Of the 70,000 daily thoughts we have and our brains filter, surely a big percentage that we have on permanent repeat are the ideas of new and improved habits. One has found its way through the filter trap to this page. I’m taking a practical route by starting with a physical filter cleaning to get my mind and motivation to resume writing…unstuck.
So, I’m going to try for the keystone habit that notes and records and eventually transfers to reality the habit of being more conscious of how I use my time. Even more so, how I waste time and have done so for so long that I am proficient at procrastination. Gotta notice and note it so you can review your own record and aim for either meaningful change or dare I hope, progressive improvement, right?
It starts, as it has countless times before in this space, with this unfiltered sharing on my blog, which at this moment still feels safe. It is like whispering into the wind as my site visitor count is low. If you are reading this, you are still in an exclusive ‘insider club’, but I have to start being accountable somewhere.. might as well be on my private little island of me, me, me that I lease in cyberspace.
Now, the irony I just noticed.
An unfiltered introduction means I’ll speak my mind and won’t even go back to edit for any reason…except for typos in bright red underlines.
Yet, I begin this tell-all tattling with a note about physical filters.
Yes, for the last 2 mornings and one task that needed doing before the first morning – I prepared to work on the filters in my home. I cleaned and replaced all possibly accessible filters!
- Black plastic, oscillating Honeywell tower fan and filter, in the bedroom.
It required opening up the back panel – removing 2 large brick-like blocks of metal honeycomb pattern filters encased in a muddy orange plastic. I rinsed those really well with the new screw-on water-saving spigot and filter I installed in the kitchen’s stainless steel sink. Propped on their side, they dried thoroughly on a tea towel on the counter.
Time for that long rectangular black filter that I washed and dried to extend its life last season, to be replaced with the new one still waiting from the day I bought it with the fan. Satisfied it had done the job, I had proof with the caked on sticky grey dust.
Fan and some filtering now happening. Quiet although it has a blue light on the top to indicate speed and when it is on, it is the most disruptive to our eye’s sleep sensors.
A trade-off. Check.
2. My Winnix Plasma air filter. Rarely let the Plasma Wave be activated. I think it emits ozone and there is a funny sterilized cardboard type of smell if the doors and windows are closed and it has been filtering for a few hours. Maybe I am wrong.
A window pane-like nylon screen, and a black filter that needs to be washed. I viewed a silent but subtitled, YouTube video on the topic that said must be changed after 3-4 washings, and the accordion off-white pleated Hepa filter should be changed every 6-8 months. Ixnay on the cost and change. I don’t run it that often or daily.
I wiped down and washed what I could in the tub, propping it up to dry for hours. I used my Prime one-month membership to have Amazon deliver a new set of filters. They were hand-delivered to my door in less than an incredible 18 hours by a beautiful tall man named Inderjeet.
Addictive but for the arrival of cardboard that must now be recycled or perhaps saved to save $5-8 per new box I pay for when I courier parcels to my granddaughters in the USA. I now use UPS or Fedex because the cost is the same but the delivery is more secure and faster without me having to download a QR Code and deal with Canada Post customs paperwork. All my info is there and a wide counter and easy add-on services if I don’t have a box or tape or stuffing are at the ready. Just deciding to gather and buy the parcel contents is stressful enough for me.
The air purifier was reassembled, and wiped down with alcohol, just as the casing of the tower fan was done. Shiny. Clean. Hygienic. Check.
3. Dyson air circulator, white desk top “D Link” simple was ready for … something. The chrome-coloured shroud as it is called of holes in a metal sleeve that contains a glass fiber Hepa filter did not indicate by its light that it NEEDED changing.
YouTube’s 2-min video showed me how to lift it all out after lifting off the amplifier which they call the circular fan that emits the air and looks like a modern sculpture of smooth white and soft grey-coloured plastic. A tiny Q tip into the one ear canal or, sensor, as others call it.
As instructed, I unplugged. I wiped down and then replugged, reset by starting it up.. and voila. Another summer season of $100 filter that didn’t need to be bought as I don’t run it 12 hours a day for a year. Check.
4. Direct breathing empowerment filter! Now, onto the first filter purchase and the last to be done even though it is also the easiest and most critical as it is in daily use.
My CPAP. You’d think I’d pay the most attention to the mechanism that assists every breath I take while asleep night after night.
Yet, nay. For the past several years I’ve changed the filter every 6 months. During the first year of COVID-19, I went almost 10 months between filter changes due to no in-person appointments. When I called, the one staff member allowed in the office, alone, told me to vacuum it – or to flick it with my fingers. I saw heavy grey dust falling out.
Cleanings were suspended ostensibly for health and safety regulations, yet conveniently stayed suspended as a new Do It Yourself feature of the service. Savings of money and time – talk. I don’t even have to come in as each breath’s quality and duration of use is transmitted to a central processor. More buzzing and exposure right near my brain all night. I only recently understood that the filters must be changed every 6 weeks, not at 6-month intervals.
Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine for treating sleep apnea disorders. Check.
So…why not practice a physical filter triage first. Surely thoughts blurted, possibly regrettable words, unsolicited advice, reactionary opinions, and poorly thought-out scenarios may be filtered soon after, in a sustainable and regular fashion saving me, and you, suffering and bad air.
