Day 16

Got my reading it, ate well, etc. Also got outside for a while. Didn't do anything out of my comfort zone.

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What I've realized is that this is really in no way an accountability journal for me. Much moreso, it's a find "find what works for me personally" journal. It's an experimentation journal.

So here is version 1.2

The major focus for this next week is to plan my days so that I know exactly what I'm going to do and when. I set alarms on my phone on repeat and turned the snooze button off -- so this is my schedule tomorrow:

10am - get up, eat and clean up kitchen
10:30am - read for an hour or more
12:00pm - Meditate or go outside (if sunny)
12:30pm - Free time
3:00pm - Work
4:00pm - Workout
10pm - Finish Work, plan Tuesday
10:30pm - Free time

I'm pretty confident this'll work well for me. I'll add more things as these become easier to stick to.

Cheers

Day 17

Today was probably the best day yet, process wise. I got everything done and even did a few extra things. Picking an exact time is really helpful for me. The only major problem was that I got to sleep too late and I was really tired. I took a nap before work. Tonight I'll have to get to bed a little earlier.

Plan for tomorrow:

10am - get up, get mail, pay bills
10:30am - read for an hour or more
12:00pm - Meditate or go outside (if sunny)
12:30pm - Go to work
10pm - Finish Work, plan Wednesday
10:30pm - Free time
2:00am - Sleep

Cheers

Day 18

Did well. Got a ton of reading in but I've still gotta relax/meditate before bed. My sleep schedule has been the biggest barrier here, since I woke up in the middle of the night (after trying to go to bed earlier) and then had to nap before work.

Tomorrow:

10am - get up, finish cleaning up apt.
10:30am - read for an hour or more
12:00pm - Meditate or go outside (if sunny)
12:30pm - free time
2:30pm - Go to work
10pm - Finish Work, plan Wednesday
10:30pm - Free time
2:00am - Sleep

It's much easier for me to get stuff done earlier. If I can work towards getting up at the right time and getting everything done early, I think this'll go really well.

Cheers

Day 19

Got confused on which day I'm on lol. Yesterday (wednesday), was day 19 and it didn't go so hot. Got my reading in but not much extra. Sleep is still the major issue here. I just feel really tired if my sleep schedule is off, and it's way harder to create a good schedule then it is to mess one up.

Day 20

Today (Thursday) I slept way too late again and didn't get that much done. I'm going out with a friend for an hour or two now and I'm gonna read when I get back. Funny how hard it is to be consistent with just a few little things.

Anyway, I've really just got to find a way to consistently get to bed earlier and get up earlier. It's easy to be productive in the mornings and early afternoons, but when I get back from work at like 10pm I never want to just clamp down and get shit done.

Cheers

Day 21/22

Last two days have been great. The most helpful thing I've found (so far) is just taking away time wasting stuff. I put my laptop in my desk and this is the first time I've touched it in 2 days. Basically if I have nothing else to waste my time on, I'm inclined to spend it well.

Still need to work on sleep a little, but things have been good.

Day 23/24

Last 2 days have been pretty solid. It seems to work really well for me if I just create time for myself and then I just automatically fill it with things I should be doing. As long as I'm cutting out time ways to waste time, things seem to go pretty well.

Only thing I'm struggling with a little bit right now is just that I've been feeling pretty tired. Not REALLY tired (I've got plenty of sleep) but just a low level of tiredness that makes it hard to get into mentally challenging stuff.

Not quit sure why this is. Maybe it's just cause my sleep hours are really odd, or maybe just having a high level of physical activity every day or not getting enough sun or something. Anyway, gotta work a little bit on this.

Day 23/24

Last 2 days have been good. Basically staying away from any time wasting activities.

One thing though is that I feel like I need a little more direction. You hear about how it's easy to find motivation for the process when you really want something and you're really clear on what you want, but when it's not entirely clear that your process will get you there, it becomes harder to follow. For instance, if I'm reading a book or something and part of it is pretty dry, there's not enough of a connection to be sure that "doing this will definitely take me towards my goal". That makes it harder to tough it out with those things.

I am doing very well on anything that I can get interested in and slide into a flow state though.

Cheers

Day 25-28

Last 4 days have been a lot of fun. I haven't gotten a lot done per say, but I've been enjoying myself and basically staying on top of everything. Definitely no regrets; it's been time well spent.

One thing I've been thinking about is what the right balance is for me between work and play. Some of the people who are role models for me work really, really hard and seem to derive a huge amount of happiness from that, so I'm inclined to take that route. But sometimes it feels like just having fun and enjoying the moment makes a much bigger impact on my general happiness.

Cheers

Days 29-31

Things have been fine, but I've basically just temporarily adapted to expecting less of myself, since things are really good right now.

I think it's normal to go through periods of contraction and expansion, but at the same time it's weird seeing how little motivation I have to do anything extra when there isn't any source of immediate frustration in my life.

On the bright side, I'm staying low stress, working out and eating well. If I can get consistent with the reading again I'm really doing quite well.

