Writing Week 2

I've had a bit of a slow start with Writing.  It's the same crap that I did with the original Meditation month.  I'm not giving myself enough time/permission in the mornings to do the writing.  I've been fitting it in randomly.  I've also not thought about topics ahead of time at all.  Even more, I haven't read/watched any of the followup stuff Leo has put out about writing.  I'm slacking, but I got 4 of 7 days; so, it's not all bad.

I'm committed to doing better by means of hitting every day.  The other problem is that I write very little in 5 minutes.  I usually get like a paragraph.  Weak sauce.  I'd like to increase the time, but that'll probably kill the writing altogether.  Maybe I'll bump it up to 10 after being consistent for 7 days or something.

I'm still Meditating every day.  I've actually been very consistent on it.  I knocked it down to 5 minutes though.  I'm still not doing any better (probably worse) with staying focused on the breathing.  I hope I'm not falling into a just-want-to-check-it-off-mode.

Ooooo the Healthy Eating is not going well.  I need to get my shit together.

Procrastination… Back Off!  I'm trying to work over here!

Meditation Take 2 Week 4

Although I'm glad that I was able to knock out these last 4 weeks of meditating every (read most) day; I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't really get better at it.  This last week, I watched a few videos on meditating to see if I should be doing anything different.  I specifically decided to not do my visualization thing and JUST observe my breathing without trying to control it.  I had a few chunks of time on Tuesday where I think I was completely clear, but otherwise it was just fighting to stop thinking.  15 minutes was no big deal, but it was a little harder to commit to the time every day, because I was really busy this week.

I started doing Warrior (I don't eat during the day) again.  That's been going fine, but I got me off my game with the avocado.  I'll fix that.

MIPT sucked this week.  I worked a lot, because of some stuff going on, and never got back on board.  I'll try to get it going again next week.

Healthy Eating Week 4

This week was sweet potato week.  Easy.  Turns out it tastes good.  I ate it most days baked potato style.  I don't know if I'll eat it every day, but I'm definitely making sure I have some on hand.

This is the end of the Healthy Eating month.  It has turned out fantastic.  Here's a quick hit-list:

• I eat avocado every day - I didn't eat it at all prior.
• I drink green tea every day - Not only did I not drink it before, but I thought it was ridiculous 6 months ago.  I've also stopped drinking soda this week, but I'm not committed to it.
• I added sweet potato to my food repertoire.

That's pretty awesome for 1 month.

In addition to the Healthy Eating, I've continued to practice my anti-procrastination habits.  I think this is starting to take hold.  I've done a better job of picking MIPTs and doing them early in the day.

Meditation

March is Mediation.  In short, I'm supposed to meditate every day.  You start at 2 minutes per day.  If you get 7 days in a row, increase it to 5 minutes, then 10, 15, 20…

I don't know all the types of meditation, but I hear there are a lot.  The one they recommend is sitting in a quiet area, focusing on your breathing, trying not to let your mind wonder.

I tried it this morning, and it was interesting how fast I started thinking about other stuff.  This will be a good exercise I think.  It's also nice that it has very low requirements, as it feels like my daily habits/tasks are piling up.

Healthy Eating Week 3

The great thing about the way this Sea Change thing is setup is that it's noncommittal.  Every week, you try something.  If it works, keep it.  If it doesn't, move on.  I gave Eating Breakfast Mindfully a shot, but it's not for me.  I mostly felt like I was wasting time and not enjoying my little bit of morning time with Angela.

This week I'm going to start eating sweet potatoes.  This should be an easy one.  I don't particularly like the taste, but I have a feeling it's because of unfamiliarity.  I'd like to replace my regular potato/starch cravings with sweet potato because it's paleo.

I've been solid on avocado and green tea.  I'll probably do that for the rest of my life.

I've been much better at selecting and completing my MIPTs.  I'm forcing myself to do them first before my work tasks.  I'm also picking easier/smaller ones to get quick wins.

Healthy Eating Week 2

This month's goal in the Zenhabits Sea Change Program saga is to form Healthy Eating habits.  The first week, I started eating avocado everyday.  I have continued doing this with great success.  This last week, I started drinking Green Tea.  This has also been very successful.

To make these changes, I didn't make myself stop doing anything that I normally do.  I only added.  In the case of avocado, this is easily accomplished by adding it to my regular lunch meat salad (I put a LOT of meat in my salad).  For Green Tea, I experimented with different times.  So far, a (mid-)morning cup works very well while I read or write something.  It gives me time to enjoy the heat and flavor as I sip it.

Ultimately, I would like to replace my other sources of caffeine (mainly Diet Mt Dew) with tea, and then reduce my overall caffeine consumption from there.  That is not the goal here.  My goal was only to get comfortable with drinking tea.  Which I have done.

Next week is a new habit.  Although I am supposed to be doing all of these new habits mindfully.  I am not very consistent on that and don't treat it as a priority.  To improve this, this week's habit will be to mindfully eat breakfast with Angela.  

Mindfulness is a consistent theme on Zenhabits.  It's also very related to my own tenant of Single Tasking.  Single Tasking for eating is a precondition for Eating Mindfully.  The first step is to not do other stuff: Facebook, TV, book, thinking about all the crap you have to do…  That's Single Tasking.  The second step is actively thinking about the eating by paying attention to the flavor, texture, temperature…  That's Mindfully Eating, and that's the goal for the next week.

Mindfulness is actually pretty difficult for the majority of people (including me).  It takes effort to bring your mind back to the present activity.  That's why I'm limiting it to breakfast.  I considered limiting it to 5 minutes at breakfast.  However, I don't want to watch some clock (thus taking my mind off of the task), and it shouldn't take much longer than 5 minutes to eat anyway.

I'm having Angela do this with me.  This could be a double-edged sword.  Having Angela work with me often helps me stick with something, but if she falls off it may bring me down too.

I'm continuing to set and track my Most Important Procrastination Task from January's Sea Change focus: Procrastination.  It hasn't gotten much better.  I need to force myself to do my MIPT first thing (like this post).  If I push it off until the night, I'll never do it.