Episode 36: Notes from 'Past Me' with Annette Zapp, CSCS*D
Have you ever taken a moment to consider how thankful you are that you completed a task yesterday, which has made your day easier today? This is the perfect opportunity to express gratitude to your past self.
By completing a task or taking action in the past that benefits your future self, you can practice the idea of "doing something today that your future self will thank you for." Although this concept is not an original thought, as it was recently introduced to me by my friend Christina Montalvo, I have unknowingly been doing it for years and found it to be a valuable tool in keeping my life organized and uncomplicated.
So what, now what?
Give yourself a fighting chance by setting your future self up for success anytime it's an option.
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[00:00:00] Hello podcast listeners. It's AZ and I'm back with episode 36 of the Fire Rescue Wellness Podcast. Today I want to talk about a concept. This is not my concept. In fact, I first heard about it from my friend Christina Montalvo, who I've mentioned before. She has a podcast called The Confidence Project. I first heard about this concept from her, but I am unsure whether it is her original thoughts and ideas or if she had heard about it somewhere else. But this is what's known as do something today that your future self will thank you for. And again, I've actually been doing this for years, but I never put a, a name on it. But it's actually, it's kind of how I operate my life.
And I have a couple funny examples [00:01:00] about it before we get rolling into how you could potentially use this to simplify your life. So, I've been a fire officer since 2014. Math is hard, nine years. And I remember specifically thinking as a firefighter, “Wow. It's so awesome that I don't have to be responsible for remembering all of these things like, where's the Knox box? Where's the alarm panel? Where's the room that contains the controls for the elevator?” I was so excited not to have to remember that stuff. And then I got promoted and in one day I became the person who is responsible for keeping that in check. Keeping track of it.
And so, I remember specifically, I hadn't been an officer very long, maybe a year, and we went [00:02:00] to a mid-rise apartment building for occupants stuck in the elevator and initially, they weren't too riled up, but it actually, it took us a bit of time to find the room that contained the elevator controls and it was not in a logical location and it was not marked.
And I remember them getting a little, little by little, getting more and more upset, not necessarily at us, but just the fact that they were trapped in an elevator. And so, when we finally were able to find the controls and safely release the occupants, I took a little piece of paper and I wrote a note on it, and I put it in the elevator key box, and the note just said: the elevator controls are located in [00:03:00] this little room in the west hallway…and I forgot about it.
I never gave it another thought until recently. So now, how many years later, 6, 7, 8 years later, we went to a stuck elevator in that same building and I was thinking, gosh, I don't remember where that damn room is, and I was so delighted when I opened up that box and found the note from past me that made it so much easier to get our job done that day. So that's one example of something past me did for future me that made my life a lot easier.
Here's another example I mentioned a couple of weeks ago about my fridge. I'd been having some serious challenges with my refrigerator. The whole water in the door situation wasn't working and the basic troubleshooting that I was doing, like simply just [00:04:00] trying another filter didn’t work. In fact, that was interesting. I put the second filter on, tried to run the water, and somehow built up pressure in the line and no water came out. And then when I went to remove the filter, it blew off in my hand. Luckily, not damaging anything inside the refrigerator, but that was a fun adventure.
So, I went to the Google machine and I found what I thought was a reputable site for some information on this troubleshooting process, and they said step one was to bypass the water filter with the little plug that came with the refrigerator. My friends, I hate saving sh**. I hate clutter. I hate parts and pieces and, I know some people save everything.
I hate saving sh**. But I do remember thinking when I moved into the house, I probably read [00:05:00] on it cuz it actually says on it, do not throw this away. And I remember thinking, where am I gonna put this so that I can find it in the future, should I ever need it for some unforeseen reason? And so I put it, I learned this trick from a coworker….
I put it in a little bucket that is labeled: parts of stuff and pieces of things, and let me tell you, people, the junk that is in that bucket is so random, but also it's all stuff that I might need at a later date. I actually was able to fairly quickly locate that part and insert it. And actually, the troubleshooting worked great.
And now my refrigerator is back in service so past me who really wanted to throw that plug away, (Also rule follower me, the plug said Don't throw this away), put it somewhere where I could find it in the future. So that made my life a lot easier cuz uh, those plugs, actually, if you go online to buy them, they're like 15 bucks, which isn't [00:06:00] a huge deal, but that would've really annoyed me to pay 15 bucks for that.
