’t think was there before.

I feel stagnant, or I’m bored!

Mix it up a little. Instead of Netflix all the time, consider listening to a podcast as part of your routine. For pure escapism, I like the History of Rome podcast, and In Our Time from the BBC. To learn about current events and culture, I like the Monocle Magazine series of podcasts, which I think are uniformly good quality and cover everything from magazines, culture, business, foreign affairs to current news with an international viewpoint. I like Tim Ferris’s podcast for listening to a great interviewer work with great thinkers, and the Asian Efficiency podcast to help me get things done more efficiently in a relatable way. If you have a library card, or even if you don’t, as some libraries are waiving this requirement, you can borrow electronic books. I’ve made it most of the way through an entire Nordic crime series during this time of social distancing. If you decide to order a book to be delivered, consider ordering from your local bookstore instead of the Amazon behemoth! My local bookstore was offering free delivery, so I had the new Marie Kondo book “Joy at Work” delivered to my house, even though an electronic copy would have been faster. Also, I’m taking an online class for free, just for the joy of learning, on the history of the Giza Plateau. There’s no other reason for this, other than to learn something new! I found the course on this website, and have been impressed.

I’ve also added some self-care to my routines that I think helps with feeling stagnant. A regular meditation habit is made easier by all the great free content online (just google “free meditation” and be amazed by all you find!). I’m working on adding some better exercise habits into my schedule now (see the Peloton riding, above).

I just want things to go back to normal.

I’m working on the premise that a time of restriction now may turn into a fuller life later- one with improved health and habits! I know this is the optimistic view, but I think it’s also accurate to a degree. When this is over, I’ll have a list of places I want to visit, some new hobbies and knowledge, and hopefully be working on healthy habits like meditation and exercise. Lastly, I comfort myself with the (true) thought that this, too, shall pass. Even though this experience has been painful for people across the world, we’re all surviving this together, and with the knowledge that this period of restriction will pass. And hopefully, we’ll keep working together.

How I’m getting through the COVID-19 crisis…

COVID

Who could have anticipated that our lives would look like this two months ago? Even as a physician, the empty streets as I drive to the clinic, the closed stores and restaurants, and most of all, closed schools, seem incomprehensible. How could this virus bring the entire world to a halt? It is a baffling, stressful, and for some, life-threatening time. While some people have found new meaning in staying home, protecting people they love, others who have lost livelihoods and family members have had reasonably increased anxiety and depression.

I feel fortunate in this crisis, as I’ve been lucky enough to have a profession that I can still practice during this time, and help support our family. I’m still in the hospital, as some part of my job has to be practiced in person- doing Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS)- but a fair amount can be done via telemedicine. Who thought telemedicine would be practiced on such a vast scale in just a month or two? However, even having safe employment doesn’t make me immune to stress and worry about the health of my family. How do we safely get essentials? Should I wear a cloth mask in public, despite some studies to the contrary? What happens if someone gets sick- how do we safely quarantine them in our house while protecting everyone else? How will this affect the feelings of safety and security of the smallest members of our household, when they have lost their classrooms, beloved teachers, and can’t go outside to play with their friends?

Routine and familiarity are so important for us all. So we have really worked to keep a routine for our family, and I’ve have leaned into my own routine. Routines in general are great ways to build productivity and wellness into our lives.

When I use a paper planner, I have a laminated bookmark with my daily, weekly, and monthly routines and tasks that keeps me on track. When electronic planning, I’ve added recurring tasks to Todoist (and Things 3-I’m trying out both to see which I like better). I have one for the morning, with subtasks:

Drink water (I’m terrible at this normally)
Meditate. I’m using the Daily Calm from the Calm app right now.
Five minute journal- I use the template from Day One everyday, in it’s own dedicated “productivity journal.”
Exercise- Hmm…not as good at this one yet.
Review tasks and appointments for the day (Todoist/Things3 and Fantastical/Google Calendar).

I have an evening routine, which consists of something similar:

Straighten up.
Five minute PM journal and regular journal, again through Day One.
Stretch or meditate.
Read for 30 minutes.

If something really significant has occurred that day, personally or in the world, which frankly, these days, is more often then not, I use this short-cut on my iPhone to attach that day’s New York Times front page to my journal entry in Day One. I have this thought that some day, I will want to read back in this momentous time. My spouse’s family member’s account of taking care of patients in the Spanish Flu epidemic is still read today, and maybe this will be valuable for my descendants, too.

