/bookblanket_catchup has been archived, as I reached the goal! Slowly this project draws nearer to completion.
I’m really not feeling /hourofcrafting right now. I think I’m going to derail again. I increased the charge to $5 – $1 feels too piddly and small when I need to message the premium user who wins it! – so there’ll be a bit of a sting, but I don’t think I mind. I’ve put in a month’s break, so I’ll either resentfully keep it up until the break kicks in, or run off the road with relief.
A couple of my goals got two-day breaks the night my wife went to hospital in an ambulance, because they required my normal schedule and that got messed up. My wife’s fine, but it was stressful.
/hourofcrafting derailed, more or less as predicted. It’s now flat for aaages to give me some time to get my mojo back.
/water derailed, but it wasn’t actually legit – just a syncing problem with Fitbit. Buuut it did show I was edge-skating far too much with that goal.
/nofudge derailed, but again, that was edge-skating and data going in late. Oops.
New goals:
N/a.
Changes to existing goals:
/nailbiting has got harder! Now I need to have 6.5 nailbiting-free days per week, up from 5. Likewise for /cleanseandmoisturise.
/inhaler is also harder and has been since last week, when I forgot to mention it. My dose has gone up to four puffs a day, so my goal has likewise doubled. I’m still contemplating splitting it into morninginhaler/eveninginhaler.
/beemergencies got a big retroratchet and a rate reduction to 3/day. I’ll tighten it up even more when I’m back on an even keel after last week’s difficulties.
/fitbitsteps is being archived because it wasn’t really useful – I tend to do a little often, and then gain days and days of safety buffer with one day’s walking. It’s also kind of duplicating my /activeminutes goal anyway.
TaskRatchet Successes & Failures:
New task: writing up an Apple Health integration FAQ.
Other comments:
I’m still not really super on track, and probably need to be looking at my list of goals and seeing what isn’t really serving me anymore, because life is generally a bit busier than it was.
Regarding body weight workouts, I can recommend this app:
It got videos that show you an actual person doing the exercises and the voice over gives helpful additional advice. For instance, in the step up exercise it points out that your entire foot should be on the chair before you step onto it and when they said it I realised that mine wasn’t and changing this does trigger different muscle groups than when your foot is on there only partially.
It also got nice warmup and cool down (read: stretching) exercises. The former help with not feeling like a complete potato during and after the workout and made me dread doing them a lot less!
In fact now I can do them before breakfast even! This is super great because now I don’t procrastinate doing them the entire day long. Without the warmup I just can’t. It sucks too hard and then I don’t do it.
I think it’s good that you want to do regular body weight exercises. I do mine every two days because muscles do also need some downtime. Two to three weeks into doing them I noticed how my lower back pain went away almost completely.
And when I stopped doing them for a few weeks (it started with a vacation) my back pain came back after a couple weeks. Once resumed it went away again. So I’m definitely gonna keep doing them.
/bookbed derailed because… honestly, I didn’t realise it was sneaking up on me, somehow.
/writethosereviews derailed because I looked at the clock 20 minutes before my deadline, went to get a drink, ended up petting the bunnies, and… didn’t get back to my computer in time. Sigh.
New goals:
/nonewsisgoodnews: I got into a bit of a cycle of checking the news, getting stressed about it, and then promptly checking the news again and again. Of course I need to stay informed and all, but twice a day is quite enough. I started on a rate of 2/day; I think I might raise that to 2.5/day just to give a little more leeway, but anyway. That’s the idea.
Changes to existing goals:
/activeminutes is going to archive too, because my Fitbit isn’t picking up my small bursts of activity very well, and I don’t think a lot of walking (my normal way of getting exercise) is on the cards right now.
TaskRatchet Successes & Failures:
Success: edited the help doc for the Apple Health integration.
New task: create favourites challenge on Habitica.
Other comments:
Well, it’s certainly been a week. That’s all I have to say for it right now!
