This weekend I canceled a visit to a bookstore and exploring a tourist area with a friend of mine. While it’s unfortunate, it was more important to me to get back into the wheel since the last few weeks I’ve been pretty sick. There were many things that I neglected as I was focusing on recovering as well as just thriving.Usually I would just stay at home but since I spent a lot of time going back and forth to hospital for check up, I ended up spending time eating outside and just working from a cafe than at home. This is why my place was rather neglected, my schedule was out of place and as you see,my table was a mess and my cable was also everywhere. In short, a total chaos. So, today I’ll be sharing how my weekend was and hopefully this will become a weekly thing for me.

Before

Don’t you agree that a clean environment makes it easier to concentrate? I recently listened to a youtube podcast that claimed, basically Starbucks isn’t selling its coffee nor the brand but it was the chair with the proper measurement that makes people comfortable being inside the compound. I find that idea fascinating because it was also the reason I spent a lot of time there until recently I got my gaming chair and I stopped going. Since I too can’t work in a cluttered environment, I ended up cleaning up my room and especially my workstation.

After

I also cleaned up my paper clutter. I like to scribble especially when it comes to something I want to genuinely learn or simply movie plots that I am about to review. I don’t like just relying on laptop for notes because I remember better when it’s written down rather than when it’s just stored on my sticky notes or in my laptop's note.

After cleaning my room and workstation, I got this aha moment about pairs of two. Basically, the idea is that you have two things of the same item. In the past, I was constantly questioning about what makes someone a “minimalist” and whether the idea was tied to numbers of things we owned. I ended up experimenting with it and managed to downsize my things to something I can count on. But overtime, I found myself still making purchases and was not really happy with the amount of things I own even if it was good enough to be called “minimalist”. But something still bothered me. Only this weekend, pairs of two ideas became a lot clearer. Technically, everything I owned is almost a pair of two. Two phones, two keyboards, two laptops, two shoes, two bags, two watches, everything is two. Even my perfume is always stocked in two different scents. I realized that it is because I get bored easily and variation helps. This is why pairs of two worked for me whilst also not being overly a hoarder which is against my principle living a minimalist lifestyle.Two pairs of something is enough to give variations & it is what worked for me and in my tiny space.

I also I went to the store to get coffee and also Jjajangmyeon for the reward. I’ve been craving the dish for a while now but because I want it to be just right, I ended up getting the instant one just so I can customize it and the portion is enough. Usually, the ones from restaurants or cafes have little portion compared to instant jajangmyeon. I also got frappe, avocado coffee frappe and something with pistachio peanut on top. It was refreshing and a good reward after the cleaning session.

I also renewed my sticky note goal for December-January. I like to have some type of monthly goal even though some of it might seem a bit lofty. But when writing it down, seeing it everyday, helps visualize and I crossed a few monthly goals of mine by doing that. Since this month is the rainy season, I plan on fixing the roofing at my house before the rain gets intense and our house turns into an indoor swimming pool.

Now that my working station is clean, I can start being indoors again rather than going out. I also recently purchased a fan to replace my broken one.Now, I have no need of going outside other than when I want to see a new architecture and tasting new specialty coffee. But other than that,it’s November and I am enjoying more comfort before my adventure next year starts. I roughly have a plan but we’ll see. Time flies and sometimes I wish for them to slow down a little bit.

I hope you had nice weekend and a week ahead. See you for next weekend's update!