For our family, we have set up a home schooling area, and the kids have a specific schedule, with lots of fun time built in, too (playing in the yard, run-walking with me when I have time, impromptu brownie baking). They do school lessons in short bursts in the morning when they are most energetic and focused. We cleared a lot of clutter so there is not much distraction for them and we have dedicated spaces for their supplies. Also, I am working hard for us to be forgiving and kind to each other. This is a really baffling time for adults, and even more so for children. Fighting and tantrums are more common, and for the kids, too. 🙂 It’s hard to manage stress during this time, and I think extra care is needed to give partners and family members the benefit of the doubt.

We also keep up with friends and family far away, regularly, on a variety of apps, including Houseparty and Marco Polo. A regular coffee date with a friend online can really help your sense of isolation, and recognize, we really are all in this together.

What are you doing to soothe and stay calm during this time? Let me know below!

Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter: the deluxe, super-flexible note book with the complicated name

Roterfaden Taschenbegleiter is complicated if you don’t speak German. Which, sadly, I do not. Baum-kuchen, one of my favorite online stationery stores ever, translates Roterfaden as “red thread” which makes sense since all the notebooks are bound with a red thread (incidentally, they have one of the best selections of Roterfaden in the US). I requested a Roterfaden for Christmas from Santa, and must have been really good this year.

The notebook is a similar premise as the Traveler’s Journal, which I’ve talked about here, except they come in more sizes, and the mechanism which keeps the notebooks in the cover is different. My Roterfaden is A5 sized, which means I can use a wide variety of notebooks, including those of Roterfaden. Right now, I have a Roterfaden weekly calendar (April Fool’s Day is amusingly printed upside down), a grid notebook from another brand, a tear-out list booklet, and some random studies I’ve been trying to get around to reading. I change the calendar to a monthly one frequently, and often add a daily page or dashboard (I like this one from Baum-kuchen). I also have some plastic page protectors I use, and Midori MD booklets that I use for taking notes on specific books, depending on what I have planned for the day.

The cover is a nice padded leather (ignore the smear on mine- everything I own is covered in espresso), with a red elastic band that holds it closed. I expect it to age nicely as long as I don’t have any more espresso accidents. There are other finishes available- one is made of recycled materials, rather than leather, for vegan writers or those not into the leather look.

The inside is made of a soft gray wool felt, with pockets for tools, cards, and a writing pad or kindle, though most writing pads, including A5 Rhodia pads do not fit. Roterfaden makes one that fits, available again through Baum-Kuchen. An elastic loop holds a thin pen, but probably not a multi-pen. Other models even have zipper pockets! The unique thing about Roterfaden is the clip mechanism. The clips move downward to hold in notebooks, loose papers, etc.

The clips don’t just function to hold the booklets in the notebook cover, but also hold your place in the booklet. Here, I’ve used the clips to hold my planner open to the correct week. If you’re left-handed, as I am, the clips do not get in the way of your hand while you are writing, and the booklets are perfectly flat for writing. This has consistently been the problem for me with the traveler’s journal- if there are too many booklets (or even if there isn’t), the book tends to close. This one doesn’t!

The clips are very sturdy and non-obtrusive. If they break, replacement pieces are available, though I haven’t tried replacing any myself, so I’m not sure if it’s a simple process or not.

The notebook easily holds three notebooks, without any elastics, like the Traveler’s Journal. Here, I have a graph paper booklet, a plastic-covered Muji monthly calendar, and a list booklet from Roterfaden.

I would love to hear from other Roterfaden owners, to see how they are using their notebooks! There are Facebook pages for Roterfaden, and an active community on Instagram for more ideas! I can imagine myself using this notebook for a long time to come, as it’s super-flexible, lefty-friendly, and gorgeous. Thanks for reading!

Book Review: “Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now,” by Jaron Lanier

I’ve really been reconsidering the way I use social media lately, and interact with some of the big technology companies. Part of this was the recognition that occasionally, while I was searching for a new pen or planner on two of my favorite stationery websites, I was seeing advertisements for the exact same items on Facebook, and in my Google Feeds. I doubt this is coincidence! I was disturbed that my browsing was clearly being mined in order to advertise to me. I doubt that anyone is super interested in my browsing habits other than to sell things to me, but it still felt invasive. I noticed the privacy problems elsewhere, too. People that I prefer not to “friend” were popping up in my suggested friends, and I can’t help but assume that the same was happening to them as an unpleasant surprise.

