Time for another update. This time I’ll try adding one more layer to my personal context: Toggl Track data.
Since the last post, I’ve derailed once more with: music-piano: $5 (total so far: $15)
I stopped piano lessons last week and switched to a self-directed plan. I’ve then basically flatlined for a whole week. On the beemergency day, life happened. Since then, things have improved:
I’ve identified the friction in the my self-directed plan. Let’s see how it goes. If I can’t make it work, I may start taking lessons, I’ve already found a candidate instructor that I think will fit me better.
Week-ahead committed time:
| Tag |
7d % |
14d % |
| meta |
30.1 |
26.5 |
| friends |
16.7 |
14.3 |
| study |
16.6 |
11.9 |
| health |
13.9 |
24.5 |
| truth |
11.4 |
7.7 |
| venture |
4.8 |
5.5 |
| music |
4.7 |
5.9 |
| partner |
0.0 |
2.2 |
| dutch |
1.9 |
1.3 |
Total (7d): ~17h 17m.
(The differences between 7-14 day are due to buffer I have.)
Let’s see how this looks when my Toggl Track data comes into perspective. Here’s some context to my tracking habit:
226h tracked, 7.55h/day average.
| Category |
Hours |
% |
| Work |
150.9 |
66.7 |
| Meta (Gissues, Beeminder, beebudget) |
~25.0 |
11.0 |
| Study (SICP + CS:APP + Anki) |
15.3 |
6.7 |
| Truth |
8.8 |
3.9 |
| Music (Piano + Ear Training + Singing) |
8.8 |
3.9 |
| Venture |
8.0 |
3.5 |
| Partner |
4.7 |
2.1 |
| Friends |
4.0 |
1.8 |
If I leave out work:
| Category |
30d hours |
Daily avg |
% of discretionary |
| Meta |
25.0 |
50 min |
33% |
| Study (SICP, CS:APP, Anki) |
15.3 |
31 min |
20% |
| Truth |
8.8 |
18 min |
12% |
| Music (Piano, Ear, Singing) |
8.8 |
18 min |
12% |
| Venture |
8.0 |
16 min |
11% |
| Partner |
4.7 |
9 min |
6% |
| Friends |
4.0 |
8 min |
5% |
| Other |
~1.0 |
— |
~1% |
| Total discretionary |
~75h |
~2.5h/day |
|
For now, at least for the rest of March, I’ll take 2.5h/day to be the limit of how much “discretionary time” I have. I’m not interested in trying to squeeze more. (I’m not sure if it’d be healthy for me.)
But… wow! So I have 17.5h/week discretionary time and next week I’ve already committed ~17 hours to Beeminder. (My Beebudget estimates arent very precise, so this could easily be off by 10%.)
Let’s compare this to my priorities:
| Priority |
Rank |
Discretionary % |
Verdict |
| Partner |
#1 |
6% |
Low, but partly by design (time together isn’t tracked) |
| Venture |
#2 |
11% |
Under-represented — 16 min/day for a #2 priority |
| Health |
#3 |
(Tracked via Strava, not in Toggl) |
Appears healthy from beebudget |
| Learning |
#4 |
20% |
Generous for a #4 |
| Meaning |
#5 |
12% |
Appropriate |
| Friends |
#9 |
5% |
Temporarily elevated (rolodex); will drop |
This is looking okay, except… I want to scale up my venture efforts starting from April.
Based on all I have, it seems clear to me that I’m facing trade-offs here. My initial ideas:
- Focus part of meta activity to venture. This seems possible by the content and motivational context of these activities.
- Consider scaling down study, perhaps CS:APP. I’m reading that mostly out of curiousity and expect no real return from it.
I want to already experiment with this in the rest of March. So:
- CS:APP’s rate gets a 1/6 reduction.
- Shifting “meta” focus to venture will not be visible in Beeminder.