Day 1395 & Mobilization Partitioning, Social Media Superhabit

Day 1395 Record Keeping
Day 1367 Fixed Meditation (10 min, metta/vipassana)
Day 1242 Writing (DID NOT DO)
Day 781 Rowing (10 min/ 1900 m)
Day 522 Mobility/Stretching (Research)
Day 172 Social Media (SRHI = 81, 3 pomodoros, quora - SUPERHABIT)
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Good sleep. Once I got back I was attempting to partition several of my habits into different exercises depending on the day. One of the major ideas I got from finishing the book Peak Performance: Elevate Your Game, Avoid Burnout, and Thrive with the New Science of Success was that cross training is good for accelerated skill development. But I needed time to just settle in, so I set all my habits to minimums. After getting over being sick last week, It's time to start in on doing that with mobilization, since I've basically been repeating the same few exercises each day, not at all tapping into the tomb that is Kelly Starrett's fantastic book Becoming a Supple Leopard.

Usually I'm horrible about planning to make changes outside of my routine. After I'm done, I'm usually done. This seemed like a good idea, to replace the routine with a research and planning element. So starting on Monday I'll be attempting to switch out, using Starrett's handy 14-day mobilization makeover. We'll see how it goes.

In addition, Social Media became a a superhabit by staying stable at over 80 on the SRHI for a week. I've started with Twitter, and have added answering Quora questions, which are really helpful in clearly and concisely articulating specific aspects of this project.

My goal next week is to really hit the ground running with finishing my book proposal. Like a Proposal Writing Week akin to my push for NaNoWriMo. I remember back when just getting a rough draft was difficult. I'm still finding the art of editing incredibly difficult, but luckily I've got a few Udemy courses on the subject from their recent 10 Euro sale.

Day 1329 & Still Traveling, Scrivener Draft Writing Progress

Day 1329 Record Keeping
Day 1301 Fixed Meditation (10 min)
Day 1176 Writing (2 Pomodoros)
Day 715 Rowing (walking, swimming)
Day 456 Mobility/Stretching (10 min, plantar & back smash)
Day 106 Social Media (1 hour, SRHI = 71)
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Early to Rise
Day 484 Sleep Recording  (DID NOT DO)
Day 455 Bedtime Curfew
Day 293 Wakeup Alarm (DID NOT DO)
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Great sleep. 

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Traveling. Arrived in Honolulu yesterday. It's pretty relaxed, so today I had a chance to do most of my habits and swim in the ocean. The new method I have for arranging multiple edits on Scrivener is really helping my writing. 

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Basically it's a vertical split screen, with one page that acts as a log. So I'm able to bust out a quick rough draft, then keep the old draft on the right and the one I'm currently writing on the left. Using James Patterson's advice in his Masterclass on quickly going from one draft to the next to keep forward momentum going really helps with this. I'm doing a Rough Draft, Global Edits, Section Edits, Paragraph and Line Edits, and Research Inclusion, plus a log and a scratchpad for writing and rewriting paragraphs over and over again to get the wording right. 

THIS BLOG describes divides it up as Structural, Stylistic, Copyediting, and Proofreading. I'm sure I'll change things up as I do this more, but so far it makes me pretty excited to work and tinker with text, and that's a pretty big change. The log allows me to fold in Pomodoros – which worked so well in the past especially with first drafts – into the greater editing process

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Day 1078 & Resetting Sleep After Jet Lag

Day 1078 Record Keeping
Day 1050 Fixed Meditation (10 min)
Day 924 Writing (2/13 min, draft)
Day 464 Rowing (HIIT, 15s:60s, 14 min, 2500 m)
Day 205 Mobility/Stretching (10 min, hip stretch, back smash)
—–
Eating
Day 302 Pantry Check (DID NOT DO)
Day 300 Food Recording (DID NOT DO)
Day 30 Sunday Meal Prep 71 (retroactive from Sunday)
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Early to Rise
Day 233 Water
Day 233 Sleep Recording  (12:30|12:50|2|3)
Day 204 Bedtime Curfew
Day 42 Wakeup Alarm 80
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Ok sleep, great wakeup. Woke up again at 3 am. I really need to learn how I can

Reset Sleep After Jet Lag
I think the biggest problem with resetting sleep has to do with my relationship with writing. Writing is my biggest challenge. When I started out seriously writing, I got more sleep because if I was tired at all there was no way I could choose the words I needed carefully and really think. It wasn’t like a regular job where people regularly show up with half a mind. As a writer I have to be totally alert and rested, and I can barely make it through when I’m at 100%.