I turned off every news source except a very good science news podcast and some tech news from a select number of YouTube channels months ago and I am living a better life since then.
In my experience, everything truly worth talking about, your friends and family will talk about anyway, so you’ll hear it there. And: the more things change the more they stay the same. That is especially true for politics.
All that general news are doing for me is further my disappointment in mankind.
Yes. I live in the middle of nowhere; I don’t see friends or family that often other than my wife who could probably also use filtering down her news feeds; and my Twitter feed is filtered to remove anxiety-inducing/distracting/annoying things. Twice a day is more than I need for that, but it’s also a delicate balance between my anxiety about not knowing things and my anxiety about the things that are bothering me.
/nature derailed because I couldn’t be bothered. My mental health was terrible, but this is one that I could’ve managed. Legit.
/teeth derailed, but it wasn’t legit. Got to my phone to add the data just a bit too late.
/bodyweight derailed, mental health. Could’ve managed it, so, legit.
New goals:
/sciencewriting, for helping me stick to the FutureLearn course of that name. Mostly it’s stuff I already know about how to write from, you know, my English lit degree. But I’m hoping for new resources or ways of looking at things.
/histology, for helping me stick to the FutureLearn course on it! I’m excited by this one, and there’s a ton of material.
/priory, for the workerbee book club! @mary and I both have this book on our TBRs, and we managed to rope most of the others into it.
Changes to existing goals:
A lot of my goals got extra breaks put in for mental health reasons. One of the potential criteria the workerbees have discussed for breaks for mental health reasons to avoid a slippery slope of weaselling was “it was so bad, I called my doctor”. This was one of those; I called my doctor the next morning and went back on anxiety medication.
/activeminutes got archived without finishing its countdown because my Fitbit refused to believe I was exercising. It wanted me to keep my heartrate higher than it ever really goes… Not clear what that was about.
TaskRatchet Successes & Failures:
N/a.
Other comments:
I’ve been doing better since I called my doctor and asked to go back on my anxiety medication. Turns out, one doesn’t have to be that completely terrified all the time. For a bit there I honestly thought everyone else was as terrified as I was and just pretending they were functional, because the fears seemed logical. Now I see that many of them were not, or were worst case scenarios, and that anyway I’d rather be optimistic and be able to read books and be kind to people, even if the optimism turns out to be unfounded. Anxiety messes with your head, folks, news at 10.
(Obviously it’s a rough time for many, and I’m not minimising that. I was just totally immobilised by fear and turns out I didn’t have to be.)
/beemergencies derailed for the first time(? I think), due to my new tougher limits and my week of struggling. I think I’m getting back on track for full-time orange-is-the-new-red.
/dishwasher: I hold my hands up, I ignored this a lot and I deserve to derail.
New goals:
/sciencematters, for the Coursera course of that name about COVID-19.
/covid19, for the FutureLearn course of that name about… well, you guessed it.
/reachout, to remind me to message, text or call friends I don’t routinely speak to. The rate is 5/week. I don’t want to be contrived about this, so I might lower the rate a bit. We’ll see how it goes.
/gbhc, to make sure I attend aaaall the rehearsals for the Great British Home Chorus. It’s a highlight of my day, and I don’t want to end up having a backlog of unwatched rehearsals if stuff gets too much. Enforced enjoyment!
Changes to existing goals:
A bunch more breaks were added for mental health reasons, with thanks to the long-suffering @justanotherjon.
TaskRatchet Successes & Failures:
Nothing to report yet…
Other comments:
I’m back in the red on a bunch of things, sigh. But I feel better again today – lots of ups and downs – and am making some progress on clawing it back.
/nofudge, because quite frankly I could not be bothered. I pre-pay my derailments, kind of, because I have a US card via TransferWise which I load at the beginning of the month. This means that derailments are already budgeted for, and this one fit within that budget, so I let it go. I’m not sure this is good for me, actually; I think I’ll stop budgeting for Beeminder, and force the rest of my budget to rearrange as necessary to cover derailments. It seems sensible to have some money set aside ready for derailments, but in practice it means they aren’t actually a sting – the money was already siloed away anyway.