The news article recently where a physician’s patients were being suggested as friends for each other was distressing to me, too. No psychiatrist would likely “friend” a patient on Facebook unless it was a purely professional site- to do so would be a boundary violation- so one can’t help but assume that Facebook was keeping track of the patients’ locations, which also feels quite Big Brother to me.

Another thing that happened to me was that I had posted a cute photo of my kids, and I noticed that someone I didn’t know had “liked” on the photo. But this shouldn’t have happened, as all my content is set to the most stringent privacy settings! Not only that, this person was not a “friend of a friend” so there wasn’t a terrific explanation for why this person had access to photos of my children. There are cases where people exploiting children take random photos of children off the internet for their own use, which I found distressing, but hadn’t worried about since I had set sharing to “friends” only.

Then, the new iPhone setting was uploaded that tells you what your screen time has been, and it was higher than I would like, though lower than the average person. A lot of that time was checking Facebook. I noticed I felt grumpy and tired by the constant “best face foward” aspect of people’s feeds. And a recent study noted that people get back an hour of their life and are happier after they quit Facebook. Who couldn’t use an extra hour every day?

In a perfect example of synchronicity, there was an article in one of my favorite magazines, The Idler, reviewing Jaron Lanier about his book, “Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now.” I read the article, then checked the book out from the library. I think it’s worth reading.

The book is pretty short, just 160 pages, so it doesn’t take much of your time. It doesn’t tell you HOW to quit social media, or tell you to give it up entirely. Instead, Mr. Lanier, who was an Atari and virtual reality pioneer (if my internet research is correct) and now is among other things, a philosopher, recommends withdrawing from social media that meets specific criteria, until the clear flaws are fixed. He makes 10 arguments about why withdrawing from social media is a reasonable decision, and many of this arguments were based on information I had never heard before. There are some platforms, such as LinkedIn, which he does not feel are as problematic. While there are many aspects of social media which he points out as problematic, the one that I thought was the most concerning and resonated with my own experience was what he named “BUMMER.” BUMMER stands for Behaviors of Users Modified, and Made into an Empire for Rent, and this is the concept behind items that I have looked at in Google showing up as advertisements in Facebook. He asserts that for every click or like you make, social media bots immediately change their algorithm to sell you things and to sell you and your information to companies. He likens this to a cultural denial of service attack, and I felt this was a poignant description, as well as quite upsetting.

The only thing I didn’t really like about the book was the occasional repetitiveness of the arguments, where he brought the same information up over and over again. The tone was quite casual, which may or may not be annoying to readers. However, he did take care to not lecture to anyone, or make assumptions about the reader, which I appreciated. I thought the information in this book came at the perfect time for me. The arguments solidified the concerns I had, and pushed me to action.

Firstly, I signed up for an online class from the Idler, How to Fix the Future: A guide to taking back the power from the digital overlords. I thought this class did a great job of framing the historical context, and had some nice materials to supplement the short classes, which were excerpts of a talk that a journalist who specializes in this area, and the editor of the Idler had. The class is inexpensive, <$15, and worthwhile.

Secondly, I deleted all my social media account apps from my phone and iPad, which had the effect of making me spend zero time on social media, other than checking every few weeks for friends with birthdays on my feed to wish them a happy birthday.

Thirdly, I made a plan for social media- deleting pages and groups from my pages that I feel are not needed, and only checking every two weeks for updates from friends. I’m keeping the silicon|sutra social media as is, however.

Lastly, I signed up for some new services:

a secure email service, Proton Mail, that doesn’t mine my email, though Google claims they aren’t doing this anymore (who really monitors this?) and allows encryption.
A VPN service from the same email service, both of which I’m super happy with.
Firefox. Mr. Lanier asserts that Firefox has made user privacy a priority and I agree that I have not been targeted as often with ads. Additionally, it has an option to “contain” sites like Facebook, which can follow you in subsequent sites to gobble up your data to sell.

I’m interested to hear if anyone else has been thinking or struggling with these same issues. Let me know in comments below!

The Jibun Techo: Analogue superplanner?

I am constantly trying out new planners- electronic, paper…I like them all. However, I’ve recently been turning more to paper, since I find that I remember my appointments and tasks better if they are written down, and I am rarely sitting at my computer. My profession, psychiatry, necessitates that I am fully focused on the person in front of me- no checking my phone for messages, overdue tasks, etc.

