I watch a LOT of Youtube videos and lately 90% of them have been Halloween-related. So I decided to compile some of my favorites from this year over here!

Kayley Melissa has been my favorite Hair-Stylist/Youtuber for years now. Everything hair related I've learned, I've learned with her.  Every year, she does a series of hair tutorials for Halloween costumes and this year's videos did not disappoint. Especially this one. I mean, come on.. Everyone wants that Trump style!

Quite similarly, Grace has been my favorite lady Youtuber since the dawn of time! I'm betting she's no stranger to #TeamInternet people either, since she has dominated the world in the past couple years. I love this stupid ass collab they make every year because it's as dumb as it is impressive and hilarious.

Laci Green is better known for her Sex+ Youtube videos (which I love). But she's well on her 3rd season of an online TV show for MTV called Braless. The show is overall great, as Laci known how to explore important issues clearly and thoughtfully without sounding utterly boring. Not differing from the show's awesomeness is this Halloween episode, which explores topics we see every October 31st in the streets, costume stores and parties. A must watch!

Statistics have told me that iiSuperwomanii, a.k.a. Lilly Singh, is one of the highest earning Youtubers today. Yet, I never really paid attention to her content until quite recently. Which is great because it was right on time for me to catch the masterpiece that was her latest sketch. It gave me all the chills.

Happy Halloween!

Boooooooo

A while ago I started feeling very unsettled and unhappy with myself and how life was going. I felt like I was waking up just to go to work and come back home to sleep again to work again to sleep again... I felt tired. All. The. Time. I felt stressed and suffocated. I had 3 trips to the hospital in the span of 6 months. I had all these medical advices and indications that I kept ignoring and not putting into practice. My university was on strike but I still felt like all that supposed free time I had was simply evaporating. Bad habits and vices were taking over my days.

So I decided enough is enough and started experimenting with new habits, healthier habits. And things slowly started shifting.

I was never good with drinking enough water. Although today we have this "healthy-culture", when I was a kid, sodas didn't have as many red flags around them, so it was all we drank. I remember going entire weeks without drinking a glass of water.

Despite having grown up reading many times how water is important, how it makes you less tired, makes your skin glow and rids you of toxins, I was still not drinking water enough. So when my doctor gave me a warning notice of "either you drink enough water now or you will have a really big issue in the close future", I started trying to be more rigorous with it. Now, I'm drinking about 1,5L a day, which is still not enough, but is about 3x more than I was drinking before. I downloaded the Plant Nanny app to help keep me on track and keep record of it all. It's adorable. Funny thing is, dehydration is a pretty common health issue, even in countries which have plenty of access to clean water.

Sure,  I still have days in which I drink maybe a glass of water, but for the most part, I'm doing really well. And how do I feel? A lot less tired. My skin breaks out a lot less. And I have had no trips to the hospital since. Coincidence? I think not.

I live in Rio de Janeiro. It's hella sunny all year long. Last week the temperature hit a high of 42ºC and it's not even summer yet. However, my morning regime did not include sun screen. Which is insane. I'm 22 years old. And I'm very white. Whiter than Snow White could ever dream of being. 

I'm not sure why, maybe it was the increasing amount of freckles appearing, my skin showing a higher intolerance to the sun or getting my 5th billion sunburn, but I figured it was time to start being a bit more responsible with myself. I currently use ROC Minesol Oil-Control SPF 70 everyday and I love it.

My skin feels softer, makeup stays on longer and this SPF dries pretty quickly on the skin also, so I don't have to worry about getting overly oily during the day. It seems like a crime I haven't been doing this for longer.

I had tried meditating previously and it did help me with anxiety issues. Nevertheless, I stopped. I don't quite remember why, maybe I just never built up the habit properly.

But with how anxious I currently feel, during this life transition of graduating from Uni and deciding what will be of the rest of my life (chills), meditation popped up in my head as a good idea to help me deal. 

