Day 1467 & Working Depletion With My Depletion Protocol

Day 1467 Record Keeping
Day 1438 Fixed Meditation (10 min, metta/gratitude)
Day 1313 Writing (1 13 min Pomodoro)
Day 852 Rowing (15 min/2400 m)
Day 593 Mobility/Stretching (10 min, calf stretch & squat work)
Day 243 Social Media (PAUSED)
Day 88 Weekly Meal Prep SRHI = 58
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Ok sleep. Continuing to take the SRHI to see just how long my meal prep takes to get back to a habit.

Working Depletion With My Depletion Protocol
I was horribly tired before I got through the entirety of my routine. And I could tell because I kept cycling through procrastination mechanisms: cycling through email, facebook, and reddit. 

I had enough wherewithal to check my old article - Towards an Ego Depletion Protocol - and go through the checklist and countermeasures. I'll go through them here:

  1. Stop, drop and eat!  Did not do.
  2. Write down observations of what I'm feeling and what's happening. I was feeling tired and my task switching time was increasing a lot with every switch. I felt a fuzziness in concentration. And I was cycling through unproductive internet site in order to procrastinate.
  3. Write down reasons why I could be depleted. I did not sleep much at all last night. I was quite down and had a very protracted emotional discussion yesterday where I had to confront a lot of my own weaknesses. I also exerted more by increasing my rowing by 5 minutes in the morning. I also knew I had to do more today what with my meal prep.
  4. Watch a Youtube clip of a comedy or stand up comic. Watched 3 Key and Peele Youtube videos.
  5. Drop all habits to a smaller daily minimum. My remaining habits were already at minimums.
  6. Reverse my routine. I only had two more things to do.
  7. Get out into the sun. Did not do this.
  8. Read a list of my accomplishments. Did this.
  9. Read a list of affirmations. Did this.
  10. Meditate. Did not do this.

I went through this utterly exhausted and depleted and just went through this mechanically, doing the things that were the easiest. I did not write down anything, just did #2 in my mind. I did not do anything active like get out into the sun or meditate. And it worked.

The thing that helped was being prepared. I already had a list of affirmations and accomplishments written down, so all I had to do was read it.

I think in the future more preparation is important. Having a guided meditation audio track or simply a text would be helpful as a crutch in such an instance. As would having a snack on hand specifically for moments like this. 

Perhaps the most important thing that's needed is some sort of method for calling it. That is, it would be nice to have some way to trigger myself into realizing that I'm just wasting time. 

But all in all I think it was a successful test of the protocol. I think the next thing I have to get into is how to mitigate willpower loss in task switching, something that will only get worse as I add more habits and skills into the day. But that's for another day...

Day 1266, Recouped From Travels

Day 1266 Record Keeping
Day 1238 Fixed Meditation (10 min)
Day 1113 Writing (3 Pomodoros)
Day 652 Rowing (30 min, 4700 m)
Day 393 Mobility/Stretching (10 min, hip stretch & back smash)
Day 43 Social Media (30 min, SRHI = 74)
—
Day 57 Monday Meal Prep (DID NOT DO)
--
Early to Rise
Day 421 Sleep Recording  (4|4:20|11|12)
Day 392 Bedtime Curfew (DID NOT DO)
Day 230 Wakeup Alarm
–
Good sleep. Back from travels. Analysis and pics to come. Meal prep is dicey in these times after a trip and before an upcoming one (I'm going out of the country yet again next weekend).

Day 1238 & An Ego Depletion Scale

Day 1238 Record Keeping
Day 1210 Fixed Meditation (15 min)
Day 1085 Writing (3 Pomodoros, hard)
Day 624 Rowing (20 min, 2900 m)
Day 365 Mobility/Stretching (10 min, hip & plantar smash)
Day 15 Social Media (10 min, SRHI = 59)
—
Day 53 Monday Meal Prep (48 min for 6 split lunches, 4 dinners planned)
--
Early to Rise
Day 393 Sleep Recording  (12:40|1:10|8|11)
Day 364 Bedtime Curfew
Day 202 Wakeup Alarm
–
Ok sleep. Really low on energy, completely drained on Friday, hence the skipped recording. Today was pretty difficult, but I used my rudimentary ego-depletion protocol after sitting around procrastinating at my computer. It worked. I'd like to do an experiment on this, and after a bit of research found an ego depletion scale. The original paper describing it is hard to track down, but there is what looks to be a dissertation posted online from the Netherlands that has the scale in its appendix. 

This is interesting in that it gives me a metric to measure states of ego depletion and how best to practically circumvent them. It also, if inverted, could potentially give me a willpower metric, something that's been sorely missing in my larger theory, and could get me a step closer in coming up with a self-help equation.

Day 1231 & 1 YEAR OF MEAL PREP!

Day 1231 Record Keeping
Day 1203 Fixed Meditation (15 min)
Day 1078 Writing (3/30 min)
Day 617 Rowing (30 min, 4200 m)
Day 358 Mobility/Stretching (10 min, back & plantar smash, achilles stretch)
Day 8 Social Media (10 min, SRHI = 52)
—
Monday Meal Prep (4 dinners planned, 6 lunches prepped, 58 min)
--
Early to Rise
Day 386 Sleep Recording  (1:30|2|10|11)
Day 357 Bedtime Curfew (DID NOT DO)
Day 195 Wakeup Alarm
–
Great sleep.  52 weeks of Meal Prep, and it didn't feel that long at all. This has been by far the best habit I've trained (after multiple failures) for eating. It's by no means a mastered skill, but compared to my failures, I feel I'll look back at it as a lynchpin behavior.