A peek inside my head

En Español

Photo by Kym Ellis on Unsplash

During the last months, I've practiced a new way of approaching technology, called Digital Minimalism. I think now it's a good time to open it up, and share it with the people who know me in person.

Let's start by explaining why I decided to start doing this. In the previous blog I wrote, I explained that I wanted to take a break from Social Media. I was feeling that I was spending too much time on it and getting almost nothing in return.

Suddenly I stumbled across a book called “Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World” by Cal Newport. The first thing that catch my attention was the Minimalism word in the title.

I consider myself a minimalistic person, in terms of the possession I own and the lifestyle I have, and this is exactly what I was looking for: introduce a minimalistic approach into my Digital life.

At the moment of writing this post, I already read the book twice. So yes, I liked it and recommend it to anyone! I would love to share my learnings regarding some topics it covers, in order to:

1. Express my opinion and how I am planning to put it into practice
2. Share it, in case you are looking to make some changes in your digital life and don't know how to do it, or it might be the case that you never even think of it as a problem.

Friendly reminder: Before jumping into the book, I would like to clarify that I am going to be talking about my life choices and the way I see things. By no means, I want to judge how other people decide to live their life :)

What is it exactly?

Digital Minimalism can be seen as a lifestyle, in which we are fully aware of the place that Technology plays in our life. The definition provided in the books is as follows:

A philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else.

From here I learn two things:

1. This philosophy doesn't mean that you have to stop using any kind of Digital Device or be fully disconnected from the world. It emphasizes using the technology in hand-picked activities, to be mind-full regarding the way we interact with the technology.
2. We are constantly worried that we are not up-to-date about what's going on in our friends' life, in the city, news, etc., and in fact, we don't have to. It's totally fine to not know, your life is not going to change, promise.

Practices

One of the things I like about this book is the idea of Practices: a set of recommendations to apply the principles from above. In a nutshell, they are the formulas they gave in Chemistry or Physics to apply the theoretical concepts. Very handy!

In this part, I would describe the relevant ones for me, and how I am currently tackling them.

Don't Click “Like”

Besides the catchy title, this practice hides a quite strong meaning behind, that many people can't see (me including). Yes, it's related to the action of “Like” inside Facebook, but nowadays, you can find this feature in any Social Media platform: Heart on Instagram, Like and Retweet on Twitter, Like on YouTube, etc.

The whole problem with this feature is that it's the worst informative communication way that you can use when connecting with others. We are just sending one bit of information about the state of the sender. We think we are in touch with others, but instead, we are sending almost nothing ...

Instead of that, the book recommends acting more towards rich communication. For example, instead of leaving a like/comment, send a Private message in which you can schedule a meeting or call to keep up to date with this person. It will be way more personal, rich, and fulfilling, improving your relationships.

Consolidate Texting

Let's be clear, we all use any kind of messaging system, it can be WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger, or even SMS. At the same time, we make the following assumption: whenever we receive a message from someone, we have to answer right away, because yeah ... we have to. And this is behavior, like it or not, makes us a slave to our phone.

This practice suggests that we keep our phone in Do Not Disturb mode by default. Making all the notifications on our phones silent, so we are not going to get interrupted by these annoying notifications anymore.

In my experience, this has worked out. It took me some weeks to get used to it because besides not receiving the notifications directly into my phone, I was opening the app and checking them manually. But overall, I check my messages less frequently than before.

The last thing about this point is that many people might get annoyed about your delay to answering, they are simply not used to this kind of communication. In my experience, nothing will happen and in case they are interested in talking with you, they will continue reaching to you.

Delete social media from your phone

I used to consider myself an addict on Facebook when that platform was widely used among my group of friends. I remember sitting on my computer, opening the Home Page, and scrolling endlessly to check the status of my “friends”, to see what they are up to, every day, for hours and hours ...

After the mobiles got better, we all downloaded Social Media apps, and the number of hours that we spent scrolling increased enormously. Now any idle moment, waiting for the Bus, queueing in the Supermarket, or even in the restroom, is going to be the perfect excuse to open our Social Media and start the scrolling game.

This practice recommends you stay far away from the mobile versions of these services. You can still have them accessible through the computer, in case you still want to use them or check what's going on. But as soon as you don't have the app installed anymore, you are going to open it fewer times on Social Media.

And on top of that, you can use all these idle moments to your advantage! In my case, I am carrying always with me a book in my bag or something you can allow yourself to stare at the wall and think about your thoughts. Having thoughts from other people coming to you every single minute is super tiring, and we don't realize it.

My practice – Free Sundays

I developed this practice by myself, without reading it somewhere on the web or any book, and honestly is one of the golden rules that I follow nowadays.

The idea is quite simple: do NOT schedule anything for Sundays. No meeting. No sports. Nothing. Leave it as a blank spot in your week, and let your brain rest.