I’m beginning to see that as the old way of doing writing. Rather than thinking of writing as a super cerebral perfect choosing of poetic words emphasizing specific turns of speech from the get-go, my new model of writing has to do with several passes done at a rather low thinking level in order to avoid perfectionism and resulting writer’s block.

Thinking less is actually pretty helpful for busting out a rough draft. Thinking less is really helpful for removing The Editor mentality when scamping for sentence level rewriters. James Patterson’s idea of progressing quickly through many rewrites to prevent getting stuck at any one point backs this point up. It switches the whole endeavor to a more mechanistic, workflow driven emphasis that has less to do with one specific success or mistake. I like it.

It also means that I should at least be able to force myself to get up earlier, for at least a reset. Unfortunately I’ve been doing my sleeping one way for quite a long time, so in the moment I naturally default to habitual behavior. Time to change!

Day 1069 & Back in Barcelona

Day 1069 Record Keeping
Weekend Habits
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Eating
Day 293 Pantry Check (DiD NOT DO)
Day 291 Food Recording (DID NOT DO)
Day 29 Meal Prep Sunday 63 (1 hour for modified meal prep)
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Early to Rise
Day 224 Water (DID NOT DO)
Day 224 Sleep Recording  (DID NOT DO)
Day 195 Bedtime Curfew (DID NOT DO)
Day 33 Wakeup Alarm (DID NOT DO)
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Great sleep, good wakeup.

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Back in Barcelona
Have had horrendous jet lag, hence why I’ve been missing. I’ve also had a guest and several back-to-back intense writing assignments. With pretty intense rewrites. I think I may have had a breakthrough in writing when it comes to editing and regimentation, which I’ll have to get into detail in another post.

I’ve had a lot of money stolen from credit card fraud that I’ve had to deal with. I’ve had residency paperwork issues. And I’ve just got word that my formal proposal got rejected. This has been disheartening to say the least, but tomorrow I intend to get back on the horse and figure out how to proceed. 

Lydia has been doing the Whole Life Challenge, which I’ve been swept up in doing as well. Normally I am quite hesitant about such challenges, but my eating needs a swift kick in the rear to get better, especially after being in the States for so long. But it has been rather intense, especially since I haven’t had a moment to really formalize it - also, another post.

It’s cold and rainy here - I had forgotten it was Winter what with the high temps in Texas and South Carolina. This has all conspired to make this an incredibly difficult time for me, but despite it all, it’s good to be back home.

On a solid good note I automatically got back onto Sunday Meal Prep after such a long absence. At last, a bit of a silver lining!

But looking at all of this stress summed up in one spot, I have to say that I’m taking all of this quite calmly - that alone is a function of just how far I’ve come.

Day 1043

Day 1043 Record Keeping
Day 1015 Fixed Meditation (10 min)
Day 889 Writing (5/20 min)
Day 429 Rowing (125 15 lb kb swings, 5x25, Russian style)
Day 170 Mobility/Stretching (back & hip smash, couch stretch)
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Eating
Day 267 Pantry Check (DiD NOT DO)
Day 265 Food Recording
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Early to Rise
Day 198 Water (DID NOT DO)
Day 198 Sleep Recording  (11|11:40|7:40|8:20)
Day 169 Bedtime Curfew
Day 7 Wakeup Alarm 60
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Great sleep, good wakeup. Horrible procrastination and avoidance for writing today. I paid a lot of attention to what exactly I was feeling, and was able to surmount it. I think I have a good article on procrastination based on some of my observations. More to come. In other news it’s day 7 of my Wakeup Alarm habit. I’m consistently waking up about 20 minutes before my alarm goes off. This is a huge breakthrough for me in waking up. I want to write a guide on this habit alone. I still have some tweaks - we’ll see how jet lag affects it, and if I can easily alter it so I’m waking up early, not just what most people consider a normal time! And I still have to decide wether or not I’m keeping my water habit, which has been hit or miss lately, though mostly because I’ve switched locations several times.