Thing is, I'm not great at meditating on my own, I work best with guided meditation, so I had to find some good apps for that. I'm currently using Calm, even though Headspace is my favorite. Both of them provide guided meditations, in which you can chose for how long you desire to meditate, and keep track of all the days you've meditated, keeping you motivated to continue. Calm even provides different options of "background" noises, such as forest sounds, beaches, lakes, etc. Headspace is paid, which is why I don't use it, but it's definitely the best one. I can do a more detailed round up of all the apps I've tried in this process, on some future post, if anyone finds it helpful.

Missing a day of meditation now is frustrating and truly makes a difference. After around a month of daily 10 minute meditations, I've been feeling much calmer, lighter and more focused. There's something quite essential in keeping in touch with your inner self.

Let me put this out there: I have always been a stationary and planner lover. But I haven't always put my planners to the best use. My routine never included actual moments focused on organizing my weeks. I sort of winged it and hoped for it to go well/felt anxious about everything until it happened.

Last year, though, a friend of mine found out about the Passion Planner, which is basically a weekly planner, which provides hourly slots for your daily planning, spaces for notes and to-do lists, and we decided we would all get one. I loved my Passion Planner as soon as it came in the mail. But I kept using it as I always used planners, for the most part.

Until very recently, when I started separating 30 minutes every monday for writing down every to-do item of the week in a determined time slot for me to get it done. And every first 15 minutes of my work day I scroll through my inbox to add whatever last-minute changes are needed. I've never felt more in control and having gotten my shit together. Ever. I even have planned blog post ideas. Whaaat?

Yes, okay sometimes things don't go as planned and I have to anticipate or delay items. But it still works well enough to keep me focused on one thing at a time, without freaking out about not being able to get it all done in time. Life changing. 

As an internet addict, sleeping has always been a difficult topic. I've always slept late and woke up even later. However, when I started interning, I figured that keeping up with this pattern was doing nothing more than ruining my days. I ended up waking too late to do anything other than getting ready for my internship and got home too tired to try to enjoy the night ahead. Slowly, this pattern drove me insane. I was doing nothing but working and sleeping and missed doing more, exploring creative outlets, watching movies, going out..

When about a month ago I established a new challenge for myself, even I thought I'd fail. I had to be in bed at 11 p.m. and awake at 7 a.m. That's a perfectly round 8 hours of sleep there. And it felt impossible at first, as I've been accustomed to fall asleep at 1 a.m., earliest, and wake up like a zombie as late as I possibly could, which could variate from waking up at 6 a.m. to 1 p.m.. Soon enough, though, I felt better and better about it. The days felt more productive, I saw more sunlight, which made me happier and I gained a bit more time to do things I enjoyed, out of my intern-life. 

Beyond this though, having a sleeping pattern meant I was sleeping better, too. Programming my brain to fall asleep at the same hour everyday, I had less of the insomnia issues I once experienced. Getting 8 hours of sleep, on the other hand, was just enough for me to wake up well disposed. What I learned through all of this is that sleeping less than you need is terrible for your body. But sleeping too much won't help you either, neither physically nor helping you enjoy your life to the fullest. Find that balance.

After a month of putting these habits into practice, life feels a little bit more under control. Of course I'm still freaking out about the future and, as a proper millennial, anxious about how I can change the world while having an office job. But those are bigger issues that can't be solved in a month or by simply "adjusting your habits". They're bigger issues only the more centered, calm and organized me can deal with. No one can deal with the world's problems without taking care of themselves first, you know. 

Now, go grab yourself a glass of water. I bet you, you're dehydrated. 

Let's make a deal: let's check ourselves, and not only every October, deal?

If you haven't heard of The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up or the KonMari Method at this point you either live under a rock or you are not as obsessed with organization as I am. I'm gonna guess it's the second reason. 

Marie Kondo is a Japanese organization guru whose book got every one and their mothers desperate to declutter and rearrange their lives. Which meant I had to read it. Immediately. 