During this day you can allow yourself to work on the things that you always want to work on, but never find time during the week:

• Sit on the couch and read that book.
• Watch that film that someone recommended to you.
• Write a blog (like this one).
• Visit the coffee shop around the corner.

My only recommendation is not to push yourself. Take it slow, and enjoy the day before starting the next week :)

Last Words

It took me like a month to finish this post, and I am so happy to be able to share my opinion on this topic with my friends and family! I truly think that we have to be more aware of how we deal with our digital life before it will represent a problem to us and our relatives.

I hope you like the reading, if so please reach to me telling me your own opinion. Most probably you know how to find me :)

Thanks for reading.

Ema

En Español

“Put your phone away to be connected.” – unknown

Hello there 👋 Yeah, I know it's been a while since I've been here. Well, if you are reading this, it means that I'm not dead! 🎉

I was checking when was the last time I posted something on social media, and it was 4 months ago. In the perspective of a year, it's one-third of the year ...

The funny thing is I've never realized I was off for that long time until I received a message on Facebook from a friend. He asked me if I was alright and the reason why I stopped posting so abruptly.

I was never the kind of person who posts one story per day or answers messages in minutes. I would say that 1 or 2 times per month I was sharing some pictures on my Instagram and Facebook.

So, what happened?

Well, I started to change some habits regarding how technology affects my life and the way I use my time. During this process, I knew that social media was something that was stealing time from my day-to-day.

It's not only posting some pictures and forgetting about it ... Your friends will react to it, therefore you will make open the application, and answer the comments.

This ends up creating a snowball effect of distraction. In which you are constantly unblocking and blocking your phone just to check if someone reacted to your post ... This is exactly the reason why I wanted to drop social media.

Most probably it's not the fault of these applications for causing this addiction in our life, or maybe yes 🤔 But the truth is that they are just applications, and we are the ones who decide which use we are giving to them ... So in the end, it's our fault to create this co-dependence.

“Use social as a tool, don't be used by social media.” – Kelly Martin

Did something change?

Actually, yes! I started working on projects that I've been holding for some time and had some new experienced on the way. In a nutshell:

• I started my journey into the world of Finance and Investment. It's funny because everybody knows that it's important, but no one teaches you that during your education ...
• I joined weekly sessions with my first Therapist, and they helped! I didn't have a good time during the first wave of Corona. I learned to open myself more, instead of letting my thoughts affect me.
• I met Yuliia, my girlfriend, and we've been dating now for around 3 months. Thanks to her this third wave of Corona was easier for me. I will share more about it soon 😄
• I started to read books in German, to be more precise: the Harry Potter collection! I've seen a huge boost in my general understanding of text and conversations. So far I'm finishing the third one, and next month I will start with “The Goblet of my Fire” (my favorite movie!), which is 767 pages 🤯
• I passed my probation period in my new company, which means that I'm officially employed (by the Berlin Immigration office). Therefore I finally started the process to get my Permanent Residence in Germany 🇩🇪

Quite some stuff right! It's funny, I used to check my posts on Social Media to remember what happened during a specific time of the year. Here instead, I had to sit and remember.

With this writing, I'm not trying to say “Oh look at how cool I am, and all the things I did” by any means. My goal is to share my opinion regarding social media and my experience of being outside the consumer side for some time.

Something that I can highlight, is the freedom feeling. I could break free from the habit of checking the phone just in case. When I'm with friends I normally leave it downside on a table and take it just for the pictures. Pictures that now I don't feel the need to share.

During this past year with the pandemic, so many things were happening (and not happening as well), which makes us live in automatic mode. Without realizing we spend our life's doing things that don't fill us.

I very nice documentary that triggered me to start with this change is called “The Social Dilemma”, you can find it in Netflix. It discusses the topic of addiction, and also talks about how the organizations are using our information to profit from it and influence us (super important as well!).

Well, I think that will be it for this post. In case I made you think on this topic, it would be very nice if you let me know your opinions by sending me a message. Most probably I won't answer on the same day 😅

Thanks for reading. Ema.

I want to share something different from the rest posts, my experience of doing a fully remote onboard in my new company.

The night before joining, I wasn't able to sleep (which always happens to me when I have these events), so I decided to sit down and put my thoughts in words.

At the moment of writing this paragraph, I already finished my “First Day”, and I think it's quite cool to see what I was thinking just the day before joining in contrast to what happened.

Without delaying furthermore, let's begin!

The day before

After months of waiting for this moment, I am happy to announce that today is my first day at my new company. But despite my excitement, there is something off ...

In contrast with the other “First Day”, this one is going to be at Home. Right here at my desk. In the same chair that I was using for the previous one. That's weird.

Don't get me wrong. I like working from Home. I think it provides a lot of flexibility to people, and one can be more focused because there are almost no external distractions (except you decide to turn on the TV and watch Netflix ...).

But it just feels wrong. To get to know the people with whom I am going to work for the next months via an online video call, instead of meeting them face to face and later go for lunch all together.