Day 1021

Day 1021 Record Keeping
Day 993 Fixed Meditation (20 min)
Day 867 Writing (2/30 min)
Day 407 Rowing (90 kb swings, form, 5x10, 2x20)
Day 148 Mobility/Stretching (back stretches)
—–
Eating
Day 245 Pantry Check
Day 243 Food Recording (DID NOT DO)
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Early to Rise
Day 176 Water
Day 176 Sleep Recording  (1|3|11:30|12)
Day 147 Bedtime Curfew
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Ok sleep, good wakeup. Still struggling to figure out a process for writing. Patterson’s advice really help, but it’s difficult for me to do research that doesn’t send me along lines of wasted time. But I just analyzed this practice, and I think I’m cobbling together a plan.

Day 961

Day 961 Record Keeping
Day 933 Fixed Meditation (10 min)
Day 807 Writing (8/30 min, HARD)
Day 347 Rowing (10 min “Quiet Hit” Link Below)
Day 88 Mobility/Stretching (DID NOT DO)
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Eating
Day 185 Pantry Check
Day 183 Food Recording
—
Early to Rise
Day 116 Water
Day 116 Sleep Recording (1|3|10:30|11:30)
Day 87 Bedtime Curfew 72
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Good sleep. Finished my book proposal - I think I’ve now been working on that for over 6 months. Huge accomplishment. It’s printed, and I’ll do a final check before sending it off on Monday. 

Starting tomorrow I’ll be having guests and doing some traveling. By “some” I mean 4 countries on 2 continents! It should be really fun, and I’ll post pics here. But, I also want to know what routines I want to do. 

A friend posted a “quiet bodyweight HIIT” - something I’ve seen before, but never really did. I tried it today, and as he says on the video “it’s deceptively hard” - I could only do 10 minutes and I was dripping with sweat and totally worn out.

I’m going to attempt to do this, plus general walking and RECORDING it. I also want to do my meditation and concentrate on eating well. I did a really good job on my trip to Aruba and I want to see if I can up the ante.

Lydia also suggested I do something crazy - START a habit while traveling.For some reason it’s stuck in my head, so I might just attempt starting one of my oldest attempted habits, flossing, while on this trip.

Day 940

Day 940 Record Keeping
Day 912 Fixed Meditation (DID NOT DO)
Day 786 Writing (8 rounds/30 min) HARD
Day 326 Rowing (DID NOT DO)
Day 67 Mobility/Stretching 83 (DID NOT DO)
—–
Eating
Day 164 Pantry Check 
Day 162 Food Recording 
—
Early to Rise
Day 95 Bacon & Water
Day 95 Sleep Recording (1:10|2:|11:50|12:40)
Day 68 Bedtime Curfew 75 
–
Great sleep, good wakeup. Pushing writing, did some really good work today, though it took me a while to really get into the rhythm. 

Day 917

Day 917 Record Keeping
Day 889 Fixed Meditation (30 min)
Day 763 Writing (2/30, 1000 words, see note below)
Day 303 Rowing (30 min/ 4200 m )
Day 44 Mobility/Stretching 80 (Couch stretch)
—–
Eating
Day 141 Pantry Check
Day 139 Food Recording
—
Early to Rise
Day 72 Bacon & Water
Day 72 Sleep Recording (1|2/3:30|1:10|1:40)
Day 45 Bedtime Curfew 80 
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Incredibly horrible sleep, good wakeup. My curfew got automatic and is in the 80s now. This doesn’t really make sense because everytime I move the curfew up the less natural it becomes. I need another way of doing skill pushes for things like this.

