Life Reboot 39: Month 1 and 2 Check-In

This blog post is a little late.

When I posted that I was rebooting my life just after my Birthday, I promised check-ins. I missed my one-month check-in, so I’m doing it for both the first and second month. 

A quick note on the format. After each practice heading, I’ll share some stats that I’m using to track my progress. Then I’ll give myself a grade. These grades aren’t a way to “beat myself up” for not having a better practice, but rather a measuring stick of where I’m at so I know where I need to improve. Of course, this is better in theory than in reality, but I’m determined to not let negative self-talk derail my efforts.

Better Sleep

Month 1

Average Hours of Sleep: 7.8 hours

Number of Times I Fell Asleep by Midnight: 10 days

Number of Times I Fell Asleep After Midnight: 19 days

Grade: C

Month 2

Average Hours of Sleep: 7.17 hours

Number of Times I Fell Asleep by Midnight: 9 days

Number of Times I Fell Asleep After Midnight: 19 days

Grade: D

I’m giving myself a solid C for the first month and a D for the second month. On the face of things, it looks like each month is very similar. But there is a little more data I’m looking at to grade myself. For one, the second month involved some screwy sleep patterns, that led to several days where I had to take naps or weekends where I slept 10, 11, or even 12 hours to compensate. This led to a small bout with insomnia and overwhelm, and I realized I needed to get back on track.  

I noticed a trend when I was cataloging this data that I had quite a few days in both months where I fell asleep after midnight. So, I decided to use this as a way to measure where I’m at and how I can improve.

In his book, “Atomic Habits”, James Clear writes about making “tiny changes” in your routines. There’s a little more to it than this, but basically, smaller changes are easier to implement and maintain. So, I’m going to use this trend of going to sleep after midnight, to help me slowly adjust the time I go to sleep. 

I know when I fall asleep earlier, I get up earlier and sleep better. This allows me to spend time in the morning doing the things I love to do and which I’ve been trying to incorporate more frequently into my morning routine: drinking coffee, reading, yoga, and time for planning.  

So over the next couple of months, I’ll be working on implementing that change. 

More Movement

Month 1

Average Steps: 2,755

Number of Workout Days: 6

Average Workout Duration: 28 minutes, 24 seconds.

Grade: D

Month 2

Average Steps: 2345

Number of Workout Days: 7

Average Workout Duration: 47 minutes, 51 seconds.

Grade: D

I’m giving myself a D for both months. I absolutely could have worked out more. In fact, I planned to work out quite a lot more. It’s actually quite embarrassing to see the number of days on my calendar I had scheduled a workout and didn’t do anything…

Month 1 workouts were mostly yoga, with a couple of sessions of running and dancing thrown in. Month 2 workouts are mostly dancing since I’m gearing up to perform in the “Thriller on C-Street” performance in October. This next month’s workouts will also be mostly dancing as there are a bunch more Thriller practices coming up. I’ll try to throw in some yoga and other stuff to balance it out. We’ll see how it goes. Clearly, I struggle with being consistent, so who knows what will happen, but I’m going to try my best.

Now for the average steps… I have no idea how my average steps were less in the second month if my workouts were longer unless I had more sedentary days in between.

As for tracing the average duration of the workouts, I’m using that as just an extra bit of information. If I happen to work out more next month, but it brings my average duration down, then that’s fine. The goal here is to create a practice, not to work out for the longest possible time.

Get More Out of Nonfiction

Month 1

Nothing.

Grade: F

Month 2

Zip. Zilch. Nada.

Grade: F

So, this practice is getting off to a really bad start. The idea here was to start taking notes over and implementing things I found that I wanted to work on from the nonfiction books I’ve been listening to. I know for a fact I haven’t done any of that. I also haven’t scheduled it on my calendar. 

To be fair, I have read some smaller forms of nonfiction where I’ve taken notes and/or started implementing them. But the idea here was to do this with nonfiction books. So, I’ll have to actually schedule some time to work on this. 

Write More

Month 1

Number of Days Writing: 13.

Percentage of Days Out of Month: 43%

Total Words: 5,122

Fiction Words: 5,099 

Average Words Per Day for Month: 170.

Biggest Writing Day: 874 words.

Grade: C

Month 2 

Number of Days Writing: 12

Percentage of Days Out of Month: 39%

Total Words: 3528

Fiction Words: 2,198 

Average Words Per Day for Month: 114.

Biggest Writing Day: 645 words.

Grade: C

I think both months deserve a solid C. I feel like it’s getting easier when I actually do sit down to write, it’s just getting started and trying to make sure I don’t talk myself out of “not having time” to write. 

I’ve been having really vivid dreams in the morning a lot more than I used to. In fact, several of them have become ideas for stories that I wrote down. I have my suspicions that this is due to writing more and letting the muse out of her cage.  I think the fact that I’m experiencing this is a really good sign.

Put My Writing Out There

Month 1

I worked on a piece I was going to post but didn’t get it done.

Grade: D

Month 2

I almost got something done and posted.

Grade: D

My goal was to work on finishing out some stories that I had started and get them posted here. I didn’t finish that, though. Still, of the 25 days that I wrote in the last 2 months, 10 of those days were working on the first story I’m going to post. The rest of the writing was on a couple of book ideas I’ve been playing around with, some starts on multiple blog posts, a snippet for an idea that popped into my head one morning, and some writing for a course I’m using to work on my fiction writing skills. Since I didn’t get anything posted, I have to give myself a D for the first and second months. I definitely worked towards it, but I didn’t post anything.

I’m now finished with the draft of the story I was going to post first online. And I wanted to let that story sit for a bit before I started editing it. I’ll be working on this today and tomorrow and will hopefully get it done and posted. Wish me luck. It’s been a while since I’ve edited something for it to be posted online (at least fiction-wise).