Our basic daily living activities should ideally be stress free and mostly automatic. Such as our morning chores of washing, dressing, breakfast and exercise if you do etc.
If you have to waste time looking for your socks, or can’t decide on which shirt to wear or what to eat for breakfast, a slight stress will start to build up. Wasting time and energy on the basics of everyday living will lead to starting your day on the wrong foot. It is also an indication that your environment is not supporting you.Little things which sap your mental energy, and which occupy your brain like “background noise” is not good for your productivity, clarity and mental focus.
For example; if to get cheese from the fridge, you need to take out 3-5 items first, or if you have to spend 5 minutes looking for your socks, or take 5 minutes to find or decide which shirt or trousers to wear, or have to sort through a few items before finding your shoes… It’s too much stress for me as I am sure for many of you.
Some people may argue that as long as you can do things in the end, that is what matters. But wasting unnecessary valuable effort and time in doing repeated activities every time is actually a bigger issue than whether or not they get done in the end.
It’s a huge mental strain on our daily living if the environment doesn’t support us. In other words, if we don’t adjust our environment to ease our daily activities at home and at work, it drains our energy and exhausts us mentally. Simple activities and functions become a drag and our energy, mental focus and productivity dips.
My lifestyle involves traveling and often staying in different places. This taught me early on that ordering my work and living environment is important for me. I simply can’t function without these two basic aspects of life being in order in every place in which I stay.
Over the years I have mastered how to create a basic supportive functioning environment for myself. The only aspect lacking now in my supporting environment is generally having a suitable physical space in which to exercise. Travel to rural areas can also be a problem, due to the lack of mobile reception and fast internet.
I still need to find a solution to my mountain cottage (Cloud Cottage).
Like me, some people are creatures of habit. They like doing a certain thing in certain places. Once they get used to a place and accustomed to the environment, they like to keep it that way. They automate the habit of doing activity and don’t think much about it. It’s very effective for productivity.
So far I have mainly talked about the physical aspect of a supportive environment. It is equally important if not more so to have a social, spiritual, emotional and intellectual supporting environment. These all relate to different dimensions of our wellness.
Wherever you live, check your environment. Is it supporting you? If not, maybe it’s time to sit down with a pen and paper and design one for yourself.
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