Experiment: Read visually (rather than aurally) for 20 minutes every day for 30 days.
Ok, so why…
The pandemic was highly destructive. But like most things that radically impact our lives and culture, it produced some positive effects. One was an increased opportunity for many of us to introspect. To clean house once again, both literally and spiritually, by doing more of what brings us joy and following less of the other noise.
Also, in Dan Pink’s fascinating book When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing, he explains that common milestones – birthdays, holidays, the new year, or even the weekend – provide natural opportunities to start or stop a habit. With my 38th birthday approaching, I felt ready to challenge myself again and keep trying new experiences.
While I’ve become an avid reader, finishing a couple of books each month for years, I do nearly all of this aurally via Audible. Audible is a godsend because I can read with my ears while cooking, cleaning, eating, walking, and working out. I’m not planning to stop this anytime soon, because there is so much I want to read—about 300 titles on my ever-growing To Read list—and I can soak up way more information at a far faster rate this way.
However, there is an argument to be made for uni-tasking when reading certain materials. I recently listened to and loved the book Essentialism, which argues for focusing on the one most thing most important thing right now before moving on to the next. When my husband asked me what the book was about, I found myself struggling to give him a quick summary of all the key points. It’s a straightforward book. But I realized in that moment what I’d long suspected: my comprehension, and more importantly, retention are better when I read—and only read—visually. So, this is an attempt to build that habit and see what happens.
“New goals don’t deliver new results. New lifestyles do. And a lifestyle is a process, not an outcome. For this reason, your energy should go into building better habits, not chasing better results.”
James Clear, author of highly recommended book Atomic Habits
Uh oh…
When am I going to fit this in? Morning seems the obvious choice to ensure it gets done, but according to Dan Pink’s book mentioned above, I’m a 3rd bird. This is the catchall group that’s neither an early bird nor a night owl, i.e., a 3rd bird somewhere in between. At this stage in my life, my ideal sleep time would be 11pm-8am, but I already shift it an hour or so earlier for work and to meditate and/or workout before work.
About that…
I chose a number of minutes rather than pages as my success metric because it’s simple, achievable, and more consistent from book to book. It’s much harder to plan around something with a more nebulous time requirement, e.g., reading 20 pages. That could be a few minutes for a simple book with lots of dialogue, large font, and a small page size or much longer for a book with dense content, small font, and textbook-sized pages.
I researched habit trackers to help keep me on track. Ultimately, I realized I could just use Asana, which I already leverage for my personal To Dos as well as shared family To Dos.
If you don’t have a something like this already, the two that sounded best to me are Habitify, mainly for its simplicity, and Coach.me for its community features, including a discussion thread with tips from others who have worked on the same habit. Both are available on Android and iOS and their basic habit tracking features are free.
Here’s how I set up my daily task tracking for the month in Asana:
Reading is sexy. Let’s go Hot Boy Summer, y’all!
I betcha…
I expect to enjoy this habit and want to continue it. I will most likely choose personal development and other nonfiction for visual reading, i.e., the stuff I most want to retain. For fiction, biographies, and other lower stakes books, I’ll continue to use Audible and crank up the speed to 1.5-2X.
Here’s how it went down…
At first, it was a lot like starting an exercise routine. It is something I value and enjoy, and yet I also find making time for it to be a chore . This soon changed though. I chose material I enjoyed, e.g., Tim Ferriss’ behemoth Tribe of Mentors or a surprise birthday gift from my sister, The Art of Drag. This helped it shift from feeling like an obligation to feeling more like a “Treat Yoself” moment.
I struggled to fit it into my morning routine on days when I was also trying to meditate and work out before work, so I became more flexible with when I did it—as a lunch break or after work.
As you likely know, it can be hard to find the mental willpower after a full day to exercise, especially to do so alone.
In contrast, reading later in the day was far easier due to having material I enjoyed.
When first building a habit like this, it’s not the best time to take on War and Peace, though I would like to get to that book eventually. Set yourself up for success and choose wisely! In short…
“Read what you enjoy reading until you enjoy reading.”
-Adam Gray
I still listened to some audiobooks during this experiment, while cooking, eating, and exercising. I just made sure to do this for books I didn’t need to take notes on, like the latest from my favorite writer Malcolm Gladwell.
