Early Christmas

Kyle and I have decided to do something a little different for Christmas this year. Since we both couldn’t really think of things we wanted for Christmas, we decided to get gifts we could both use to spend good, productive time together.

 

{yoga mats, dvds}

I figured since we were doing an unconventional Christmas already, there was no point waiting for the date once I had gotten the present.  After all, the point of getting these is to do it!

I have been doing the pm routine before bed, and I am finding it does help me relax and fall asleep — even if I end up waking in the middle of the night anyway, but falling asleep consistently is still an improvement. I’m hoping to do the am/pm routines most days, especially the pm, and do the longer more detailed routine once during the weekend.

 

I have a feeling it is more the calm, relaxing routine before bed that helps more than anything, but that is something I wanted to work on anyway.

 

 

P.S.  I hadn’t  realized how fragile my wrists still are.  So far, the stress on my wrists has been the hardest part of the whole thing!

 

 

Email yourself!

I was inspired to try a little project!

Using the magic that is EmailFuture.com, I am going to write myself a letter and send it, to be delivered Dec 01, 2012.

I recently looked back through my Facebook page and gained an appreciation for how much has happened this year to be thankful for, that I don’t always remember.  What is going on right now that I wont remember next year? What kind of person will I be?  Will I have accomplished all the goals I am setting out for myself today? Would I be proud of the person I have become?

Challenge yourself, and send a reminder email to keep yourself accountable!

30DC – November 1st

I think I will only worry about doing a status update on the project about every week or so.  It might get cumbersome to throw in a required post about this everyday, since the main focus is to become a more productive human being.  If the day is exceptional for some reason, I might talk about it.

Today, for the record:

4.5/5
★★★★☆

Should I be rounding up? I haven’t decided.

Return of the 30 Day Challenge

This is the part where I apologize for failing to even start my awesome plan of self-improvement, and give my excuses for why I didn’t. Except its probably not even worth the time to type out, so instead I’m going to restructure it and tackle it again.

Things have changed a bit since I was last considering this, so the details of what I want to accomplish need to be adjusted.

The goals last time were:

• Bike more
• Read more
• Spend less money
• Stretch regularly
• And to make it all possible, go to bed at specific reasonable times

This time around I’d like to:

• Focus on school work
• Stretch regularly
• Get up decently before school, breakfast, etc
• Read more
  Specifically: read more books, read less fanfiction.*
• Spend less time on less productive online activities
  Tumblr
  Reddit
  Facebook (current usage is actually okay)
• Sleep more regularly
• Grace in Small Things challenge

I’ll break down exactly how I will grade myself behind a cut

30day Challenge – Prizes

I’ve been putting a little more thought into my prizes/goals for my challenge.  I had a hard time coming up with ideas, because when one of the goals of the challenge is to spend less money and get an appreciation for spending less money, a prize like going shopping for clothing, or some other possession seems counter-productive.  However, I know myself, and I will do much better with this challenge if I have a really good reward at the end.  Yes, it is true that a lot of the results of successfully achieving these goals have rewards, and that is the intent of the whole thing. Regardless, when it comes down to pushing through the tough stuff, a nice tangible prize is good motivation.

I don’t have a rack on my bike, and that is something I’ve been planning on investing in this year.  When we went to pick up our bicycles from their spring tune ups, we took some time to look at the really nice bags and panniers.  They’re a little pricey, but would be extremely useful.

I think if I can achieve a 4-5/5 I will save up and invest in a really nice pair of panniers, and possibly a bike rack bag.

I might have to change my mind on this later…

Alana’s 30 day Challenge Outline

I have decided to challenge myself!  I’ve heard that in order for something to become a habit, you need to do something consistently for 30 days.  I have a number of habit’s I’d like to adopt, so I’m going to turn it into a bit of a game.  I’ve been discussing with Kyle, and it makes the most sense to me to grade myself mathematically.  Kyle will possibly be working with my parents to come up with different levels of reward for different end grades.  This has been difficult, because one of my main points is to spend less money, so having a monetary prize at the end — no matter how much i would love that — is kind of counter productive to my goal.  We’re working on something that will still be a good motivator but without compromising the intent of the whole shebang.

Essentially I’d like to:

• Bike more
• Read more
• Spend less money
• Stretch regularly
• And to make it all possible, go to bed at specific reasonable times

I will outline each category more specifically, and each day I’ll get a grade out of 5 for each category.  These will be averaged for a daily averaged, which will be averaged as I go along, ending with an overall grade out of 5.

Biking

Allowed one day off a week (for 5 stars)

★★★★★ – 1hour of biking before work or first thing on days off.

★★★★☆ – 45minutes of biking before work or first thing / 1hour of biking later in the day.

★★★☆☆ – .5hour of biking before work or first thing / 45hour of biking later in the day.

★★☆☆☆ – Biked to work, or biked a relatively small distance similar to work for days off.

★☆☆☆☆ – Walked to work, no biking or walked a relatively small distance similar to work for days off.

☆☆☆☆☆ – No biking 😦

Reading

Allowed 1 day off a week (for 3 stars)

★★★★★ – 1 hour+ of reading

★★★★☆ – 1 hour of reading

★★★☆☆ – 45min of reading

★★☆☆☆ – 30min of reading

★☆☆☆☆ – 15min of reading

☆☆☆☆☆ – no reading

Spending

★★★★★ – Spent no money. Not even a coffee.

★★★★☆ -Bought one coffee

★★★☆☆ – Bought an ordered item at HMV/ bought coffee + muffin

★★☆☆☆ -Ate out/bought lunch at mall

★☆☆☆☆ – impulse buy

☆☆☆☆☆ – Oh god, I bought a purse. (expensive impulse buy)

Stretching

★★★★★ – Stretched before, after bike and before sleep (on non-bike days, in the morning + before bed)

★★★★☆ – Stretched 2/3 times

★★★☆☆ – Stretched 1/2 times on a non-bike day

★★☆☆☆ – Stretched 1/3 times

☆☆☆☆☆ – No stretching 😦

Sleep

Allowed to stay up slightly later the night before non-bike day. Grade varies on other factors, not penalized for later night.

★★★★★ – 1hour of quiet time before bed (no tv, no computer, no video games, etc. Good for reading time!) Sleep at a good reasonable 8.5 hours before time to get up.  Prepare lunch if working next day.

★★★★☆ -.5-.75hour of quiet time / 7-8hours of sleep.

★★★☆☆ – at least .5hour of quiet time. 6 hours of sleep.

★★☆☆☆ – at least .5hour of quiet time. Second 6 hour night of sleep.

★☆☆☆☆ – 0-little quiet time / 6-4 hours of sleep.

☆☆☆☆☆ -No quiet time, only 4 hours of sleep.

* graded on intent of going to sleep, not actually sleeping.  Say if I lay awake in bed for hours for no reason, its not my fault no points off  😛

 

Coming soon… Prizes

I’m not sure when day 1 is yet… My bike is currently in the shop.  I’m hoping to try to regulate my sleep over the next week to get prepared. Next week start, maybe?

I also haven’t decided if they’ll be evenly weighted in the average… A lot of the goals require the sleep to go well, so maybe heavier weight for that grade?