Pretty Good Practices

innovations I'm taking into 2025

Here’s hoping your 2024 landed gently and with a modicum of grace. We made it to bed well before midnight, and woke to reminders of our own mortality, fragility, and potential to wonder (which is my word for the year - again - apparently). Before it fades completely in to the rearview and the frantic unfolding of 2025, I’ve taken some time to gather my Pretty Good Practices that I established, encountered, or reimagined in 2024. Maybe the practices themselves serve you in some way, or maybe just the practice of inventorying your own will serve?

Here are mine, with a glorious gem about the pretty good practice of contemplation below the paywall, as my less-than-subtle request that you support my continued efforts at writing and feeding my body through the journey that is medical school so that one day I can lovingly offer solicited medical advice…

Ear Plugs - sound is significant for those of us with a sense of hearing, and the MVP of Pretty Good Practices 2024 includes the more intentional control thereof. Most notably, I’ve used my knockoff loop earplugs at bedtime, during study time, and even as a passenger in a car when the various surrounding sounds have felt intrusive. I also have corded silicone options (ideal for travel so they hang about the neck), musicians earphones (which protect the preciousness of the microscopic inner ear hairs while allowing musical sounds to move you), and over the ear noise cancellers. Perhaps you enjoy listening to music or meditation or binaural beats? We live in a time of terrific privilege whereby one can purchase various options for almost nothing.

Coffee bags - the back half of 2024 involved many long daily commutes to and from the hospital, and nearly as many emotional support bananas. I particularly enjoy heading to work on days before the sun rises with a coffee in one hand and a banana in the other. More often than not, I am stopped by an empty commuter train and enjoy a five minute meditation during which I can safely consume my ESB while enraptured by the everyday train… which means I’m then left with a peel. Banana peels, as you may know, do not endure well once shorn from their fruit, and commence rotting as quickly as a viral tikki tokki trend. For this reason, I’ve taken to hoarding the zip top bags we purchase coffee in. We dance between the 1/2 pound and the pound from Pangea, and once emptied I store them in the door pockets of each car so that when I find myself eight minutes into a 38 minute drive, I can seal the peel rather than experiencing the rotting with my nose. Your needs and bags may differ, but I do suggest a version of this practice.

Marketing Email Bypass - for reasons I’ll never understand, my inbox is always overflowing. I’m in yours right now (I’m SORRY and you’re WELCOME). Every January, after the new purchases or sales or with the extra enthusiasm I muster as others are resolving, I dig through and mark several with a filter I call “marketing email bypass.” You’ll have to sort out your own inbox and rules to make this possible, but I find that it saves me approximately eight years per year to have the sales flyers and reminders arrive in a place that is not my main inbox, because I do not need to read about tea and soup every day (but you might!). If I find myself in need of a Sporting Good, I can open that folder to see what flyers have arrived. It helps, and it costs only a small number of minutes. It’s also ideal for folks who just will not remove you from their mailing list no matter the number of times you’ve clicked, replied, or sent post mail requesting.

Bursts and Bulk - if you are so incredibly fortunate as to have any extra money in your bank account at all, may I suggest a pivot in your shopping structure? Rather than ordering everything one delivery at a time, or taking a monthly jaunt to The Box Store, I have taken to quarterly shopping endeavors. Once a quarter I go to Trader Joes to load up on pantry things like nuts and raisins and pounds of chocolate. Once a quarter I go to a Big Box to fill the medicine cabinet, paper goods, and load up on hot sauce. And once a quarter I join my person in the hellish chore of entering the Very Big Box to navigate winding hallways of samples and obtain things that are so unreasonably well priced that I just cannot help myself. I use an app called AnyList to keep a tick list of everything I get in each store, and do a quick inventory before the big day. Perhaps you try one shop a month on this quarterly rotation, or perhaps like me you find a single day to dress for battle and do it all. It helps against the tide of click delivery.

Points - because we seem to live in a culture that expects we ought to purchase Extra Things in the fourth quarter, I save my credit card points and all other redemptions for this time, to gird against the pain of added expenses. It is an absurd form of budgeting, but it works, and if it suits you, try it on. I also try to clear out any rogue gift cards for coffee or meals, and in that odd space when the world seems to (try to) pause, I forage into the pantry, below and beneath and behind the everyday things into the things that are special or possibly forgotten.

The Good Enough Meals - food should be nourishing or joyful or both, and I believe this wholeheartedly. I’m endlessly frustrated by the privilege of having to figure out what to make and eat for dinner every single day… and I know many of you are as well. If you have a troubling relationship with food, skip to the next one. If the biggest bane you have is deciding what to eat, my strategy this season has been to take only Good Enough Meals to work with me. They are the same every day, and they are fine. You can do this even if you don’t work in a hospital, I promise. I have oatmeal with raisins and peanut butter and protein powder as my mid-morning breakfast, and some version of a Buddha Bowl for lunch (quinoa, tofu, vegetable matter, cheese matter, nuts/seeds). These things are less likely to be harbingers of exponential growth microbes, contain nutrition, and can be consumed either all at once or a few bites at a time as work permits. I have single serving apple sauce cups in case we run out of other options.

Yogurt & Jam - this is absurd, and I’m sorry to end the ‘free’ section of this ditty with this one… but… my favorite snack innovation for Good Enough Work Meals includes frozen fruit, jam, and plain yogurt. I layer them up Tuesday, and have one a day W-F, which are my work days. Better than maple syrup or (gag) plain yogurt, jam is the secret to being edible a day or two later - it provides a safety layer between the yogurt and the frozen fruit (bad things happen if you mix fruit and yogurt for more than 12 hours, which I’ll explain to you at length once I finish biochem..).

and now….

The Absolute Miracle of Contemplation….