Cheers

Last 4 days have been decent. Again, I keep flip flopping in how much I care, often based on whether I'm frustrated with something or not. Like I mentioned in the first post, when you don't have any real sources of discomfort in your life, it's sometimes difficult to draw consistent motivation.

But this journal isn't about what's not working well, it's about strategies to get things working better.

Here are the most useful things I've learned about myself since starting this:

1. All-or-nothing, do-it-perfectly thinking doesn't work for me because I inevitably run into hiccups or run out of motivation.

2. Planning things out for specific times has worked best for me so far. The only trouble here is sleep, because if my sleep schedule doesn't coincide with my planning, everything goes to shit. I think this strategy is a good starting point for me, but I need to get a better handle on when I sleep, and have a contingency plan for when I inevitably stay up all night.

3. I most likely need to burn bridges if I really want to get something more substantial out of myself day by day.

4. I have trouble spreading my effort between too many different things.

5. I need more medial tasks to do in between the dense stuff. I can't always just sit down and read for 3 hours. I need to get up for 10 minutes, clean my apartment, or do SOMETHING that doesn't require intense focus. The only time I seem to be able to override this is when I get in a flow state with something.

I think it will be useful for me if I can find a few mindless productive activities to do when I don't feel like I can concentrate on more mentally challenging ones. Sometimes I just can't get myself to sit down and read an Anatomy text book or wrestle with piano theory -- and this often leads me to feel like I don't know what the hell to do with myself, because anything that requires a lot of mental engagement seems like too much.

If I can find some go-to activities (cleaning apt, making phone calls, making a meal, etc), I think it'll be easier to stay productive, and when I do feel like I have the energy to do something, I won't have other obligations left undone.

6. On the same note as #3, I need to come up with more concrete activities with more concrete results. That'll require more concrete goals. Right now I know I need to learn... that's about it. But learning often happens most effectively when you're actively trying to do something, not preparing to do something. It's a weird situation, really enjoying where you are, but really wanting to prepare for the next step without taking it yet...or even knowing exactly what it is. It's mostly that I just feel a huge sense of urgency, like I've seen so many people do it wrong (end up doing something they hate, not work hard enough, work too hard at the expense of other things), and I really want to get it right.

Perhaps the important thing is just to trust that I'll make the necessary changes when I need to. As much as I need to keep experimenting with strategies to be productive day by day, I also need to simply trust myself to take the next step when the time comes.

Cheers

I guess I've kind of fallen off here.

One thing I've noticed is that my motivation seems be completely tied to whether there are currently any sources of frustration in my life. When things are going really well, I basically feel no need to do anything. When I'm frustrated with something, I feel like I want to dive back in head first.

This phenomenon is often related to my dating life, but sometimes other things. Again, I oscillate between barely even thinking about personal development/success, to the complete opposite end of the spectrum based on this kind of stuff. Totally weird.

I think the problem here is two fold. The first part is that I have virtually no motivation to change when things are going really well. The second is that I'll completely flip the switch based on something external to myself and feel like I've really gotta "get my ass in gear".

The key here is to have an internal source of motivation. I get that. But taking that from in intellectual understanding to internalizing and living it, is quite different. That's the challenge.

Cheers

Alright let's give consistency another go here.

What I want to do this time is just prove to myself that I can stick to something.

I'm going to meditate for 20 minutes every day. That's it. There's absolutely no reason I can't do that.

Other stuff like reading, going outside, eating well, working out and so on I'll try to keep doing like I have been (somewhat irregularly), so I'm not completey falling off with that stuff.

It's the morning of March 14th right now. Let's see if I can stick to just one thing for 30 days.

Cheers

Been sticking to it. Nice to be able to stick to something, no matter how minor.

Basically been sticking to it. I'll sometimes miss Friday and/or Sat due to going out, but the rest of the week has been good. I'll have to remember to do it early on those days, because it's unrealistic to do it late.

Meditation is actually really cool when you're actually able to be completely present for a while. It's almost like adopting a different personality temporarily. I just need to remember to do it when I'm not tired.

Also been reading quite a bit and learning stuff related to my career. Workouts have been pretty good. Eating has been great. Sleep has been better, but still really messed up hours.

I keep wanting motivation to be an "event", like you watch an inspiring video and decide "this is it. I'm going for it". I think that's how a lot of people perceive motivation. But waking up every day and doing the little things is the hard part. It's so much harder to put in even 80% every day than it is to put in 110% for a few days and then fall off again.

Anyway, the plan is to stick to this one thing for another week or two until I feel like it's something that I won't stop doing as I start doing more other things, then add another. Ithink this is most effective for me.

Cheers

Haven't fallen off, just haven't had internet access at home hahaha.

I'm doing very well with this stuff actually. I think the key for me at the moment is just starting very very simple and edging things up slowly from there. I don't know why this idea was so hard for me to grasp, and seems to be for most other people struggling with motivation as well.

If you can't stick to one small thing, why the hell would you add 7?

So right now I'm doing 3 things sustainably, and adding one every month I stay on track.

I haven't given up on the other things -- I'm actually working out hard 3x per week, reading, etc, but those are separate from the strict habit development I'm working on.

So yeah, it's going really well.

Cheers!