2020: Time & habits, but mostly time

A stock image representation of my life.

The workday leaves me exhausted and wondering what I did, where the day went. During the day, in the time between meetings, I find myself in a fog. The constant context switching makes it hard to focus, leaving me unsure about what I’m supposed to do with any given block of free time. I feel like I’m going crazy. I need to reclaim my sanity, and my time.

Here’s my simple (but hard to execute) plan. First, I’m gonna figure out how I spend my time — both by being more mindful and by actively logging what I do. Then, I’m gonna build better habits. I’ll slowly create new routines. Routines make rote tasks automatic. They reduce time spent planning and context switching. They create space to focus on more complex tasks.

That’s the goal — reclaim more hours of my life so I can spend them doing things I love, things I need to do. I’ll be thinking about time and habits as I work on my goals below.

Physical

• Run a marathon. I trained for a marathon over a decade ago. I didn’t make it. I sprained my ankle a couple of months before the race, and I haven’t tried since. I feel ready now. Over the last couple of years, I’ve run several races longer than 10 miles without injury. In fact, when I stop worrying about my time and focus on having fun, I feel awesome. I feel like I could easily run more, so let’s see if I can.
• Regular upper body workout class for 3 mo. I miss being strong, but I worry about restarting old activities like rock climbing, Crossfit, or circus. Reconditioning for something I used to be good at is, in my experience, disheartening. I might try something new or try to put a spin on something old so it feels new.
• Measure self ~1/week. Body weight or fat percentage goals don’t work for me. My real goal is to be more fit, and awareness is a great catalyst for change. Some time ago, I kickstarted Naked, an awesome and horrific gadget that scans your body, creates a 3D mesh, and allows you to compare measurements. I’ve used it a handful of times over the years. I want to use it more often to see the effects of working out, being sedentary, overeating, dieting, etc.

Personal

• Cook lunch or dinner twice a month (1yr). I love cooking, but it’s hard to find time. I often cook breakfast on the weekends, but eggs and bacon, while delicious, are limiting. Twice a month is enough develop staple meals that I can make quickly without feeling overwhelmed.

I already have a headstart with cooking. These zuccini noodes and meatballs are from a few weeks ago. According to my cousin it was too salty. I think he’s too salty.

• Write a post about cancer. My dad was diagnosed with stomach cancer last year. It turned my life upside down, and I want to share my experience. Cancer is an old disease; it’s been around for a while. My experience is not new, and my thoughts are not profound. But this post is for me. I have a lot of thoughts that keep haunting me. Writing is cathartic — it can expel demons.
• Visit family (4 times). My dad’s feeling better, so monthly visits seem like overkill. Visiting family is still important, once a quarter on average seems doable.

Creative

• Take a class. I want to learn in a class setting, any class (preferably graded). It can be US History or Astronomy or Organic Chemistry. The only constraint is that it should be different than my work and expose me to people I wouldn’t normally interact with.
• Read 26 books (4 related to a creative hobby). I’ve had this goal for two years now. It’s the only one I’ve been able to consistently meet. This year’s twist is to make sure I read four books related to one creative hobby.
• Open mic standup (6 times). I took a stand up comedy class and performed a five minute set at the end of 2018. It was fun, and I felt a connection to the art form. I wanted to continue, but 2019 was chaotic. This year, I’m gonna try to re-engage. There are a ton of open-mic nights in Seattle where I can practice.

Work

• Keep a bullet journal task list 9/12 months. I (mostly) kept a bullet journal last year, and now everyone is doing it. As a bullet journal hipster, I’ll continue to talk about how it used to be cool, while still secretly enjoying the benefits of task tracking and migration.
• Structured workdays / work weeks (3mo). I want a standard process for entering and exiting work. Tasks like checking email or reading docs take all my mental space if I let them. Blocking off dedicated time for these tasks should make me more present with the rest of my work.
• Time track at work (1mo tracking, twice this year). With the additional workload of being a manager, I’m too reactive. To be more proactive, I need to make and use solid blocks of time. I’m gonna track my time to understand where my time is going and see if I can create and protect those blocks. I’m gonna try two tracking sessions this year. Each session will be a month long. The first session will provide baseline information about my time habits. I’ll then come up with interventions, and track time again later in the year to see if those interventions worked.