I didn't face any of these doubts when moving from the office to home-office schema, but because I knew the whole team before.

Maybe it wasn't the best time to venture into a new job because of all the problems caused by the Virus. At the same time, it was something that I was seeking. And when I look at the big picture, this is just a minor problem.

Luckily I work in an industry in which I can easily co-operate with my team in a remote environment, and also there are plenty of tools that can help with that too. I hope I can develop myself as I always did and get to know my colleagues well-to-do a better job.

Wish me luck 🤞

End of the “First Day”

OMG, what a day! I don't want to join any group meeting in a very long time.

It was a full day of Onboard, from the start of the day until the end, with meetings scheduled every 45 minutes plus breaks of 5/10 minutes to grab some coffee or tea.

The good thing: it's done! Somehow they managed to fit everything: from setting up the laptop, explaining all the HR-related stuff, KPI's, legal, etc. Looking back, I have to admit it was quite impressive.

Remember that I mentioned I was worried about not meeting my team properly? Well, that happened. Because I was doing the onboarding, the only interaction I had was a simple welcome message on the team Slack. So after the first day, I still don't know the faces of my colleagues. Just their Slack profile pictures ...

Luckily tomorrow, I am going to take part in a normal day of work. Joining the first Daily with the team, which I am quite curious to know how it will be. In all the companies I've worked for, they were never the same.

Closing words

Onboards like it or not are going to be exhausting. You are going to go back home with your head spinning because of everything they showed you. Most probably not remembering half of the stuff and with a very long TO-DO list for tomorrow.

I normally don't share this kind of story, but I think a lot of people might find it interesting because of the current situation that we are all living.

Thanks for reading.

Stay safe.

Ema.

During the whole Corona Situation I questioned myself about the following things:

• Where am I really going in life?
• What do I want to do?
• Do I enjoy the moment that I am living?

Those are quite existential questions, and no, I don't think that I am depressed or going to do something stupid ...

These questions are aiming to discover if what I have been doing my whole life is aligned with the values and my dreams for the future.

Looking back

For most of the people I know (including my self), our lives were planned by someone, and no, I'm not talking about God ... I am talking about the society, your family, the social pressure or any external entity that influences you.

So for example, since we are born, we went to the Kinder Garden, then to the primary school and lastly to the secondary school. Most probably these three things were chosen by your family or any closed person you have.

And that's perfect! Because I don't consider that at that early age you are going to be able to make those decisions, and that's the reason why they “picked” for you.

But now you are there, with your secondary school degree and the next question that everybody ask you:

“What are you going to study?” – by everybody ...

So yeah the people/society/ expect from you to study something. Like it or not.

Luckily in my case, I found something that I liked to study. So I spent 6 years of my life, and I am happy to say that I finished that stage with a Diploma that after allowed me to move outside my country.

No matter if you studied something or not, someone will come over you and ask another of those uncomfortable questions:

“Where do you want to work?” or “What do you want to do?” – by everybody again ...

Same scenario as before, the people/society expect from you to have a Job, get a Salary and work. Work every single day ...

At that exactly what I did! Even before finishing my studies I started to work in the field of my Industry, gaining experience (that's how they call it), and living in a pace that I still don't know how did I manage to work and study at the same time ...

Productivity is the key?

Since I started to work, I always hear that one should be ambitious and always look for something better. Do you know the phrase?

Never settle.

I used to say it to my self for mostly self-motivation, in order to do more, study more, work more, etc. more. I do think it's a powerful tool, because liked or not it took me where I am, but it's also quite dangerous and destructive.

This life-style demands that you are always productive (OMG I hate so much this word ...).

The problem that I have with the productivity concept is it doesn't consider the human factor. We are definitely not machine, that can be turned on/off given an instruction. So basically the more productive you are, the less time for yourself you have.

And here some people will reach out and say:

But if I can do more things faster, then I will have more time for my self and to do the things that I want right?

In theory, yes. But in practice, no.

Something that I learned from the whole journey is that, once you are in this mindset of productivity, it's quite hard to get off. So maybe you can finish all the tasks you had for the day, but trust me after you finish them you are going to look for more stuff to do.

And in the end, when you realized you just have done a just bunch of tasks that you “have to/must do”, but nothing for yourself ...

And how this is related to the expectation topic?

Well basically the people/society expect you to be productive, to always look for improvements, to be “better” ...

And that's the topic that I want to bring to the table, I would like to throw some open questions, that I don't have an answer yet but I'm on the way to look for one.

1. Why do we work?
2. Do we really need too much money?
3. What is your ideal job?
4. What do you see yourself doing your whole life?
5. If you wouldn't work, what would you do instead?

The reason behind

I've been asking myself these questions, because before Corona, I was planning to change my life. Literally my plan was to quite everything:

• Leave my job
• Sell my stuff
• Leave my apartment
• Pack one bag with just the stuff that I need
• Travel the world

Sounds fantastic right? Well, not if there is a Pandemic in the whole world ...