So how can we apply this concept of do something that your future self will thank you for? And I have like maybe six or eight things that aren't specific to firefighters, but I think that they could be really useful for us. So, the first one is taking an hour or two out of your week planning it, putting it aside to shop for, and prepare your food. Now, I'm not saying you gotta do it bodybuilder style and put it in the little plastic containers, although that is really helpful. But if you just take a couple of hours to make sure that you have at your house proteins and produce and side dishes and whatever, and then you actually prepare them and have them available for you, for you in your fridge, it is orders of magnitude, easier to [00:07:00] eat healthy because I'm telling you, even I, when I'm hungry and I know there's nothing at home prepared, it is very tempting to just go grab something. And so that's not how I like to live my life. I take a couple of hours every week, to do some food preparation.
On that same thread, I also, I do take a fair amount of supplements and I time them out throughout the day, and so very much like a geriatric patient, I divide them all into these little pill boxes and so, it takes me maybe 10 minutes every week and just so you know...It's also awful because, it emphasizes how fast the weeks go by. I'm like, oh my God, I'm filling up the supplement box again. But anyway, taking that couple of minutes ensures that I take those supplements that I wanna be [00:08:00] taking for myself, and that's a whole conversation for another podcast.
I do the same thing with my protein shakes because I put a couple of extras in my protein. So to make it easier, I just portion everything out into shaker bottles and have them ready so they're grab and go, just add water, shake it, and leave. Another thing that I have these kind of setup in sections, the one, the next thing is most people don't love doing laundry and things like that, or unloading the dishwasher.
We don't love it, but we know it's gotta get done. And so I have a practice of, I make sure and I do my laundry on my first day off, and I make sure that it gets washed, dried, and folded. Now, I don't necessarily put it away because I'm one person and so I wash, dry, fold, put it in the laundry basket. [00:09:00] And then once that laundry basket is full, it usually takes maybe two or three rotations.
Then the laundry basket goes back upstairs and I put it away. That's my routine, so I know as soon as I come home from work, first day off, I get started on my laundry. And it's all done and out of my eyesight on the next two days.
Unloading the dishwasher, I also make sure to run that dishwasher the night before I go to work. And then, unload the dishwasher before I go to work. So I come home, I have an empty dishwasher and I know I need to start my laundry. It sounds, it sounds really stupid and small, but I always am like I am so glad past me unloaded that effing dishwasher before I went to work.
Here is one that has to do with physical fitness. We wanna make sure and lower all the barriers to entry and the one thing that works really well for me is past me lays out my [00:10:00] outfit for training the night before. So, before I go to bed, do the, do all the things, brush the teeth, put on the pajamas, lay out the physical fitness training outfit, the workout outfit, and then go to bed, because all I have to do is get up, put it on and get started.
Regarding this is kind of having to do with training as well. I have always set the alarm for the actual time I need to get up. I know there are people out there that truly believe that they get quality sleep by snoozing six or eight times. I am positive that Dr. Brager, the sleep neuroscientist will tell you, that you are not getting quality sleep when you are snoozing for 10 minutes and being awaken, snooze, awaken, snooze, awaken.
So past me has always set the alarm for the time I actually have to get up, and then I get up and do what I'm going to do. [00:11:00] And I'm always, I'm always grateful. I'm grateful for the fact that I didn't set the alarm 75 minutes early and just keep poking at the snooze button. And then one last tip with regard to sleep, because you do know I love my sleep and I love to talk about it.
You as a human need seven to nine hours of sleep to function optimally. I have a bedtime, but if you are not into defining a bedtime, may I invite you to at least work backwards from the time you would like to go to bed. So, if you know you would like to go to bed at 10 o'clock, I would invite you to work backwards.
Help yourself. Check off the things that you need to get checked off so that you can actually go to bed at 10 o'clock and then wake up in the morning and say, “Thank you past me for helping me get seven to nine hours of sleep.”
[00:12:00] Alright, keeping this one short, as always, if you are so inclined, I would so appreciate it if you would subscribe to the podcast on your favorite platform, give me a rating and share the podcast with someone you think who might be interested in it, I would certainly appreciate it. For now, this has been AZ and I am out.
