Making Bare Minimum

Dear friends I haven't met yet,

     As I mentioned in my last blog post, I keep a physical list of the bare minimum I want to do every day. To encourage me, I also have the bare minimum expanded in its own bullets. This way, while "use mouthwash" is the bare minimum for oral care, I can feel better when I actually brush my teeth. Here's my list, and then a breakdown of why I have these horribly tiny goals and not other ones, or more ambitious ones. I'm being brutally honest here, so bear with me.

• Play music
• • Sing to music
  • Make music*
• Go outside
• • Go for a walk/run*
  • Stay outside a while
• Caffeinate  (with caffeine pills)
• • Drink coffee
  • Drink soda
  • Drink tea*
• Wash (with dry shampoo)
• • Shower or bathe*
  • Wet shampoo
  • Dry scrub
• Move
• • Daily dare
  • Darebee challenge
  • Workout program*
  • Full workout*
• Oral care (with mouthwash)
• • Floss*
  • Brush teeth*
  • Dental guard

     I am painfully aware that only the most minimum-effort habits have ever stuck with me. I already caffeinate almost every day, usually with sugary coffee. I picked it up out of necessity as much as common desire. For this habit, I'm taking something that is already a habit and making it a daily goal. For most people, they want to cut caffeine or sugary coffee out of their day. For me, migraines and sleepiness are a daily fact of life, and caffeine helps treat both. It might also help with some of my symptoms of depression, and might regulate symptoms of ADHD. You'll notice that every subset of a daily goal has at least one item with an asterisk (*) next to it; these indicate what I personally believe to be the best form of a habit. For caffeination, the worst form is having to take a caffeine pill, and the best is drinking some (unsweetened) tea instead of the bubbly and sugary options out there.

     Going into making this list, I wanted each item's minimum requirements for completion to be so easy, I couldn't not do it. I'll now breakdown why each other item is here, like I did with my daily caffeination.

• Play music

     Playing music is effortless. Once you put it on, it plays, and you don't have to consciously pay attention to it or expend any resources to keep it going. It just happens. The benefits of listening to music can be enormous, however. Like caffeine, this item is here to work as an antidepressant or a pick-me-up. Music helps me feel better, and listening to it every day builds up a solid foundation for enjoying something every day. Usually I'll just put on my favorites on Spotify or a playlist entirely made of Panic! at the Disco songs, but I also have situational playlists: one for sleeping, one for anxiety, one for getting pumped up, one for being angry. These work as little treatments for every day matters that, for me, can get out of hand.

     Making music is even better. Singing along is good, but I can feel some real solid catharsis when I get out my keyboard and play whatever comes to mind, or take sheet music and recreate songs from those before me. I don't take my keyboard out very often, though, and I'm hoping this list continues to encourage me to take it out more than every once in a blood moon. If you're making your own "bare minimum" daily-do list, and don't have a condition that makes listening to music impractical, I universally recommend it.

• Go outside

     This is another one that starts out with "it's good for symptoms of depression." I don't get a lot of that good ol' Vitamin Sun sitting indoors, especially living outside of a place like California or Florida, but that vitamin is important to mood regulation AND sleep regulation. I've flirted with this habit before, and even in the dead of winter, it is dead easy to slip on my rain boots and use a comforter to go out back, even for a minute. If it wasn't something I accomplished on most days by virtue of needing to go somewhere, I might not have put it on my bare minimum list right away. You simply can't pick up more than a couple of habits at once out of the blue. I certainly can't. I also live in a beautiful area; going outside brings me closer to the local majesty. I love watching the sunset or the sunrise. As a creative, this really gets me in the mood to write!