It took me some time to realized that my trip was not going to be possible in the near future. But all these things are still in the back of my head, and I wanted to share them with who ever is reading this.

---

Closing

As all the posts here, I didn't follow any structure or anything. I literally sit down and write everything that was coming to my head.

But I do hope that it made you think about one thing or two.

And please let stop thinking of being a better version of ourselves and start enjoying the present, because if we don't stop to observe what's going on, at one point we are going to look back and realized that we didn't accomplish what we always wanted ...

Thanks for reading. Ema.

This a topic that I frequently talk with people, but I've never shared publically and today I feel like to write about it. It's going to be about how I felt the evolution of Social Platforms across all these years and some thoughts about how they might change in the future.

Starting from the beginning

I'm a millennial (given the year I was born), and I grow with social networks and connect with people through them too.

The Social Platform that I used the most by far was Facebook. It was the first that arrived in Argentina, and despite all the rumors that they were spying your activity, all the people also started to use it since the beginning.

I recognized that I was a very active user, posting almost every day, constantly checking the notification, and making “new friends” too.

But, there was a moment of disruption, when I said “STOP”. Stop wasting your time by entering every hour to check if some “friend” posted something! Which most probably won't interest me or that I will learn something new from it ...

These applications have some sort of engagement functionality, especially the notification system, that gives you instant gratification as soon as you enter. And in the end, it feels that you need them in your life. And that's bullshit.

Change of behavior

I started using Facebook as an active user than a passive. I was still using the platform, but only to share content with others, and hardly ever entering inside the application “just to check”.

Finally, I managed to recover my time, and I was quite happy with the result!

Some people asked if something happened to me because I wasn't posting as before. I explained why and then arranged to see each other in the next days or just talk.

At this moment, I realized that most of your “friends” on Facebook, are just connections that you made at one point in your life, and they don't care a lot about your post or not something every day.

Posting on Social Media won't give you new friends.

Hero comes a new Challenger

For many years, Facebook was the platform to connect with the people and mainly it was because it had everything: integrated chat, notifications, friend system, media sharing, events, groups, etc. It was the social media with the most amount of features.

But around 2012 (I think), a new social platform started to catch a lot of attention between my friends called: Instagram.

The application was focused more on Photography and media content, so you were forced to only post either pictures or videos.

I was so reluctant to use for so many years, because:

• I felt that the application was quite incomplete. Many features from Facebook were missing and still are until today.
• I had to start from scratch. As it was something new, I had to connect with all my “friends” from Facebook again.
• I didn't want to put any more effort into Social Media. I was trying to use less Facebook, adding Instagram was not going to help at all.

Most of my friends decided to move to Instagram and stop using Facebook. So what's the point of using a platform that nobody uses?

The value of a Social Platform is defined by the people and the content they put on.

Venturing into the Instagram World

So yeah I ended up using both applications besides all the points from above. But this time, I knew that I didn't want to become addicted as I was with Facebook at the beginning.

There is a feature on Instagram that I consider almost evil for people because of the level of addiction that can get into people, the famous stories. And here is why I think it's the worst thing in the platform:

• They are the top of the application, so you always see them.
• They implemented a carousel feature, which makes you watch one story after another, without you pressing any button.
• They got erased in less than 24 hours, therefore you need to check them regularly otherwise you won't be able to see them after they got deleted.

Luckily I learned quite a lot from my Facebook experience and quickly became an “active” user on Instagram, which means that I only used the platform to post pictures or videos. Avoiding at all cost stories.

The cost of starting from scratch

Many people liked the migration to Instagram, because it felt like a fresh new start, with only active people on the platform and ideally people you know before. I partly agree with that.

Sadly, I felt that a lot of the content I posted on Facebook was “gone”. It's still on the platform, in case I want to access it, but it's not anymore on Instagram.

The idea of keeping a “history” in your Social Platform is simply amazing, but you lose it as soon as you moved to another one.

The current trend of Social Platforms

Before Facebook, there was another platform called “My Space”, which I didn't get to know, which was replaced with Facebook.

Then Instagram appeared and displaced Facebook.

And now we have TikTok, who is not replacing Instagram yet but it's catching some users.

This constant change in trends and what do we use will never stop because people like new things.

There are several questions that I can think of this problematic:

• How do we know the application we are using won't die in a couple of years?
• What should I do with my content? Where should I post it?
• If there is a new thing platform to try, should I move all my stuff there?

My posture regarding those questions

I don't have proper answers to those questions and most probably time will answer them.

I've been thinking solutions I can apply today to address these problems, and something that everybody can do is:

Own your content.

I'm not saying build your own Facebook or Instagram, but in case you want to share something in a Platform try to link it with something that it's yours. Exactly what I'm doing right now!