Basically, Marie's technique is based on the philosophy of only owning things that bring you joy and are useful to your life. Her method tells you to organize in categories and in a certain correct order, asking yourself if each item brings you joy and designating a spot for everything.

Now, if we are talking solely about the book as a book, I have to say I found it awful. Granted I did read the portuguese translation, so maybe that's why I hated it so much, but it was just so incredibly repetitive, out of touch and, at times, annoying. Marie Kondo has great ideas and tips for organizing, however, the way she expresses herself did not convince me. I felt like I was reading a crazy person's diary. 

I remember a certain moment in which she mentions women should always sleep in flowy, feminine night gowns and I felt like dying at how sexist that was. Let women sleep in whatever they love and feel comfortable in. Feminine or not. Flowy or not. Flannel or Silk. Lily Pebbles actually shared some of these weird book moments on a recent youtube video.

Despite these awkward moments, the book was an extremely quick read and it did make me think long and hard about the actual crap I have that I never even look at, let alone bring me joy. More than that, all the anecdotes and little techniques intrigued me to know how effective this method would actually be. And, so, considering my extreme obsession with organization, I could not resist trying it all out myself.

Further on, it was time to go through my books. This was a tough category for me. Marie Kondo says in her book that people should not own that many books, as rarely do we reread them and it is unlikely that more than 10 books bring you happiness. Here, specially, I had to disagree. Having lots of books is a situation that brings me happiness on its own. Having a selection of the books I read and being able to lend them to friends, look at them everyday and admire all the beautiful colors and covers displayed on the shelf.. 

So, predictably, I did not end up with 10 books. I did end up giving away many more than I initially thought I would, however. Mostly I separated books that I did not enjoy reading, that I had gotten as a gift and knew I would never read or had no interest in reading or books that I had simply outgrown.

I did also have to keep a number of college books which I have no interest in keeping, but know that they will still be useful in my last semester. Those are books that basically have a death sentence. As soon as I graduate, they are out.

By the end of this experience, I had 18 bags of goods to donate and 7 bags of trash. My room has so much empty space now and everything has it's home. Never have I felt more organized in my life. Despite the book being a tad bit crazy, Marie Kondo does indeed know what she is talking about. It's been a couple of months since I have done this and I do not regret it one bit.

A few last things I'd like to point out:

1 - Use this moment to deep clean. Marie Kondo does not mention much about actually cleaning your space when decluttering. To me, it sounds obvious. If you are taking everything out and emptying your closets in order to organize yourself, make sure you take advantage of it being empty of its contents and deep clean your storage spaces and surfaces. We might not see it, but our closets and drawers accumulate a huge amount of dust. Get rid of that.

2 - Trash. Donate. Sell. She also only mentions what to do with what you discard very en passant. Please note that you have three options and deciding which one is appropriate for each item is your own call. You either throw away, donate or sell. I will mostly be donating and throwing away, as I want to get rid of it sooner rather than later. But selling is a great option for getting in a couple of bucks.

3 - How to fold KonMari style. I do not know about the other versions of this book, but the Brazilian one did not have any graphics or pictures teaching you how to fold. As I have a bit of a difficulty understanding such description when they are written down, I did a bit of an online search and found this great girl whose videos were extremely helpful throughout this process. Her blog is Lavendaire and she even did a very cute pdf with a list of the correct order of the categories. Check her out if you need some help!

4 - Put everything away as soon as you are done with them. Something Lily pointed out in her video was that the idea of taking everything out of your bag and putting them away, everyday, seemed insane and unnecessary. At first, when I read it, I had to agree with Lily. I mostly take the same bag with the same things everywhere. However, when I started doing this, I realized how helpful this was to keeping myself in check of putting things away. I do it every day now.

All in all, this was insane, my parents thought I was going crazy, but also extremely interesting. I was able to define a bit more what is it that I like and what interests me. It has also drawn me to learning a bit more about minimalism, but that's a conversation for an entirely new post...

So... Have you tried out the KonMari method? What do you think?