I enjoyed and would recommend this book, The Bomber’s Mafia, which he originally produced as an immersive audiobook—with historical audio clips throughout—and later published in print.
You don’t have to be a war history buff to enjoy it either. I’m not one. It focuses more on a smart, scrappy brotherhood, a riveting rivalry, and intriguing ideologies around the most effective and humane way to bomb another country.
Where I Failed…
Asana. This was an “it’s not you, it’s me” sitch. I realized that I typically only use Asana on the weekends for things I want to get done then. I also avoid push notifications from nearly every app on my phone (sorry, not sorry ‘bout it). So, I wasn’t getting the daily alerts that would have been useful in this case. Since I’m a Slave for Goo…gle Calendar, I ended up just creating a recurring daily time block there.
Where I Won…
Mission accomplished!
I ended up doing my reading in the morning or at least by midday most days. This gave me an early win, a sense of productivity, and honored my lifelong learning principle.
I finally made some significant progress on Tim Ferriss’ Tribe of Mentors and read over 1/3 of a book on Zen Buddhism I’d heard good things about: Dropping Ashes on the Buddha.
What Surprised Me…
Two things used to happen when I’d try to read:
I would frequently daydream, sometimes rereading the same line or paragraph, unaware until I snapped back into the moment.
I’d get sleepy and start nodding off.
Over the course of the month, I’ve found my ability to stay present, especially while I was timing myself, has improved. Meditation also helps with this. I’ve also stopped falling asleep, for which I credit both my reading selections and focus on sleep health—which could of course be another whole post.
Whoomp, there it is…
Full circle moment: I went back through the digital bookmarks I saved in Audible for Essentialism to review the key points of the book. In the first bookmark I’d saved, the author recommends starting your day with 20 minutes of reading. My conscious mind had completely forgotten this part, but perhaps my subconscious mind had not.
Side note: saving digital bookmarks in Audible and going back through after you finish the book to take notes on these is a great way to retain more of what you hear when you read by ear.
I enjoyed the experiment enough that I plan to integrate this habit as a regular part of my lifestyle.
“Once you stop learning, you start dying.”
Albert Einstein
Thanks for reading! Please leave me a comment with any feedback and/or what you think my next experiment should be.
Experiment: Do a 3-Day Water Fast (consume nothing but water, black coffee, and unsweetened tea)
Disclaimer: I’m still not a doctor. While I do recommend trying some of my experiments like this if they make sense for you, none of this should be taken as medical advice. Any action you take based on the information presented here is at your own risk…
Ok, so why…
Like most humans, I ate/drank more and different things than I usually do over the holidays. Fasting is a great way to clean house in your digestive system and reset your eating habits.
This also meets my two requirements for an experiment: 1) I believe it can make me a better person… or at the very least teach me something worthwhile and 2) it’s challenging enough to scare me a little.
I came across far more benefits than anticipated in my research. Here are 10 of the most compelling short-term benefits, which are often the sexy hooks that get us into fasting:
Hunger is more a psychological response than anything else. The hormone that activates your hunger gremlin is appropriately called ghrelin.
It comes and goes cyclically with our daily eating routines, much like melatonin comes and goes with our daily sleep routines.
Fasting throws a wrench in ghrelin’s cogs, much like exposing a gremlin to sunlight. Do this enough and it stops. No more addiction to food. You’ll still enjoy eating, just on your own terms. Without all the ghrelin gremlin chatter.
Get Well Sooner
When we are sick, we do not typically feel as hungry. This is our body’s triage plea: give me a break so I can tend to what matters most right now.
Dump the Extra Junk Out Yo’ Trunk
Our digestive systems have been working hard our entire lives. They can use a break and take the chance to clean out the extra crap that has accumulated over the years.
Sages like Aristotle, Socrates, and Hippocrates practiced fasting for its professed purification and healing abilities.
Upgrade Yourself
After 16 hours of fasting, autophagy begins. Translating to “eating yourself” in Latin, your body is finding and consuming broken and old cells. This is good.
When those junky cells are left to accumulate, they can lead to degenerative diseases like cancer or Alzheimer’s over time. Eating them is thought to reduce incidence of these diseases. Your body grows new cells to replace the old ones, giving you an upgrade from the inside out.