I used to write this kind of reflection on my Facebook, and when I stopped using the Platform it kind of got lost. By publishing the content under something that I own, I make sure that it will be always there and I like it more in this way.

Closing

Maybe I'm worrying too much when I shouldn't. Maybe I'm the only one who sees this as a problem. Maybe I should close this and go to sleep.

Well, that's pretty much. Thanks for reading and let me know if you agree or not with my very opinionated point of view :)

Since I had a very bad experience with this kind of “precooked” food, A.K.A. “your meal in 5 minutes”, I started to learn about the fantastic world of cooking.

I've never studied or worked in a restaurant in my life, but I invested several hours reading and comparing recipes, experimenting at home, and hosting several dinners with friends.

In the last dinner I hosted at home, one of my friends made me a very interesting question while I was finishing the plate:

“Isn't this your favorite part of cooking?” – My friend, Philip

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But first, some context of what was happening. I was cooking my favorite dish from Thailand, called “Khao Soi”. The reason I love this dish so much is because of its unique presentation.

In essence, it's a very strong noodle soup, similar taste as a curry but not that thick. As you can see at the top of the dish, there is so much going on! To name some “toppings” you can find:

• A citric: a slice of lime or even pickles, they create an amazing combination with the spiciness.
• Onion slices: can be normal onions but I do recommend using shallots instead.
• Green herbs: you can use cilantro, parsley, or even green onions.
• Nuts: almonds, peanuts, or even cashews.
• Fried noodles: yes, you grab the same noodle for the soup, fry them, and put it on top. A-MA-ZING!

It's quite funny because there are more ingredients for the “topping” than for the soup ... So yeah, once you have all the parts prepared and it's time to put them together, it's quite a challenge.

---

Now going back to my friend's question. He asked me while I was finishing the plate, therefore I didn't elaborate that much my answer, which was a simply:

“Ermm, no, this is just to make it look nice.”

I put the plates on the table, and we started to enjoy the meal.

---

But the question continued resonating in my head until the next day:

“What is my favorite moment of cooking?”

Also, another valid question could be:

“What are the cooking moments?”

And this is exactly what I want to write about, the moments that I find while cooking!

Cooking Moments

This is a division I came up with, and I don't know if this exists or not, but I think it's a nice experiment to take cooking as a whole activity and split it. These are the moments I see:

1. Planning
2. Preparation
3. Flavor Creation
4. Presentation
5. Enjoyment

The steps are in order and the “success” of each one depends on the result of the previous one. For example, if you made a bad Preparation then the Flavor Creation might present some difficulties.

Planning

For anything you want to cook there are always two things you need to know beforehand:

• What do I need to have? – Ingredients.
• What do I have to do with them? – Steps.

If you have the answer for both, then congratulations you have a recipe.

Nowadays there are several ways to look for recipes: books, online, video tutorials, or maybe you know by heart. I like to use every possible resource with the time I have, compare the recipes, and create my version of the dish, containing what I consider the best.

I can take up to 2 hours of planning before heading to the supermarket to buy groceries!

Preparation

Commonly known as “Mise en Place”, which is a French word to refer to “Set up”. It involves cutting, washing, cleaning surfaces, preparing containers, and every possible action that you can do before you turn on the fire.

To be honest, when I first started cooking I was skipping this step. I was preparing the ingredients while cooking, which is possible and in many recipes, you can do it. The problem is, if you are not moving fast you might end up overcooking your food and most probably very stressed.

Also, you must know the recipe by heart or at least have it at hand for the next step.

Once I understood the value of it, there is no meal I cook without first preparing everything. I relate this with keeping a clean desk to work, if you keep a clean desk at the office you have less distraction while working.

Flavor Creation

Everything is ready, now it's time to light that fire on! You take all the containers you need to use and you add each of the ingredients one by one.

In many recipes, it's normal that you have to use more than one container at the same time, so timing is key! In case your recipe requires long cooking times, I recommend using a timer that will remind you to turn off the fire.

Sometimes things are not working as expected, this is fine. The good thing about cooking is its versatility and how you can play with the ingredients. So don't be afraid of breaking the rules and changing plans, because, in the end, it will be always your version of the plate!

Presentation

The timer ringed, which means it's time to bring food to this world. I used to think that presentation didn't play a big role because food it's about how it tastes and not about how it looks, right? Well, I was wrong.

It turns out that, you can tell a story with your presentation. The order and the way you place each flavor into the plate defines your representation.

It's not about how it looks, it's about what it represents.

With that said, I'm not declaring that the flavor is not important ... I see it as a combination, where the success of a plate is when you manage to put them both together.

Enjoyment

If there is something I love about Italian culture, it is this tradition of everybody sitting around a big table, and that is exactly what I try to achieve when I invite people home.

This is the moment when you realize that all the time and effort invested were worth it because you can see the expressions and reactions of the surrounding people.

I phrase that I'm planning to put in my kitchen soon is:

I make people happy with my food.

