Progress on my Campaigns

I’m always starting (and ending) new habits and campaigns. I tend to write about them when I first start or first see results, but I’m not always good at follow up. Sometimes, too, the progress isn’t really exciting enough to warrant special mention. Today I thought that I’d follow up on all of those that I can think of (probably biased towards ones I didn’t quit, since they’re the ones on the front of my mind), and that maybe as a collection they would be interesting.

Working Out

I started working out on January 9th. Since then I’ve gained fourteen pounds, mostly muscle, and have increased all of my lifts by 50-100%. I haven’t skipped a single workout (or even a set) while in San Francisco, but I was probably at about 50% in Japan and 80% in Austin. My diet adherence has been around 95% in SF, 25% in Japan, and 90% in Austin. The breaks in Austin and Japan were small variances to be social, and in Japan I decided to not worry about it.

I had planned to stop working out permanently at the beginning of the Japan trip, but I read that working out increases willpower, and the results have been fantastic, so I’m continuing indefinitely.

As much as I would like to take credit for my success with working out, it’s 100% due to Dick Talens, founder of Fitocracy and fellow SETT blogger. My independent efforts at gaining weight have never worked, but he got me results within the first week.

Writing Every Day

Almost exactly a year ago I decided to start writing every single day and increasing posting to twice a week. I haven’t missed a single post in that time, but I have not written every day. I’d say that I write 80% of the days, with trips being the main thing pulling that average down.

Posting twice a week has been really good for me, and hopefully really good for you as well. It’s allowed me to try a few experimental posts, knowing that if someone doesn’t like them, they don’t have to wait a full week to get something new.

Writing almost every day has been really positive as well. I think I’ve become a much better writer, not so much in terms of maximum skill, but mostly in ability to generate a good post quickly with no burning inspiration. I also have over 100 posts stashed that are good enough to hit the blog, so I could easily auto-queue them all in SETT and take a year off if I wanted to. Being post-rich allows me to write with no stress at all and choose a post that fits my mood.

Violin

Violin progress has been slow but satisfying. Sometimes I go a week or two without playing, and then sometimes I feel inspired and I try to figure out a new song. I figured out “Somewhere over the Rainbow” just by hearing it, and I learned “Castle in a Cloud” from sheet music. I don’t play either one very well at all, but I really enjoy playing Castle in a Cloud.

About a month ago I heard Violin and Piano Sonata in A Major by Cesar Franck and was floored. I’ve never impacted so much by classical music. I immediately got the sheet music and tried to learn it myself, but found it to be very difficult. I scheduled a violin lesson with my old teacher to have him help me through a few things. I’m also going to record him playing it so that I have a reference.

I will probably never be good at violin, but I hope that within 2-3 years I can play the first movement of this Franck piece well enough that others will enjoy hearing it. If I get to that point, I will learn the fourth movement as well. The primary reason I play violin is to give my analytical brain little breaks and have a positive way to procrastinate if I need it.

Dating

I forget exactly when I decided not to date, but it’s been at least a year. The rule is that I can’t put any effort into dating until 2015, which predictably leads to zero dates. I’m doing this to help myself focus, and it serves that purpose well. There are times when I feel like I’m missing out, but that’s probably 1-2% of the time at most. Whenever I see other people’s moods or habits being affected by girls, I’m glad for the rule.

Somewhat related, I’ve also decided to give up pornography, probably forever. It’s been around six weeks now (maybe I should be keeping better track of these things), and I don’t miss it.

Movies

I gave up watching movies in theaters in October 2012 until Jan 1 2014, but I will probably extend that, possibly indefinitely. Like dating and pornography (and other things like alcohol, sugar, etc), movies have fallen into that category of things-other-people-do-that-aren’t-in-any-way-part-of-my-life. I don’t feel positively or negatively towards them– I just don’t think of them.

I have watched a few movies on my computer (Les Mis, which was great, Skyfall which was not great, and maybe another one), as well as some documentaries. I wanted to watch Gatsby because I liked the book, but I was glad I had my rule when my family came back from the theater and said they didn’t like it.