Easier Travel
Once you beat hunger addiction, you won’t get hangry and throw a toddler-like tantrum if the planes, trains, and automobiles don’t have Biscoff cookies for you.
You also don’t have to plan your trip rigidly around mealtimes.
Fall in Love with Food Again
For many people who do prolonged fasts, the first taste of food again is incredible. I’m looking forward to that moment!
Spread the Movement
Since most businesses stand to benefit from increased—not reduced—consumption, don’t expect to see them advertising fasting. It’s our job to spread the word about it, and the best way to do this is through our actions.
Now here are the true reasons you should practice fasting… the long-term bennies:
Boost your metabolism (& shed excess weight)
Cancer prevention and chemotherapy effectiveness
Prevent onset of type 2 diabetes (or reverse it for those who have it)
Better blood sugar control
Relieves inflammation
Gain greater awareness of your eating habits and appreciation for food
Can clear up your skin (as long as you stay hydrated – you better drink that water)
Helps you live longer
Uh oh…
The most I have gone without eating is 24 hours, so I’m just trying to do that again… 3 times, consecutively, with no breaks. No big deal.
Some people who have done extended fasts report being so wired at times that they find it hard to sleep. Yikes. This is likely due to the body switching into ketosis—fat-burning mode—but may be a bit unsettling nonetheless.
No free samples at Trader Joe’s… I kid. That is definitely not happening right now. Remember those days though.
About that…
Won’t I starve? You won’t starve. We all have reserves of fat, 34 pounds for the average human. Since each pound represents 3,500 calories, or nearly 2 days of food, we have plenty of built-in “snacks” for our body to consume for a while without eating.
In fact, the world record for the longest fast ever is 382 days!
According to Dr. Fung, author of The Complete Guide to Fasting, “Fasting is running for health. Starving if running because a lion’s chasing you.”
I betcha…
Based on what I read, I am expecting Day 2 to be the hardest. Most people say it gets much easier after that point, roughly when your body switches from burning glucose to fat, which we have far more of readily available.
I am expecting to have some periods of low energy as well as periods of high energy and productivity.
The Last Supper (Pre-Fast Meal):
For my last meal at 5:30pm on a Thurs evening, I enjoyed a large but light arugula salad with olive oil, red wine vinegar, some pistachios, and half an avocado. Note it was intentionally very low carb to help my body reach ketosis—and thus make me feel much better—sooner in the fast.
You feel better because your mind and body don’t have to work to find glucose to burn for energy and instead use available ketones, an alternative source of fuel that the liver produces from your body’s fat.
First 24 hours (Thurs eve – Fri eve):
Day 1 was not too tough, though this was never the part that concerned me.
I slept great Thursday night, as expected, given I was only a few hours into the fast at that point – nothing for my body to have even registered yet.
On Friday morning, I had unsweetened coffee… not my fave, but better than I remembered it being from my month of No Sweetener. I sprinkled in some cinnamon and sea salt for a little flavor enhancement.
I also took 2 salt pills—I like Salt Stick brand—and ½ tsp Trace Minerals drops, recommended by a friend to maintain electrolyte balance during the fast. In the evening, I took 2 more Salt Stick pills to maintain electrolytes and retain water better.
Quick note: While it’d be awesome to get paid for my brand recommendations, I have no current affiliations with any of them. They have just worked for me.
I did a rigorous strength training workout and didn’t feel I was lacking any energy to do so. Counterintuitively, I often feel more energy to work out after a shorter-term fast, which this has been so far. I don’t plan to do strenuous activity during hours 24-72.
Hunger came in a few times during this 1st 24 hours as if it was a little phone notification, reminding me “Hey, we usually eat now. Do you wanna do that?” But just like a phone notification, it was easily dismissible.
I accomplished more at work without spending any time cooking, eating meals, or having any snack breaks.
Hours 24-48 (Fri eve – Sat eve):
Brrrrr… I normally run cold during the day and heat up at night. However, my body temperature is running lower at all times now, as I find myself bundling up more during the day and actually using a blanket at night. And I’m usually a just-undies-and-a-single-sheet kind of sleeper, even in the winter.