And that's so true. And if you are also a cook, you know that the feeling of someone showing appreciation for a dish is amazing!

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My final answer

Going through this mental process of separating cooking into 5 different steps made me realize why I love this hobby so much. Each step is more or less related to topics I find very interesting:

1. Planning: investigation and learning
2. Preparation: cleanliness and order
3. Flavor Creation: skills and precision
4. Presentation: design
5. Enjoyment: mindfulness

But if I have to pick one, I would say Flavor Creation is my favorite one. To say why I will use another quote:

Cooking is like playing an instrument, the more you play the better you get.

When you start to play the guitar, it's almost impossible not to look at the position of your hands, or playing a song without knowing the chords. If you continue practicing, there will be a moment when you just grab a guitar and start playing naturally. When this happens, you are “In the Zone”.

I find myself exactly in the same situation in the kitchen, exactly at the moment of the Flavor Creation! The more I know how to cook a dish, the easier it is for me to enter on this state of flow when I can move from one pot to the other, checking the consistency, adding ingredients, regulating the fire, etc.

Once I am “In the Zone”, I can abstract myself from the world, forgetting all the problems that I was dealing with. With the plus that I can share the output with others :)

Last Words

If you get here, I appreciate you for taking the time to read! I would love it if you can share with me what is your view regarding cooking.

Thanks for reading, Ema.

This article is connected to my previous one, where I wrote about the first 5 days in Quarantine.

Current situation

3 weeks have passed since the city where I live (Berlin) started to apply measures against this virus. The measures are basically, all the shops are closed (except supermarkets and pharmacies) and, luckily we're not in lockdown yet, so we're allowed to go outside but groups of more than 2 people are forbidden.

Comparing us to other countries: Italy, Spain, France, etc. the rules we have here are not that strict. Nevertheless, I don't think this going to last for long ...

Some numbers

At the moment of writing this, the official number of infected people in Germany is 54k.

Only one week ago, the number was 20k, and by checking the graph, I realize that every day the number of infected people increases by around 5k.

Germany already declared the official lockdown in the zone of Bavaria. So if the numbers continue to grow like this, I can see Germany applying the same lockdown in the north too.

General feeling

Since the start of this pandemic, I followed the latest news closely. I was reading articles daily about the topic, listening to several podcasts and I even watched some documentaries about pandemics.

It's like one enters in this state of endless information circulating thought your head:

• Live updates of the numbers of infections per country.
• The measure to control the growth of the virus in X country.
• Different vaccines or cures for the virus.
• Too many Opinionated conferences by the president of X country.

And the list can go and go ...

I think that being informed about what's going is a good thing. But at the same time, it's quite unhealthy for ourselves. We're the whole time worried about something that sadly we can't fix.

What is the world doing?

The measures that mostly all the countries have taken was to suggest/demand/force/[use the verb you want] people to stay at home and do quarantine until the situation improves.

The main goal of this is to win time.

Something that is a true fact is this virus will be all around the world. At one point, everybody will have it. Therefore, if we can slow down the progress of the virus, we can save thousands of lives!

This strategy is widely known as Flattening the Curve. In the following image, you can see the relation between the amount of daily infected people and the time passed, and a second line highlighting the capacity of the health care system.

Given that there is no official cure or vaccine for the virus, this is the only thing we can do at the moment to fight the pandemic. But this solution created other huge problems.

DISCLAIMER: On this occasion, I don't want to talk about economics, politics or idealogy of what's ethically correct to do or not to do. Those are big topics and I don't have the time and knowledge to cover them well.

Quarantine + Uncertainty

I would like to touch the relation between this situation where we need to “stop living” (Quarantine) and wait for an unknown date (Uncertainty).

We, as humans, are continuously searching to have control over our situation. We like to know, what's going to happen and when. There might be some people that are more relaxed than others, but overall we like to have control over our life. Well, at least I like to have ...

The fact we don't know when this is going to end, it's what I'm most afraid of. When am I going to be able to live my “normal” life?

To be honest, I don't have a crazy lifestyle at all. But things like having dinner at home with my friends, or clubbing it's something that I definitely miss ...

The other day while talking with one friend. We were talking about how the Quarantine going for each other and, she said this phrase:

I'm worried that life won't be the same as before.

Well, I think she over exaggerated a little bit. I do think that life will be back to normality in one moment. But I would re-phrase it into:

I'm worried when life will the same as before.

And in the meantime, what can we do?

It's time to create new opportunities!

This is the moment when we need to switch our behavior from reactive to proactive, by pushing ourselves to try new things and we didn't do before of time constraints or maybe we didn't even know about.

For example, a lot of friends came to me saying they want to start programming. Others asked me about recipes, or how to do meal preps. And of course, I was very happy to help them!

In my case, I'm pushing hard to improve my German. Every morning, at least I do 1 hour of German before I even turn on my computer or check my phone notifications. And in addition, I have twice a week remote classes with my teacher (yes, I finally found a good teacher!).

