Hey Reader

It feels like it's been ages since we last spoke, but it's good to be back in your inbox again 😄

Unless I'm in the spam 👀 That's not ideal...

Last week, sickness made its way to the Home of the Rushed Salad (aka. my house) which sadly made doing much of anything a big struggle.

The sickness also didn't seem to contain itself to just people though; my internet, printer, and Cricut all caught it too! Or caught something at least 😂

The newsletter, videos, time with friends, and a bunch of other things got scrapped for:

1. Feeling sorry for myself, and
2. Trying my hand at rest and recuperation

I always feel bad about not getting video content out on time. Despite knowing the needed the time off, I can't help but feel like I'm letting the team down 😅

However!

The week wasn't a complete loss.

I did manage to (finally) get the vlog for our Sydney Book Shop Hop edited. Even though it took literally 5 full days of editing, I'm glad to have the memories captured 😊 If the Vlog channel is new to you, you can check that one out with the link below!

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Despite not feeling 100% just yet, I'm eager to get back into the swing of things though 👏

This week is the start of Cycle 2 for me. I'm hoping to continue making progress on my Quarter 1 goals and also start tackling the new goal of actually planning our wedding 🥳

To make the most of my time this cycle, I'm going to be running a couple of little productivity experiments to help me out.

We'll have a look at what those are in a second, but first we have this week's idea!

The idea - Run little experiments to find what works

I love experimenting.

Whether it's trying new layouts in my planner, or testing different productivity "hacks", experimenting can have huge benefits in finding out what ideas do or don't work for us.

Thinking about journal layouts in particular, there are a huge number of options when it comes to almost any collection type. It can be hard to definitively figure out which ones are or aren't for us 🤔

While sometimes we just "know" whether something will work at a glance, experimenting gives us a much clearer picture of whether it actually does, and we'll have the data to back it up!

Running a little experiment can also help combat any biases we might have against what is actually good advice 😝 Just because we don't want to do something, doesn't mean it won't work if we try it.

Experimenting can also help us with one of the biggest pain points of trying new things; the fear of failure.

I've found that by calling something an "experiment" or "trial run", it measurably lessens my fear of failing.

The point of an experiment is to help us figure something out or to test a prediction. In that sense, I don't think you can really fail an experiment, or at least not the ones I'm suggesting with this tip 😊

By calling something an experiment, we're also reassuring our brain that this "thing" doesn't have to be forever or final.

• I'm not changing my habit tracker forever, I'm just testing this style for a month
• This doesn't have to be my perfect morning routine, I'm just giving this structure a go for a week

In the Home of the Rushed Salad, we often call these little experiments "ooches" (a term I first came across in Decisive).

An ooch is just a little test or experiment before a bigger commitment, like getting little samples of a few flavours before buying an ice-cream (one of my favourite ooches, to be honest 🍧).

Always nice to have confirmation that the passionfruit flavour is the one to go with 👌

Ooches can be great for other, bigger, things too though.

One ooch we tried was when Vogel was thinking about getting an electric scooter.

Rather than just going out and buying one straight away, we experimented with the idea by seeing it he could:

• Renting one to test out
• Check with friends to see if they had one he could use
• Using one of the ones in the city

By doing a test run, Vogel was better informed about what he wanted in the product, the features that were important to him, and thus ended up getting a different model to the ones he was initially looking at.

The experiments we run can be big or small, but they can help us learn more about ourselves and show us where to spend our time, energy, and other resources 💪

My experiments

The little experiments I'm running for myself this month are:

• Closing my door while I'm working​
  I predict that having my door closed will help improve my focus during work time
• Regular mind-unwinds​
  I predict that doing regular brain dumps / mind-unwinds will help me stay on top of my tasks and make me feel less stressed

I'm still carrying on with the experiments I ran for myself in Cycle 1 as both of those have proved effective so far:

• Life admin gamification​
  Helping me give credit for the effort I'm applying in areas outside of my work
• Scheduling my day​
  Helping me stay focused on the tasks at hand during my workdays

Let's take action

Considering an addressable pain-point you're currently facing, what's something you could experiment with to tackle it?

It could be experimenting with a new layout in your journal for the month ahead, a little productivity tactic, or a budget-friendly test run before a purchase.

I'd love to hear about the experiments you're planning, so let me know any you're committing to 😄

Until next time!

- Jess

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