I slept wonderfully again. Hoping the trend continues during the final night.
Woke up very thirsty Saturday morning. Will repeat my electrolyte protocol and aim to get in a little more water today.
My typical morning routine includes a 2-minute HRV (Heartrate Variability) reading using the free Elite HRV app. This morning my HRV was very low, indicating elevated sympathetic activity in my body.
This is expected since it is the body’s involuntary response to dangerous or stressful situations, i.e., when it thinks you cannot find food.
A flood of hormones kicks in to boost your alertness. For this reason, I’m feeling greater mental clarity than usual.
At the same time, it’s a good indication I should take it easy, as planned, and not do any substantial exercising today.
My nose feels clearer and more powerful.
My sense of smell is heightened, maybe more than necessary. I can smell our dog’s breath better, as well as my own. (Shame!) Less than ideal breath is a side effect of extended fasting.
It is refreshing to wake up and be able to take deep, clear breaths 1st thing in the morning though. Stuffiness be gone.
In general, I feel a heightened awareness… of my body, mind, and surroundings. There is something very primal about the feeling.
Occasionally, I feel slightly lightheaded but nothing concerning.
I felt a little meh in late morning and went on a long, sunny walk outside—another tip from a friend. This made me feel wonderful and gave me a chance to catch on the phone with my family—a great way to spend some of the extra time you have.
Around midday when I typically feel that circadian rhythm slump—on top of lagging a bit while digesting lunch—I felt supercharged today.
I didn’t even need the 15-20min siesta power nap I take religiously after lunch.
I’m drinking lots of water and loving naturally flavored sparkling water (zero calories) as a means to mix it up. Squeezing in a little lemon or lime juice is fair game too and is helping jazz up my agua.
Hours 48-72 hours (Sat eve – Sun eve):
Phew… Slept great again. This was a big relief because this was the night some bloggers had expressed trouble sleeping due to their elevated heart rate and racing mind.
I fortunately did not have these issues.
When I did my morning HRV check, my heartrate was 30% higher than usual. Not an issue though, as I otherwise didn’t notice it.
Went for a hike with my husband Will, cousin Jessie, and our dogs. It was a bit hillier than expected, so I felt a little hungry afterward. Some tea helped handle that though.
This was the first time I enjoyed green tea without any almond milk or sweetener.
Also, Will was a great partner and joined me for the final day of the fast—especially nice since I didn’t have to see or smell his tasty food.
It really does get easier after you’ve hit a certain point in the fast—which I clearly have based on my energy levels and heart rate—when your body kicks into fat-burning ketosis.
You would think hunger would grow linearly or even exponentially as the fast progresses. In contrast, the strength of the little hunger waves that come and go has diminished.
In the same vein, while there can still be challenging moments, the practice of fasting gets easier once you get some initial experience. When you disrupt your hormonally driven hunger patterns, your body adjusts, and the hangry pangs lessen. Once you’ve tried and succeeded, you gain the mental confidence that you can do it again whenever you want to.
Woo hoo – I made it! Admittedly, I have been counting down the hours, mostly because I started to miss the enjoyment of eating food. I was so focused on what I was working on at the time though that I blew past 72 hours before realizing it!
Before & After…
I lost 4.2 pounds, from 140.6 to 136.4.
The Aftermath: beyond 72 hours:
Surprisingly, I wasn’t super hungry at the end… certainly not starving. I could have easily gone another day if I wanted to.
In no rush, 24 minutes after I hit 72 hours, I started slow and savored some delicious Trader Joe’s grass-fed organic beef broth. Just 100 calories but full of flavor and very satisfying.
I would recommend starting with this or, for vegetarians, miso soup.
Two hours later, I consumed a spinach salad with olive oil and red wine vinegar, cucumbers, roasted pecans, some avocado, and nutritional yeast, followed by a square of dark chocolate.
I truly appreciated the food and process of eating more than usual. The flavors were a little bolder and brighter, or in the case of the chocolate, more complex.
The rule of thumb for refeeding after a longer fast (24 hours+) is to ease back into your normal eating patterns over a period equal to ½ your fast, i.e., a 1.5-day recovery period for my 3-day fast.