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To close

On a lower or bigger scale, we are all being affected by this virus. I hope you, your family and anyone in your inner circle are doing well. In case you want to talk, you can always reach me using the private messages of the social platforms or you can send me an email.

Thank you for reading.

Ema.

Current situation: Today is the fifth day that I'm staying at home due to this virus that it's threatening the whole world.

I have to admit that despite all my initial enthusiasm for being at home and be able to work from the couch, this is going hard on me.

Life has just been halted, and no one knows when it's gonna start up again ...

I prepared myself for this ...

If you had asked like 1 or 2 weeks ago what was my feeling with the Corona situation, I would have said:

“This is just to panic people, it's not that serious at all”

At that moment if you have checked how many people were affected and died because of the virus, I was right! This virus was not lethal at all. But what most of the people were not thinking about was how much the virus can spread. And how is possible that 2% of death, will end up killing so many people globally.

Last week was “the last drop in the glass”. It was the week when most of the countries announced the quarantine, borders closed, flights canceled, events shutdown and mostly every possible social interaction was over too.

So I knew in advance that “dark times” were coming, and one of the things that I wanted to avoid at all cost was to fall down in the boredom or solitude. So I came up with a plan!

I built a Home work out routine

Sports are a big deal for me, especially in the past month, I started training quite regular and intensive. Doing sports every single day of the week. Besides the good health benefits, it's something that fills me and makes me happy.

Therefore I had to think of a way to keep going and not lose the progress I made and most probably my motivation. I built my own “gym” at home I can train every morning for 40 minutes, and it actually works!

I bought something called “elastic bands”, with which I can train practically everything I do in the gym but at home. You have to be a little bit creative with it, but after watching some YouTube videos I managed to have a killer full-body routine.

This is by far one of the best things from this period.

I started to have remote lessons of Germans

One of my goals for 2020 was to finally defeat this freaking hard language, and March/April was the month that I wanted to start again the german classes.

Suddenly the whole fucking world tore apart, then schools closed, and everything stopped. And I said, “Okey if I can't attend a course, then I will bring it to me”. So I started taking remote German classes.

At this moment I only took 2 lessons, both with different teachers. I wanted to have an overview of how it feels to have remote classes, and it was a good experience.

Now I need to decide with which teacher I want to continue, but it's good to know that the option is there and that I don't have to stop my learning process because of this.

I came back to gaming like the good old times

I've never been what people called hardcore gamer, but I used to play quite a lot. Like 1 or 2 hours per day was a normal thing for me.

Then I moved out of Argentina, I have a job, I start to regularly do sports, hang out with friends, party on the weekends, etc. And sometimes I felt that I disconnected from the games that I love and enjoy so much.

Luckily when I went back to Argentina in 2019, I took my “gaming” computer with me back with me. I assembled all the parts and yeah I was using it ... just to see Netflix on the TV ...

Now I took another try and started playing again, and it's soooo much fun! I managed to finish some games that I started but never finished (Control is one of them), and also started fresh and new games, like Call of Duty Warzone or Disco Elysium.

So yeah, I'm happy that I came back to this old habit. Some people might consider it a bad habit, that you're not actually accomplishing anything by playing video games. But for me, this is a way to stay lean and to disconnect, at least 30 minutes, from the craziness that we're all living.

The bad things

So given what I said before, this doesn't look as terrible as I said in the introduction right? Well let me tell you the other side of this, and what I really struggle with.

The lack of context switch

Most of the people will agree that context switch it's bad for productivity because it makes you think of several things at the time, and it's better if you focus on only one thing. By doing so, you are going to achieve more things and most probably with better quality.

And I agree with that. But the problem here it's not the constant switching, the problem is that there is no switching at all ...

During my entire day, I'm basically in two rooms: the kitchen, where I eat, and the living room, where I work. And that's it ...

Comparing with how it was before, the amount of working it's still the same, but I had the chance to change my context, by going to the gym before work, walking inside the office to another floor, or after work, I go to play football, see some friends, etc.

Please don't blame me, I'm not saying that remote working it's bad or anything. My point here is when you stay in your house, not because you like it because you have to, it's very hard to disconnect your mind and relax.

Keeping motivation up

I consider myself a person who always want to achieve something, who has a plan for the day. Actually it's a simple TODO list, with around 5 or 6 things that I want to mark as done at the end of the day.

I've been doing this (it's actually called Bullet Journaling in case someone wants to look at it) for about 1 year now and I think it really helps to stay on track with my goals and also not forget about events.

Some people find this practice very formal and that I should let life go freely, but for me doing this makes me feel secure and productive.

And that's exactly what I've been feeling that I start to slowly miss, productivity. I actually don't know the proper definition of it, and to be honest, I don't think I need to know it.

For me productivity, it's something that I can feel. When I'm in this mode of rampage, jumping from one problem to another, fixing this, talking with this person, getting the information about that. It's like a force that pushes me to do more.