Meditation

Four or five months ago I started meditating every day for five minutes. It’s become such a reflex that I don’t really even notice when I do it anymore. Unfortunately that means that I forget when I didn’t do it, too. Yesterday I’m pretty sure I meditated, but since I can’t remember it I’m not sure. I’d estimate that I do it 90% of the time. I used to have a rule that I couldn’t check my email before meditating, but I gave up on that after the Japan trip, so now sometimes I get caught up in email and forget to do it. Since I just realized that, I will implement the rule again.

I don’t feel like I’ve really gotten better at meditating. I still find it difficult and a little bit frustrating, although I don’t find it unenjoyable anymore. I have definitely noticed that it gives me a second to observe all impulses before acting on them, which I find very valuable. This prevents me from spending an hour browsing ebay, eventually thinking, “Wait… shouldn’t I be working?”

Reading Every Day

My reading for the year has fallen behind. I read from midnight until I get tired every day, or 2am, whichever comes first. My progress was stunted by getting 2/3 of the way through two 300+ page books, deciding they weren’t worth finishing, and then giving up, and by slogging my way through Better Angels of our Nature. Better Angels was a great book, but it was so dense and repetitive that I often fell asleep after only 30 minutes. I think it took me two full months to get through it.

I was hoping to get to 100 books this year, but it seems like I’ll end up closer to 50. The absolute number doesn’t really matter to me (or I wouldn’t read 900 page books like Musashi and Better Angels), but I do feel like I’ve been sleeping earlier and thus not reading. Working out has made me more tired, so that’s probably a factor as well.

RV Living

This has been going on for about seven years now, but people still ask me about it. I still live in my RV and I still love it. I’ve done several new insane RV projects, and we’re probably about due for another video. The only project on the horizon is the curtains that my sister is making for me.

Daily Planning

For somewhere around 120-150 days I tracked everything and planned every day like Sebastian Marshall. This was a HUGE win for me and really revolutionized my productivity overnight.

However, I’m not doing it anymore. The enormous rate of gains that I experienced initially tapered off as it became less novel and more routine, and that coupled with some trips knocked me off the schedule. Planning and scheduling everything made me so reliable that there was really no point in recording times anymore because they were the same every day.

The part that I miss, though, was loading up my todo list first thing every day. It doesn’t feel like that big of a deal, but I’ve noticed that on days I do that (probably only 10% of days now), I get more done. So for the past few days I’ve restarted the daily todo list, and I plan on keeping it up.

Blocking all Sites

Six weeks ago I blocked all sites besides what I needed for work. Ben Yu bet me that I wouldn’t stick with this, which eliminated any chance that I would fail. I do have to open up a second browser quite frequently for things like unsubscribing from newsletters, looking up programming questions, etc., but my waste-of-time browsing has been cut down to virtually nothing. I am allowed to browse any sites during lunch and dinner, but I find that these days I tend to just read. Breaking the cycle of visiting sites like Reddit and Hacker News daily has drastically lowered my desire to read them.

I think there’s another 6-8 weeks left in the bet, but I plan to keep all sites blocked forever.

Languages

I stopped Japanese at the beginning of the Japan trip, having learned about 1000 new words. I intend to switch back to Chinese for a few months, but I was spoiled by the awesome Japanese Anki Deck I was using (modified core 2000). The Chinese ones are far worse, so Todd and I are considering hiring someone in China to make one like Japanese Core 2000.

Ballet

I’ve started doing ballet every week. I chose ballet because I’ve noticed that everyone who is even moderately proficient has great posture, great discipline, grace, and a good outlook on life. I could definitely use some help on posture, and more discipline is always a good thing. I took one class just to see if I’d like it, but I’m now on my fifth or sixth and I intend to continue at least until I’m good enough to perform at a recital or small student performance.

Wrap Up

Written down these seem like a ton of things to keep track of, but it’s almost all second nature by now. I just add them one by one, get to the point where my default is to adhere, stop being insane about perfect execution, and then add some new ones. These things are all so positive (for me, anyway) that they don’t seem like hassles, but rather like pillars of a happy, productive, and pleasant life.

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Photo is Samovar’s Golden Phoenix Oolong tea. Drinking tea every morning (but not always such a great one!) is another habit that I really love.

If you have a SETT blog and haven’t tried AutoQueue yet, go to your blog settings and set it up. It’s my favorite SETT feature.


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