Sattva : Issue 15
Don't be crazy busy | Dolce Far Niente
Sattva (सत्त्व) is a beautiful Sanskrit word that has many meanings—spirit, true essence, good sense, wisdom, quality of purity, energy, consciousness and mind, among other things.
Through this fortnightly newsletter, I want to bring to you all things good, which will make your life better. My focus will be on topics such as mindfulness, productivity, slow living and sustainability, accompanied by genuinely useful recommendations of products, books, music, links to read, and of course food and recipes. Through these, I hope to instil some Sattva in your life.
I thought that my fortnightly date with Sattva is something that I will never miss, but things have been somewhat hectic at my end. Way too much housework in the absence of help plus a book deadline that seems to be evading me have kept me anxious.
I was forced to offload some things from my plate and the previous edition of Sattva had to be let go to reduce the number of things on my to-do list, for which I’m sorry, dear reader. I hope the newsletter train is back on track for good and we can continue in our journey to seek Sattva.
Don’t be crazy busy
This was one of the big learnings from a Ted Health podcast I had listened to a few months ago. It is one of the few podcasts I have listened to more than once and have even taken down notes. [How to manage your stress like an ER doctor by Darria Long]
Do you often say, “I am crazy busy”?
As per Long, the crazy busy mode makes us incapable of handling situations to our best potential. In this mode, our stress hormones, anger and anxiety levels are high. Our memory, judgement and impulse control are diminished, just all of the things we need at 100% when we are in a high-pressure situation.
How do we shift from crazy busy to an optimal ready mode?
Just like how a busy hospital’s casualty department does it - by using triage. And doing it relentlessly.
The first rule is not to react to every task with the same response. Every Whatsapp message and every email does not need an instant response. Each patient who walks into the casualty is evaluated for the risk of his condition and then treated accordingly. Prioritise as per the urgency of each task. Make a list of the tasks that you have to attend to and allocate a colour code to each.
🔴 Red - immediately life-threatening or things that simply have to be done
🧡 Orange - not immediately life-threatening, need to be done but not so urgent
💚 Green - this is minor stuff, you can get to this when you have the time
⚫️ Black - these are items you have to take off your list, because they are not important enough or you don’t have the bandwidth to handle them
In crazy mode, we end up reacting to everything as red. Imagine the state of our mental resources when we treat every single task on our plate as code red! The colour coding could also vary depending upon how busy your life is on that particular day. On a more relaxed day, you could end up giving a green task better priority and on a super stressful day, a green task could go black, where you have to take it off your list altogether.
To give you a personal example, non-negotiables like a column deadline or a much-pushed book deadline or my music class homework falls under red, replying to work emails is an orange, following up on payments or replying to Whatsapp messages is a green.
I’m trying to put this into effect in my daily calendar and I must say it makes me less anxious.
5 Google Docs hacks that you wish you knew earlier
I learnt these tips recently from @dickiebush on Twitter.
Like 2 billion other people, I use G Suite for my work, Google docs especially for my writing. Except for the word count hack, all of it was new to me and I was blown away by the rich features the program has that makes writing life easier.
New doc - Open a new document in seconds. Press Command + L (Mac) or Control + L (Windows) to go to the search bar. Type docs.new to create a new doc or sheets.new or slides.new to open a new Google sheet or slideshow respectively.
A specific new doc - If you have multiple Google accounts and you want to start the doc under one of these accounts, add a number after docs.new.
To start a Google doc under your primary account, type docs.new/1 in the search bar and /2 to start one under your secondary account and so on.
Word count - It is exasperating for a writer when the word count keeps vanishing while writing. Go to Tools→ Word count → Tick the box ‘Display word count while typing’ to make sure the word counter stays put as your work on your document.
Voice typing - One of the best writing advices is that you should write the way you speak and that is so easily done by using the voice typing control in Google Docs. Even when you feel stuck with your writing, you can always speak something. In fact, this piece of text has been written using voice typing :) Go to Tools → Voice typing
Working offline - The Internet is a writer’s best friend and also the worst distraction. The offline writing feature keeps distractions at bay and lets you focus only on your writing. Go to File→ Make available offline, turn off the wifi and get cracking on your document.
Dolce Far Niente
I am in love with this Italian phrase which means ‘the sweetness of doing nothing’.
Just reminiscing over this phrase brings joy, does it not? The words are immortalised in the movie Eat Pray Love, in the scene where Julia Roberts has a conversation with two Italian men in a barber’s shop. One of the men chides Roberts saying Americans are always busy and they feel that they need to earn their break while Italians know that they deserve a break. Now, this is not just true for Americans, but a lot of us who want super productive days and feel guilty if we do nothing for a couple of hours. I know I do.
The concept far niente does not mean lazing away all your days, but not feeling guilty for giving in to the pleasure of doing nothing every once in a while. This helps recharge us to get back to our creative or physical tasks with renewed energy. It also encompasses enjoying every moment, whether at work or doing nothing. It’s living our life without a perpetual race against time.
For Italians, this concept is sitting on a streetside cafe, sipping coffee or wine and watching the world go by, taking an aimless stroll at a piazza or just hanging out with friends. Or shutting down shops and businesses in the afternoons for the all important siesta. No FOMO or anxiety over stopping work in the middle of the day.
The hustle mentality, making the most of each moment, is so hard-wired into us that we have to unlearn it and learn how to embrace far niente. Watching Netflix or spending time scrolling through social media is not doing nothing. For this, you have to truly disconnect.
Keep your phone at home and go for a stroll in your neighbourhood. Go to a cafe and sip on a coffee while looking at people around or just being with your thoughts. Or your local darshini (for my fellow Bengalureans) and enjoy a good dosa, relishing every bite, without the need to remove the phone from the bag. Take a nap. Spend time with your pet.
Tell me how this sounds to you and how you plan to incorporate dolce far niente in your life.
Also read: The practice of just sitting
Columns & podcasts
Mint Lounge: Use sesame oil / gingelly oil to add a ton of flavour to your dishes.
Mint Lounge: Vitamin A rich butternut squash is in season. How to use it?
I was a guest on the very popular Naan Curry podcast hosted by Archit Puri and Sadaf Hussain. You can listen to the episode here and while you are at it, do subscribe to their podcast which is all about food, culture, policy and more.
Resources
Work desk photo by Olena Sergienko on Unsplash
Ted Health podcast link
Dickie Bush’s Twitter thread
Italy street photo by Jilbert Ebrahimi on Unsplash
The clip on dolce far niente from the movie Eat Pray Love
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See you in two weeks!
Such a joy to read your news letter , this issue loved it mam .. my afternoon lunch break used
Love his newsletter Nandita. Its a breezy read and yet something we want to imbibe in our lives.