New goals:
/todoistzero – I have a lot of my work stuff all neatly filed in Todoist with deadlines and recurring tasks to keep me on track… and then in the last couple of weeks, everything fell apart and I couldn’t keep up. I’ve re-scheduled everything so it will join back in slowly, and this goal is for making sure I’m on track at least 5 days out of every week. Here’s hoping…
Changes to existing goals:
/housework – I lowered the rate myself, which will take effect next week, because I just don’t have the energy right now.
I had another couple of small rate tweaks and breaks this week (thanks, Jon). This is still under the “my mental health is actively being managed by a doctor because it isn’t going well” rule. I’m viewing it as an adjustment period during which things are a bit more malleable than normal, until I’ve been on an even keel for one full week. The adjustments are getting smaller and smaller! It’s a start!
TaskRatchet Successes & Failures:
Success: Made a Habitica challenge as promised!
Other comments:
How would you beemind working on an application to do another degree? I’m not sure I’ll need to; things are coming together alarmingly fast, and mostly I just need to wait for my references and write my personal statement. But I was thinking about a good way to do it, and I couldn’t immediately come up with anything, because all the tasks that make up the application are different time investments, and not always foreseeable. (Helping my dad find my degree certificates remotely was not something I expected, for instance.)
I want to start keeping some kind of gratitude journal, but I don’t really want to write it down on paper – I’d want something on my PC, preferably, or at a pinch on my phone. Any recs for Windows or Android apps? Especially if they nudge you to enter data at the right time. I want to beemind this, but have something more structured than a .txt file in Notetab.
Five Minute Journal, definitely. I noticed big differences in my outlook on life when I was using it vs when I wasn’t. Here’s the Android app. I believe you can set up recurring notifications for the nudge part.
/inhaler – Gah. I just keep forgetting the darn thing. I actually have other meds to take at the same time now, so I’m a little better about it, but… gah.
New goals:
/futurelearnarchaeology – Another FutureLearn course to keep me busy! This one is only two weeks long, so I’m halfway there already.
/gratitude – Reminding me to share the things I’m grateful for/that keep me happy in the Beeminder forum. I’ve only set it to 6/week, to give me some room for slippage.
Changes to existing goals:
/sciencewriting – Completed and archived!
/histology – Completed and archived!
/covid19 – Completed and archived!
/futurelearnarchaeology – Completed but awaiting archive.
TaskRatchet Successes & Failures:
N/a.
Other comments:
I think I’m sort of back on track now, which means next up is Project “Blue is the New Orange”, i.e. trying to get further ahead on my goals.
/stavechurches – For completing the FutureLearn course on Preserving Norwegian Stave Churches. I know, not my usual field at all, but like my eclectic reading, I like to learn all kinds of things.
/clockoff – Experimental non-cumulative graph to cap my working hours at 6/day. My wife will approve greatly, though she also probably thinks I should make it even tougher. I rarely go over 6 hours anyway, so she might have a point, but I regularly go over 5… We’ll have to see, but I might lower it to 5.7, so I’m capped at 40 hours/week. It’s integrated with Toggl, so hopefully I can just leave it ticking along and ignore it. (It has nearly caught me once so far, and I barely even realised – guess I might go up to 6 hours more than I realised!)
/breathesbooks – For 10 minutes a day working on my book blog, either writing posts for linkups or visiting other folks’ posts.
/confusion-backlog – It died and now is risen… Uh, yeah, I completed the whole backlog and am keeping on top of it, except that there were some others hiding out under a different tag. So it has restarted to get those filed away too.
/understandingcbt – Unsurprisingly, this is my goal for tracking progress on a course about understanding CBT, offered by FutureLearn!