This means starting by eating about ½ as much as you’d normally eat in a meal and then building back up to your normal intake over the course of this period.
There are also a few things to avoid in order to be gentle to your digestive system, which is being kickstarted back up:
Lots of meat (some is fine – just don’t go crazy with it right away)
Beans
Alcohol
Dairy
Some recommended foods: some chicken or fish, spinach, cucumbers, bell peppers, walnuts, macadamia nuts, some sweet potatoes or squash, blueberries, dark chocolate.
It is a quite an interesting sensation to literally feel your digestive system booting up again. I followed these tips and had a smooth recovery.
The body and mind reset from the fast have lingered for days after I started eating again. My mind feels clearer and sharper and my energy level consistently better than it had been pre-fast.
While it wasn’t the main driver for me, I did lose 4.2 pounds, from 140.6 to 136.4. Typically, most of this returns as water weight, as you start refeeding and the sodium in food helps you retain more water. Not to mention, many foods like fruits and veggies contain water in them.
On average, the amount lost that stays off is 0.5 pound/day.
Where I Failed…
I had some Teeccino (caffeine-free coffee-flavored herbal tea) that I’d picked up during my No Coffee for 2 Months experiment. I wanted a little more after my morning coffee on Day 3 but didn’t want to go crazy on the caffeine—especially with my heart rate up a bit—so figured this would be a good solution. As I was finishing the glass, something in my subconscious urged me to confirm that there aren’t any calories in this. But to my disappointment, there are 15 calories in it. Fortunately, this was not enough to ruin my fast, but I’m just glad it wasn’t any higher and will keep this in mind for future fasts.
Where I Won…
I ate very low carbs during the day leading up to my fast. I believe this, along with burning up remaining glycogen via my Day 1 strength workout and my Day 2 80-minute walk, helped me reach ketosis faster. This improved the way I felt from midday Day 2 forward.
The mineral/electrolyte supplements I used seemed to work, as I avoided some of the physical challenges some others have had during a 3-day fast, likely because they were electrolyte deficient.
What Surprised Me…
Not eating made black coffee taste better.
Based on my No Sweetener experiment, it became clear to me that black coffee was something I could endure but not really appreciate. I normally add a splash of almond milk and a mini dump truck of organic stevia.
Day 1 the black coffee was better than I anticipated. Day 2 it became moderately enjoyable. And Day 3, to reward myself I enjoyed a black coffee from Peets that tasted delicious, something I’d never enjoyed before without sweetener.
Perhaps it was because my taste buds were so excited for any flavor beyond water. Or maybe it was thanks to my heightened senses of smell, and thus, flavor.
I expected the magnitude and frequency of discomfort to be much higher throughout the fast than they were. I didn’t have nearly as many bouts of low energy as expected. It helped that I read a bunch beforehand to avoid the mistakes others have made. I’m grateful to them all for sharing these!
Whoomp, there it is…
Since it was relatively easy and I felt great nearly the entire time, I would absolutely repeat this.
I’m excited as it feels like I’ve unlocked another tool that can be incorporated into my long-term habits for increasing my immune function, productivity, and longevity.
I’m going to plan on doing this 1-2 more times this year and see where I want to go from there.
I highly recommend a crawl-walk-run approach. Start with Intermittent Fasting first, and then try a 24-hour fast or two, before attempting a 3-day fast. Much like in motor development, or training with a 5K before jumping to a marathon, the mental and physical conditioning will make the 3-day fast far more enjoyable.
I also recommend using LIFE Fasting, a free, easy-to-use app to track your fast for you.
Thanks for reading! Please leave me a comment with any feedback and/or what you think my next experiment should be.
Experiment: Apply Pomodoro productivity hack Monday-Friday for a month. This involves breaking work time into 25-minute segments focused on a specific task or project, followed by a 5-minute break, and repeating for 3 cycles. This is followed by a longer break (15-30 minutes), and continuing this pattern for the rest of the day (with a longer break for lunch).
Ok, so why…
I’ve attended a few productivity webinars over the past year, and this is one of the tools the experts most commonly recommend.
While I have a decent sense of self-discipline, it’s easy to get sidetracked with lower priority tasks and spend too much time reactively replying to email rather than focusing in on the big rocks.