I also need another way to do my writing. Writing for 30 minutes at a time in rounds may be great for certain things. But if I’m just doing scamping stream of consciousness writing without an internal editor, it’s better to attach success to words rather than time. One is about extending…and knowing me that means I have a tendency to fidget to take up time…the other is about hitting a real mark as efficiently as possible. 

Ideally I’d like to do this stream/scamping writing one day, then edit the next. I’m setting a thousand words for the scamping…we’ll see how that goes. For editing it might be on a section by section basis. The idea is to completely separate the two - we’ll see how this goes.

Sleep….jesus, I need to do something about this, because it leaves me totally wrecked during the day. I thought not drinking would give me better sleep…instead I’ve had pretty bad sleep - don’t know if the one has anything to do with the other.

Speaking of - this is day 30 of my No Alcohol Challenge!

Day 820

Day 820 Record Keeping
Day 792 Fixed Meditation (31 min)
Day 666 Writing (2 rounds intense, 30 min each)
Day 206 Rowing (30 min, 5000 m)
—–
Eating
Day 44 Pantry Check (73)
Day 42 Recording
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Great sleep, good wakeup. I’m trying to stretch out my writing/work. Normally I do whatever I need to do, but if it’s difficult my minimal is 30 minutes. If I’m working on my blog or doing work, it usually stretches out longer. But since I’m working on a difficult project that’s quite painful, and I want to complete it faster, I’m trying to stretch it out.

I’m pushing my rowing by introducing HIITS. Since I had holes in my schedule last week (only did one HIIT instead of two, cut a few things on Thursday, and completely skipped almost everything on Friday)  it clearly hasn’t stabilized.

My pantry check is almost buzzing along nicely, my food recording is a superhabit, so I’m hoping it won’t mess anything up to stretch out writing.

It seems so little, writing 30 minutes a day and stretching it out to an hour. Especially since I wrote so much in November for NaNoWriMo, and because I’ve written so much in the past. But I want to really zone in on my weaknesses, and I believe this is how you do it - otherwise it just collapses.

I wish there was a way to measure the strength of the rate of progress in a skill just like I measure the strength of a habit. That way I’d know exactly how long to do a skill push before pushing more.

Day 618

Day 618 Record Keeping (25)
Day 587 Fixed Meditation (60)
Day 460 Writing (58)
Day 4 Rowing (35)
Day 633 Eating (50)
Bad sleep, great wakeup. Rowing is going really well. Talking to my mom about how to properly do her habits got me underscoring how to do my own - the secret that I need to work on is BJ Fogg’s notion of “Crispiness.”

If if there’s a crisp if-then, then it works. For me that’s best with rowing - I do it as soon as I get out of bed. It’s not working with recording which I do “at some point before going to bed.”

I’m starting to record my eating for the day before. It’s been all over the place. I’m glad to know that some things are well in place in comparison to before. Drinking isn’t something I do. I rarely drink cokes or other soft drinks. If I drink coffee it’s black. When I make stuff at home it’s always clean. But when I need a snack or the option isn’t there or I don’t want to cook, I’ll cheat. The whole process of getting used to cooking and shopping - that’s not down, but I’m sure I’ll get there quickly again. Just underscores just how difficult eating clean is, whatever your choice or definition of what “clean” is.

Meditation isn chugging along quite well - the “shelf” I’m at is self sustaining. Really underscores shelving as a useful manner in which to rest habits and move other habits towards mastery.

I’m doing NaNoWriMo which is that habit’s push towards mastery. As such I really need to have a new way of doing the SRHI. Because I answer some questions as though it’s for writing in general - of course I will answer frequency questions really high if I’m answering them for writing in general. But for this push, it really should be treated as a separate habit. Or should it? It’s something I need to think about more.

I’ve also started taking daily shirtless pics of myself to record progress in weight loss and muscle definition in regards to rowing, since I see that habit as being really solid and practical. It can also be easily “shelved” in a way I haven’t been able to do with habits like eating.