Changes to existing goals:
/hourofreading – I got this hooked up with one of my Toggl accounts, for easier tracking. That does mean I’m missing some time here and there from when I just pick up a book and read bits without bothering to track, but I think I always was.
/checkin – I gave this one day of buffer so it won’t ever go into the orange, because I’m working on not only orange-is-the-new-red but blue-is-the-new-orange.
TaskRatchet Successes & Failures:
N/a.
Other comments:
re: blue-is-the-new-orange, I know it’ll never keep me off the rocks entirely. Someday probably soon I’ll have an anxiety attack and lose hold of it. But we’ll see… It already helped when yesterday there was potentially-bad family news and I didn’t want to get stuff done!
Almost all my tasks are stuff like this - many subtasks with different time investments and unpredictable detours - and what I usually do is just beemind (or paper-journal) spending 15 minutes on the task, doing whatever needs to be done, and remembering that a big part of the task is to sit down, think, write down ideas, and figure out what the next physical action is.
/hourofcrafting – Sadly, it’s just the wrong time for this goal, I think. It’s derailed and I’m archiving it.
New goals:
/suggestions-backlog – A close cousin of the old confusion-backlog goal. There’s not as many here, and hopefully this will be a very short-term goal!
Changes to existing goals:
/nonewsisgoodnews – I actually had to retroratchet this or it would’ve given me waaaay too much leeway. Apparently I’ve got really good about this goal! Anyway, I decided I hated the big jag in the road from the ratchet, so I also edited the road. That means a bunch of my datapoints in the past are now in the red, but I don’t mind that tooo much.
Nothing major this week, I think. The 24-hour readathon helped me gain back some buffer on /hourofreading and /gameofbooks2020, yay. (Though I only read for about 5.5 hours.)
/gbhc – I’m not having that much fun with GBHC at the moment (I’m very conscious that I can’t read music and that I’m out of practice), so I’m taking the obligation out of it. I derailed it and archived it!
/drinklesscoke – This was… expected. Especially when I drank three cans in one day.
/todoistzero – I could probably have finished this, but I didn’t want to. Meh!
New goals:
N/a.
Changes to existing goals:
/drinklesscoke – I’ve upped the rate on this a bit, since the immediate need to cut down on caffeine is gone.
/todoistzero – This is something I’m still struggling with a lot, as my derailment proves. I’m keeping the rate at 5/week, but I’ve put a tiny flat spot in it to help me get a bit more buffer, and the derailment helps with that too.
TaskRatchet Successes & Failures:
N/a.
Other comments:
I’m getting a bit scatterbrained and short of focus again, gah. Got to get on top of that.
Once, when I first gave up Coke (for a long time; probably about 10 years)… but I don’t know, it didn’t taste right. Mind you, it’s been quite a while since then, might be worth giving it another go.
/drinklesscoke – Yes, again. I’m gonna need to up the pledge on this, probably. One more try!
/water – The failure of these two goals is admittedly linked.
/clockoff – I only failed by 12 minutes! I genuinely did not realise I was even close! Boo.
New goals:
/vitd – My mother wants me to take vitamin D, and she’s a doctor, so she’s probably right.
Changes to existing goals:
/calories – I’ve lowered the allowance on this one because I don’t want to just be encouraged to track it now, I do actually want an upper bound.
/caloriedeficit – I’ve upped the deficit I need to hit, having realised it’s way lower on Beeminder than the target I’m actually trying to hit on Fitbit. I also ratcheted it, since I’d built up a lot of buffer that way!
/confusion-backlog – Also ended and archived, with success. Byebye, backlogs!
TaskRatchet Successes & Failures:
N/a.
Other comments:
Since I stopped budgeting for derailments, I keep forgetting to load my USD payment card in time for my payments to not just… fail. This is a pain for everyone, especially @dreev who seems to have to rescue me every time (because goodness only knows where I actually put the card). Any thoughts on a reminder system? Clearly the derailment emails aren’t doing the job, because they don’t make me think about actually paying…