It’s a good way to eliminate distractions… e.g. news/political clickbait, movie/music info (do I really need to check what year the movie Casablanca came out, the name of an actor in a Netflix show, or Ariana Grande’s current net worth? FYI the latter is estimated at $80-100MM. Get it, gurl.)
I got so distracted while outlining this experiment that I had to start the practice then, putting on a 25-minute timer to help before the experiment month even started.
I’ve dabbled with this before and it has helped but I haven’t gone all in and used a timer all day before. Like this experiment, it’s about time.
Uh oh…
Will this feel draconian, adding a little too
much discipline to my day?
What about when I’m feeling a state of flow when
the timer goes off? Will stopping then actually damper my potential
productivity or will the 5-minute break be short and refreshing enough that I
can keep buzzing at that same level afterward?
About that…
Where did the Pomodoro technique come from? It was invented by Francesco Cirillo in the 1980s. The name comes from the Italian word for tomato as Cirillo used a tomato-shaped timer.
I’ve used a few different online timers and I like this one, mainly because the alarm is gentler, less of an SOS, evacuate-the-premises type alarm than some of the others, and it includes multiple cycles in one timer.
I betcha…
I’m going to like using the clock as an
automated accountability buddy but may need to play around to find the optimal
amount of time per work session.
I’m thinking and hoping I can stick with this
one going forward.
Do try this “at home”…
Try this timer out if you’re ready to dive in as it includes 4 x 25-minute cycles.
If you wanna wet your feet with a single cycle or two first, then try…
This one if the visual doesn’t matter much to you but you prefer a gentler alarm.
This one if you want a more neutral looking one for the office and don’t mind a slightly more jarring alarm.
This bonus option that I’ve just found at the end of my experiment but looks clean, is recommended by Lifehacker, and that I plan to experiment with in the coming week.
Focusing on just one thing can be a challenge.
I’ve found that while sometimes a more time-consuming task, e.g. building a
presentation, will certainly take at least 25 minutes—or a few 25-minute
sessions—to work on, sometimes I have a series of smaller tasks, e.g. emails.
In these cases, I just work through chunks of smaller tasks till I hit the
25-minute mark.
I struggle to stop at 25 minutes when I’m in
mid-thought or when it makes more sense for me to finish the step I’m working
on before breaking. I find myself going to the timer and clicking it back to 5
or 10 minutes remaining to allow me enough time to finish the part I’m working
on. (Shh, don’t tell.)
Week 3-4 Notes…
EpicFail.com! (I didn’t include a link to that site so that you don’t get sucked in.) This has not been working as planned. In addition to being mid-flow at 25mins, I often struggle to find something to do for a break for just 5mins. Time for a mid-experiment tweak… I’m trying a 52/10min approach. Let’s see how this goes…
It’s been a struggle, but I think I’ve figured this out. I was getting to hung up on sticking to a certain amount of time and forgetting that the real aim of this technique is simply to help you focus on pre-identified tasks for extended chunks of time.
At the start of a task or day, I just need to identify what I’d like to get done and the amount of time that will best match the task and use the appropriate timer. If I need to add a few minutes to either the work cycle or break, no biggie, as long as it’s keeping me mostly on track.
Whoomp, There It is…
It’s like meditation in that having a timer running—and maybe some instrumental music—provides a tool to remind you to gently keep bringing your awareness back to the task at hand. Acknowledge the sudden drive to see what movies are currently topping the RottenTomatoes.com critical reviews and let that thought go or at least jot it down to get it out of your mind, and then look it up during a break.
Merely being conscious of a clock ticking down can help prevent you from reemerging from information rabbit holes like someone emerging from a Vegas casino, wondering what time is it, how long have you been there, and what happened to your shirt?
It also helps you become better at understanding how long certain tasks actually take you to complete. It’s often longer than we like to admit to ourselves, but the clock don’t lie.
Thanks for reading, and Happy New Year! Please leave me a comment with any feedback and/or what you think my next experiment should be:
Ketogenic Diet
CrossFit 2-3x/week
Daily Affirmations, e.g. writing out by hand a mantra 15x/day
Guided Breathwork
Your suggestion?
What will you be experimenting with in January or 2020?