• Wash

    Keeping my body clean and healthy is an absolute must, so there's no way this wouldn't be on my bare minimums list. With this, I admit something utterly normal and utterly gross: I do not have the habit of showering every day. I hate dirt and I clean up, and I'm pretty good at washing my hair every day thanks to dry shampoo, but showers take a lot of effort and my compulsion to get off every. single. dead. cell. is often something that leaves me miserable in cold water. I still shower regularly, with wildly varying shower times, but I have plenty of gross days. Thanks to therapy and scientific backup, I've gotten better about getting in and getting out. With this daily I'm reinforcing keeping my hair clean, but hoping to encourage more real showers. Honestly, just ticking something off in the "more than the bare minimum daily habit" column is a good reward for things like this. 

• Move

     This one is definitely the most ambitious change for me. I was trapped inside as a child, with no room or freedom to run around. I definitely built up a sedentary habit rather than an active one, and that followed me to college. Even as I walked to get to work or school each day, I was actually dealing with a moderate knee injury that prevented a lot of activities of any real intensity. After years, the injury is mostly a ghost (and I did finally get physical therapy,) but the sedentary habit remains and is as lazy as ever. It's actually not as bad as it could be: I don't own a car, so I actually still do a lot of walking just to get anywhere. And I go somewhere at least twice a week.

     We all hear the benefits of exercise. It helps mental health. It helps sleep. It helps you live healthier and longer while staying smaller and more attractive. I've been trying for months to exercise more, and I always go maybe a week, maybe two, before everything just falls away and I'm back to the recliner. Over the months I've made smaller and smaller goals to do with making an exercise habit. As of 2019, I've made the smallest goal yet: either go somewhere, or do one set of an exercise--usually, these daily dares from a website I'm fond of. One set of one exercise. It takes less than five minutes. So easy I almost can't not do it, once again. This is the first habit I'm really "adding" to my daily minimums.

• Oral care

     This is the second habit I'm really adding. I gained no good habits growing up, but I recognize the importance. Just over a year ago, I had my wisdom teeth removed. They were in bad shape, and now I have other teeth that are in bad shape that need to be operated on for me to return to healthy and pain-free. My minimum I'm starting with is the least unpleasant thing I could think of: using mouthwash before bed. On its own, it's not going to do much to stem the cavity tides. But if I can get the habit, if I can do the bare minimum every day, it's a positive impact. Then, from this habit, I can grow into healthier habits like flossing and brushing my teeth. If I brush my teeth before bed, I can wear the dental guard  that prevents me from grinding my teeth (if only it guarded against drool!)

     These aren't the only habits I want to have, and ideally, I'm doing more than the bare minimum each day. Ideally, I'd be doing the best version of each of these habits, and more. I find these to be the most effective and the most important, especially the last two. Other habits can be picked up later without negatively impacting my health as it is now. For instance, I'd love to study a second language every day instead of just now and then.

      The important thing about my daily minimums is that they're minimal. Each item is super easy to cross off, and the total of them doesn't cost me much in my day. When I'm depressed, I can do them. When I'm sick, I can do them. When I'm manic and all over the place, I can do them. When plans change, when I'm busy, when I'm upset, I can do them.

     Other people may have stronger bare minimums. Theirs may include working out for an hour and writing 2000 words and playing with their kids, because that's the habits they have or are building that are so important, they can do them every day with what resources they have.

     So why do I have a bare minimum list at all? Most people would unconsciously be doing the bare minimum every day, at least without having to check a written list. For one thing, I personally have to consciously mind that I've even eaten. (As I type this, I've had coffee but nothing else, and it's 12:40 on a Sunday. Oops.) For another, keeping a checklist gives me just a little boost when I manage to do anything at all, allowing me momentum to "upgrade" one of my daily habits, or to get something else done that needs doing, like cleaning the dining room table. On days when a migraine consumes my mental capabilities or my mind goes 100 MPH without pausing long enough to think, I have something physical I can come back to, now.

     My bare minimum is exceptionally minimal. What's your bare minimum? Why? Could writing it down help you improve your daily life?

• 5 Hacks to Effortlessly Build Healthy Habits in 2019 by Nerd Fitness
• Sinner by Maggie Stiefvater
• A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit