Hello!

This has been week 7 of my 52 week-long attempt to document my progress, in order to be more conscientious with how I’m living my year.

The good:

• I made the time to watch a lot of shows I enjoy this week. This has been a bit of a goal of mine since it always seems to lift my mood, inspire me, and give me something draw from when I write. Mostly I’ve been watching while eating or lifting, which has worked well. Hopefully I can convince myself to take some time off to watch once in a while.
• This week I also made some time to read, for the first time in years. I’ve always enjoyed reading, and now that I’m doing it again I don’t know why I ever stopped. It’s like I was afraid to add another committment to my life, when reading is really just picking up and putting down the book whenever you feel like it. It doesn’t have to be about reading speed or reading x amount of books per year. In the future I will probably still track how much I’m reading, as I do enjoy my stats, but it’ll just be for fun. I’d also like to journal a bit about what I thought of each book, so if I ever feel like re-reading something I’ll know if it’ll be worth it.
• I tried meal prepping this week, and did so successfully without burning down my tiny apartment. It’s actually been surprisingly nice to just be able to heat up a good meal every day. Although the process of cooking a large amount, especially within a small area, was quite exhausting. Perhaps if I become a more practised cook it’ll be easier and go faster. At any rate, it’s something I’d like to continue with moving forward.
• I finally did it. I finally forced myself to sit down and make meaningful progress on one of my creative endeavors, namely content creation. I’m working on a video with a long production time, but I gave myself a tentative deadline of having to upload it before April’s end. It’s my first video, so just thinking about finishing & uploading it makes my stomach churn, but it has got get done. I’ve been thinking about this for way too long.

The bad:

• I really struggled with anxiety this week. This obviously not something that’s directly within my locus of control, but it is probably a side effect of how I live and think. It’s a physical sensation that can last all day and night, which made it near impossible to get good sleep this week. Luckily this wave doesn’t seem to be as intense or long-lasting as usual (fingers crossed), but it’s a loss nevertheless. I don’t want to get into it too much, but it’s probably something I should look into more seriously than I have.
• I didn’t study enough this week. I feel like I’m constantly lagging behind, and instead of that motivating me to catch up, it feels like I can never catch up and stay there. Sometimes I feel like the rational thing would be to give up on my creative endeavors and think about nothing but school, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I guess I can’t be too hard on myself for not having found a balance when I’m just a month into my degree, but still. I constantly have anxiety about it.
• I missed a lifting session this week, and I could have run more. The lack of sleep and the medication I take affects me when my anxiety bubbles to the surface could be a valid excuse, but I don’t know. I’m not sure if you’re supposed to exercise more or less when you’re sleep deprived and generally not doing great. I feel like an argument could be made both ways.
• I gave up on trying to make meditating a daily habit this week. However, seeing as how I’ve been doing, it might really be something I should be prioritizing lol.

Conclusion:

Even though it’s been a wobbly week to say the least, just the fact that I finally tore down the overwhelm and resistance towards working on my video has really lifted my spirits.

Speaking of videos and social media, but I completely forgot to follow up on my experiment in another conclusion I made, where I wanted to see if avoiding my phone/notifications in the morning has helped me any. I’d like to say that is has.

I’ve never struggled with focus and distractions as badly as some people describe, and I wouldn’t say that I have an addictive personality. However, I’ve felt a lot of peace since I stopped checking notifications and going on YouTube until at least 12pm.

I can’t say that I’ve noticed a difference on a dopaminergic/motivational level yet, even though it’s supposedly good to conserve your morning hours for your most important tasks. But again, the peace of mind has been more than worth it. I set my phone to do not disturb with the exception of certain texts and calls (and use an app that makes my homescreen minimalist since way back), and I changed my Firefox homescreen with an extension called Momentum. I recommend it!

This upcoming week I hope I can recover from my anxiety-induced and sleep deprived state, but also continue to make strides. It might be more than I can hope for, but I will carry on without changes.

Actuallly there is one change; I made an extremely nerdy Excel sheet to track my goals. Perhaps I’ll impose the results on you next week. Until then!