And well, I don't know what's going on but I feel that force it's becoming weaker or something. I'm not being able to mark as done as many tasks as before, and I just move them to the next day, and the same happened the day after.

To sum up

I'm fine, really. I'm saying this because people, when they read this, think “Oh shit, he's having a very hard time”, and it's partly true but I'm not going to commit or some stupid thing.

I did this because I felt the need to sit down and start writing about everything that it's spinning inside my head. Some people write it down in a diary, I like to post it online, it's a matter of taste.

Lastly, I would like to know if you are up to have some call, just to chat, and see how can we make this situation better for both. I'm sure that I'm not the only one having these problems.

Thanks for reading.

Ema.

Photo by Fakurian Design on Unsplash

Hello there! Maybe you know me, maybe you don't, TBH I don't care that much. Since I started doing journaling I realized I gained a huge skill which is writing down my feelings, thoughts, and emotions in the paper. Which is amazing!

But those things, besides being personal, sometimes I feel that I would like to share them with friends, family, or maybe with anonymous people. I think there is something special when you share a piece of work with someone because it forces you to take it outside your head and give it a sort of shape for others.

That process of re-construction is incredible for the human mind. And IMO the best thing is that everyone can do it, you don't need to have a degree or to be smart (I don't believe in smart or dumb people, but that's what the society call them) to write down your thoughts.

This is not the first time ...

The thing is, this it's not my first attempt to open myself out there, I shared them inside social media. Because you know, it's like where you have your “friends” and they love and everything (this is going to be inside another post for sure).

I consider my self a regular user of social media. Luckily I'm not addicted like the rest of the society (or that it's what I believe, it's like an alcoholic who says that doesn't drink as much as his colleagues 😂). But yeah, I do use social media every day.

I don't if this is my feeling, but every social platform has a goal to achieve, and maybe that's why there are a lot of them. To support my idea I have this example:

• Twitter: short posts and I hate that. Why on the earth I have to limit myself to 140 characters?
• Instagram: just pictures and flat comments.
• Facebook: it's supposed to be the super social media because it has all the features in one platform. But nobody uses it nowadays, so what's the point?
• Whatsapp: is that a social platform or chat application? Well, it has the status feature...

I'm sure there must be way more examples, but those are the ones I use the most and I consider to posts this kind of thing. I don't this kind of content will be suitable for LinkedIn 😅

Given the list from above, I started sharing on Facebook, and more or less it worked. I think Facebook has some kind of algorithm to highlight an important message of more than 100 words compares to a simple picture of you eating in a hamburger place or drinking beer in a bar. I'm glad that it works like that!

The deal with this is those posts were way more important for more than the regular pictures I frequently posted on the platform. Up to a point that I would love to have a filter feature to hide the “random” stuff from the important. IN the end, I was posting my thoughts, people read it for a day or two (depending on if they enter Facebook close to that date) and then get forgotten.

Trying something new

So I realized that social media posting does not for this purpose. Therefore, I was looking for some kind of platform that allows me to write in a pretty simple way, without any hassle and of course without paying any extra money.

And I found this platform called write.as which just works. Like it's quite simple to start (I love the fact that the starting page is an empty text input), free and in case I feel the need to make some post anonymous I can (I will not do it).

So yeah, this is how I will share my “mambos” (very slung way of calling thoughts in my country). Some questions that I feel coming soon after publishing this:

1. “Are you ok Ema, do you want to talk?” Yes, I'm fine, I fell much better when I free myself writing. We can talk any time you want buddy :)
2. “Why are you writing in Spanish if you are from South America? (vende Patria)” So yeah, my native language is Spanish and my English has a lot of grammar mistakes but it's exactly for that reason that I want to write in English: to improve it. For example, one year ago I wasn't able even to fully express myself in English and now I'm here writing about my internal thoughts!
3. “Man, you are quite opinionated with what are you saying, I really don't agree with you...” Yeah, that might happen, bro. Something that Twitter taught me is that the Internet is free of saying whatever you like or feel like, and I think that it's amazing. I prefer to be open and totally honest and not please the rest of the people just to have more likes/claps/hearts/[whatever you want to give to people to show appreaciation].

How is it going to work?

Well, I really don't want to force myself to write every week about what's going on in my life, this is not a blog at all. So yeah I will post when I feel the need to sit down for about 30 minutes of freewriting about anything that it's going along my head.

I consider myself a perfectionist person (I'm trying to get out of it, but it's quite hard), but these posts are not going to be perfect at all. As I said, I'm writing as I normally don't do. Never erasing sentences. Always going forward. It feels amazing.

Most probably I will share these thoughts inside my social media because the goal of writing here is to have people reading this... But now I have a centralized thoughts place to go back when I want to revisit my past self 🤔

So yeah I think that's all, thanks for reading and in case you want to talk with me, just reach me out. I check my email daily.