A New 13 Weeks

In favor of posting on time instead of letting the brain muck slow me down until tomorrow, I'm going to keep it brief even though the writer part of my brain wants to pick apart and illustrate the step-by-step thought process behind this week's Big Topic. Alas.

I watched a video by Cal Newport, How to Reinvent Your Life in 4 Months, and decided to give the method a whirl in conjunction with starting my next BestSelf journal. The timelines don't align quite exactly, but that's fine. The first main takeaway that resonated with me and is one of my foci for the next few weeks is the idea of creating 3 "Keystone Habits," as he calls them, which is under the Discipline phase:

• 1 professional

• 1 health/fitness

• 1 personal that enriches your life such as reading, nature, meditation, etc...

Three always seems to be the magic number, because at the beginning of these productivity journals as well you set up to 3 "Outcome Goals" to work toward over the next 13 weeks. In the past, I always focused primarily on work and fitness, because setting goals for my personal life? Pfffft.

Yeah, turns out that that might actually be part of the issue behind my emotional disconnect and my experiencing the "same old, same old" of home life. I suppose we'll see by the end of week 13!

So, I'm approaching these Outcome Goals differently this time around, centering around the 3 Keystone Habits that Newport mentioned.

• Work: Develop my website, "Fear No More"

• Health: Improve Physical Health

• Personal: Shake Your Routine Gently

Now, I know that the health one especially is does not follow the usual advice and principles for setting goals. "Goals should be S.M.A.R.T.!" etc, etc... The reason for this is simple: the goal of improving one's health doesn't end until a very concrete, 6-feet-under point in our lives. Could I set a goal to be a certain weight by a certain time? Could I set a goal to run a 5k race or participate in a triathlon? Sure! But I'm not interested, because all I care about is getting stronger and thanking my body for all its hard work by fueling it with the nutrition it needs. And the occasional doughnut. Shh, don't tell the nutrition snobs.

Plus, a post I read several years ago and revisit occasionally by Mark Manson, Why Goals Are Overrated (And What to Do Instead), has helped me shift my mindset away from chasing goals to building long-term habits.

In a way, this setup kinda goes against the philosophy of BestSelf's productivity journal, because after you've determined 1-3 Outcome Goals and wrote down your "why" for each of them, the next step is to contemplate what your 3 Progress Milestones are, which are defined as, "Metric driven & measurable milestones."

Well, taking a look at my "Shake Your Routine Gently" goal, I've written,

1. Go on more adventures, at least 1x a month

2. Practice a variety of new hobbies

3. Hang out with people

Those aren't...metric driven or measurable really. The 1st one is the closest to fitting that description, and even then, what constitutes an adventure? (There are 3 Critical Drivers that you write for each of the 3 Milestones, which I use to lay out examples of what constitutes as an adventure for me, but I digress.)

In the past, with the way these journals are set up, I've always struggled to remind myself to look at those initial pages to make sure I'm on track. Out of sight, out of mind, and with how many daily pages there are to fill, it's easy to fall into a robotic cycle of writing those daily pages, then flipping back to the one you fill out weekly only after said week is done. My brain doesn't like so much page flipping. Too much mental processing.

But my eldest sister is a genius and introduced me to other time management systems outside of time blocking! All because I inquired after her opinions of Newport's ideologies. And she showed me what she deems the, "bastardized version of Scrum," she's been using to work through her tasks. I decided to rearrange my cork board to attempt the same.

Before this, I wrote the day's priorities on a sticky note and crossed them off as I completed them, but I really like the moving parts with this format, the "Doing" section especially. Seeing the pile of completed tasks also feels like it could help someone ride the wave of their accomplishments for longer, too, and get even more done, or, if they're feeling down about how little they feel they've done in a week, it could help uplift them. Then, at the end of the week, the "Done" notes are removed, and the process begins again for the next week.

I...get excited when introduced to new ways of organizing or when I have a new time schedule or similar to organize.

Overall, as of day 2 of implementing this visual to-do board, I am a fan. It keeps the weekly tasks in view—I have a "To Do Backlog" at the very back of my BestSelf Journal since my cork board is small—it helps keep the mind focused on what tasks you're doing/wanting to do, and you get to see the accomplishments build throughout the week. That seems like a win-win to me.

Other Notable Accomplishments:

• Walked ~10k steps yesterday & ~13k steps today, the most I've managed in a while

• Worked out all 3 workout days this week so far; got Sat. & Sun. ahead

• Have begun recording my caloric & nutritional intake again

This Week's Obligatory Cat Pic: Qiri