WHAT I'M DOING TO STAY MORE PRESENT - Sivan
11.15.21

WHAT I'M DOING TO Stay more present

Between the move, the daily hustle of running three businesses, working from home with endless interruptions, being a wife + mom, and my job being my phone, I can honestly say my focus has gotten horrible. I constantly feel pulled in different directions and I’ve noticed it impacting my life in general. My focus has felt off, my patience is less than OK, and overall, I’ve been on auto-pilot instead of being present in my own life.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been actively trying to help the situation by maintaining control of my focus. I still have a ways to go but here’s what’s helping so far:

WHAT I’M TRYING TO STAY MORE PRESENT

+ Less screen time in the mornings

This is a tip I’ve heard a million times but I didn’t actually follow through with it until recently. Since my phone = my job, I always used that as an excuse to grab it first thing in the morning. Plus, it takes me a while to wake up, and unless you want a b*tchy ass Sivan, you know to let me wake up slowly (another excuse I used to be on my phone for a while).

This is still a work in progress though I will say, I feel my focus improves drastically when I’m not on my phone first thing.

+ Reading ‘Essentialism’

I read this book on my NYC trip and I can’t recommend it enough! The premise is how to focus on the essential and eliminate the bulls*t (an idea I was hooked on immediately). It took about 2 pages for me to buy into the essentialist’s way of thinking, and I’m excited to keep exploring with this! For now, I’m focusing on what’s actually important to me and forgetting the rest.

Let me know if you want a full blog post on what I learned from this book.

+ Walks without headphones

One of my favorite things about our new neighborhood is the walkability. There are a ton of family-friendly trails, SIDEWALKS!!!, water features, etc. and I take the kids on a walk at least 1x a day. Instead of trying to listen to music or a podcast, I’ve been leaving my headphones at home for some of the walks, which feels good! It takes a minute to get used to but it’s nice having time without consuming anything. Especially to decompress from a workday.

+ Screen limits

I turned on a screen limit so that my phone alerts me when I’ve spent X amount of time on it. I obviously knew I spent a lot of time on my phone but this is a nice reminder to get the f*ck off once I’ve hit my limit.

Apple also has a new ‘focus’ feature which is pretty cool. Essentially, it lets you block certain notifications if you choose to (like while you’re working or reading or whatever) and a few other cool things that I need to look into.

I’d love to hear what you do to stay present in your life??