The Science of Self-Help

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Day 1411 & Happy New Year!

Day 1411 Record Keeping
Day 1383 Fixed Meditation (10 min, vipassana/gratitude)
Day 1258 Writing (3, 13-min pomodoros)
Day 797 Rowing (10 min/ 1700 m
)
Day 538 Mobility/Stretching (10 min, hip stretch & back smash)

Day 188 Social Media (all tweets for week, 53 min)

Bad sleep. Back from a long much needed break. I attempted to push my writing to finish my proposal before the new year. I failed. I found it incredibly difficult, but, just like my previous year's NaNoWriMo win in 5 days, I found shortening my Pomodoros to 13 minutes much more efficient. It's bizarre, but I would stress out all day about doing 20 or 30 min sessions, and fail to do anything through phenomenal procrastination.

Nevertheless, 13 minutes for some reason was low enough for me to get started and almost addicting. I continued to do more and more as I got into the rhythm of 13 minute sets, often not taking a break, as Pomodoros usually call for. 

I wonder if this could be a potential method for easing into particularly difficult skill pushes...

I want to really spend more time focusing on writing, in what productivity blogger and author Cal Newport calls Deep Work. I'm now reading his book –  Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World – which I find quite fascinating.

I'll be doing a 2017 year in review shortly, as well as sharing some thoughts in parallel skill pushes.