Day 2595

Day 2595 Record Keeping
Day 2566 Fixed Meditation (DID NOT DO)
Day 2440 Writing (19, 10 min Pomodoros)
Day 1030 Flossing (DID NOT DO)
Day 652 Planning
Day 246 Exercise (DID NOT DO)
Day 171 Mobilizing (DID NOT DO)
–
Bad sleep. Testing out another habit in a day attempt. This time I’m zooming in close to the moment of trigger and response. I’m also setting it up as a “remote” habit by tying it to a specific alarm. But the thing I’m mostly testing is whether taking a nap will somehow allow me to stretch out and drive it further in my identity.

Day 2593

Day 2593 Record Keeping
Day 2564 Fixed Meditation (DID NOT DO)
Day 2438 Writing (4, 10 min Pomodoros)
Day 1028 Flossing (all teeth)
Day 650 Planning
Day 244 Exercise (DID NOT DO)
Day 169 Mobilizing (DID NOT DO)
–
Bad sleep. Incredibly distracted. I think a majority has to do with a lack of proper planning. Furthermore, my food experiments have thrown everything out of wack. Several of my afternoon habits were pinned to drinking my concoction after lunch. Since I’ve experimented with not eating lunch for last 2 months, it’s totally eroded my workouts, my mobilizing, and my discrete daily meditation.

I’ve been thinking a lot about setting better triggers, triggers that are consistent, not prone to such changes, and ones I can move around without disturbing the trigger and response. I’m thinking of either an alarm or a buzzing alarm. It would potentially create a "floating” or “remote” habit. Tied to a specific alarm, I can mix and rearrange my schedule at will.

The other thing I’m having severe problems with is Meaning, which I’m increasingly thinking of as an important additional Element of Change. I’m defining it as getting what you want out of a routine. That can be growth, or change in the case of skill based habits like exercise, or just rinsing and repeating for ones with a clear terminus, like flossing.

My metaphor in the past has been that this entire system is like a spaceship headed to the moon. Willpower is fuel, you’ve got a payload, and have to contend with friction in order to get into orbit. Orbit is like a habit, you go around and around with very little need for thrust except for a few corrections. But that’s not the whole story - you need to use willpower to grow. In this metaphor, the gravity well of the moon is like the positive elements of Meaning. You get addicted to your powers growing.

The negative aspect is not seeing growth. The orbit decays, your flight path falters, and you just can’t make it. It starts feel like you’re just churning in the mud, not making progress, so what’s the point of even continuing? It starts to erode that previous automatic trigger-response mechanism.

I think other things link together with Meaning. Mindfulness, Rituals, they all contribute to this feeling of falling in love with the process, and I think that could be another key process.

Day 2582

Day 2582 Record Keeping
Day 2553 Fixed Meditation (DID NOT DO)
Day 2427 Writing (19, 10 min Pomodoros)
Day 1017 Flossing (all teeth)
Day 639 Planning
Day 233 Exercise (DID NOT DO)
Day 158 Mobilizing (DID NOT DO)
–
BAD sleep. Learned a lot on how to structure a bad wakeup day. I think I had the weakest grip test score that I’ve ever had. I like to think of these days as learning opportunities. More people are talking about systems based productivity. James Clear said, “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of. your systems.”

I definitely learned a lot from analyzing my complete brain fog. A workbook style approach with frequent check-ins, emotional safeguards are incredibly important. It’s also important to write everything down - I was incredibly creative in this time, which appears to reflect some of the research done on creativity (you’re more creative the less focused you are).

Day 2580

Day 2580 Record Keeping
Day 2551 Fixed Meditation (DID NOT DO)
Day 2425 Writing (15, 10 min Pomodoros)
Day 1015 Flossing (DID NOT DO)
Day 637 Planning
Day 231 Exercise (DID NOT DO)
Day 156 Mobilizing (DID NOT DO)
–
REALLY good sleep. I haven’t had a night of sleep like that in a while. I’m not exactly sure why that happened. I took off my contacts off earlier. I drank some broth before bed. Hmm.