I’ve tried a few planners over the last few months, partly to write about them here, including the Mark’s Tokyo Storage planner (awkward name, elegant page design and functional cover), the Hobonichi, and the Traveler’s journal. However, I think the one I like best of them is the Jibun Techo. It comes in a small size that looks like the Hobonichi Weeks to me, a business appropriate one (the “biz”) and an “A5 slim”, which is really Cahier sized, not A5.

The Jibun Techo is really three books in one. One book, the Life book, contains anniversaries, budgets, life events, memories, etc, that you might keep from year to year. It’s made from sturdy, fountain-pen friendly paper that should last several years. The planner book, the thickest of the three books, contains monthly and weekly planner pages, plus monthly trackers for habits, book lists, movies lists, maps of public transportation, etc. The paper is very thin, and I think perhaps Tomoe River, which has the advantage of being light, but fountain-pen friendly. The pages are multicolored, and days cover 24 hours while giving sunset/sunrise and moon phases, which is uncommon for planners like this. The third book is a thin Ideas book, which has Tomoe River paper, and can be a daily log, notes, etc. The whole thing comes in a functional vinyl cover, which has some card slots, and can be decorated (though I’m not much of a decorative planner person). A pocket in the back holds a pencil board with an elastic strap that holds the whole thing closed. I ended up putting a leather traveler’s cover from Jenni Bick on mine.

I leave the Life book at home. I noticed that I brought it with me every day to work, and never once used it- the kind of planning I did with it was more what I would do on my weekly/monthly/yearly planning, and I didn’t need it day-to-day. The other issue I had with it was my concern with losing it. I would be horrified if I left my budget and sensitive information like kid’s birth dates and passwords at the local Starbucks! Recreating your planner would be awful enough, but I think real identity theft damage could be the result of losing the Life book.

Now for the planner: I really like the layout. The vertical layout helps me plan my day but there is a ton of space for tasks, which I felt was lacking in the Midori traveler’s vertical planner. I don’t write tasks that I do routinely (daily rituals, so on), but I do have a lot of deadlines with my evolving career and family, and there was not enough space in other planners. The Jibun also has optional task strips, which are like perforated post-its which are a perfect column size that you can add on extra room for tasks (or clean up a task list that has become chaos!). There are small removable highlighter flags that are also column size, so you can highlight important appointments or tasks, though I have not figured out how functional I think these really are. I have them, and have used them, but I find the fact that they tend to fold away from the page somewhat distracting. I think a Mild-lighter highlighter might work better, honestly. Perhaps someone has a different point of view.

I also really like the habit tracker section, and the places to write movies, books, etc. I ignore some of the spaces to write things down- I feel like I keep a journal, and I don’t need to write EVERYTHING including what I ate down. It’s a fine line between detail-oriented and obsessive compulsive personality disorder! (kidding, sort of…)

I bought a few of the Ideas books since they are so thin; I figured I would fill them up rapidly, but to my surprise, I really haven’t. The paper has a tiny grid, and for some reason, I’ve adjusted my handwriting to the tiny grid, so I get a LOT of writing on one page.

Here’s my thoughts of the pros and cons of the planner:

Pros: great design, thoughtful sections, planner pages with sunset/sunrise/moonphases and color accents are quite nice, fountain pen friendly. Relatively light, especially if you leave the Life book at home. Can still be used, even if you don’t read/speak Japanese.

Cons: perhaps too many spaces for recording your life events/details (when does it become more time consuming than time saving to keep a planner), the sections like budget, etc are potentially too sensitive to carry with you in case of loss. Some of the sections (again, like the budget) don’t translate well if you don’t read Japanese. Tabs are in Japanese, and I had to write the translation in a fine pen, which is still hard to read. Many people, including me, sort of hate the font style.

One last handy tip- there’s some translation on the Jet Pens website, in the product photos. If you join one of the Japanese planner Facebook groups, they have more of the translation in the files sections of their groups. However, this still might not help you use the budget section since it can be a hassle to flip back and forth to the translation!

Do you have a planner you love, or really have an opinion about the Jibun Techo? Let me know in the comments below!

P.S. Is anyone else SUPER excited about the “Digital Minimalism” book by Cal Newport coming out next month??