Goals Update and Accountability Check – Week 3

It’s hard to believe that it has already been about three weeks since I first decided to share some of my goals and daily habits which I’ve wanted to build. I thought that today would be the most ideal time to check in again as this past weekend was one of the busiest I’ve had in awhile and my streaks are still intact. That is something I can definitely be proud of. My rule of minimums definitely was necessary a few times but overwhelmingly I was able to do what I set out to accomplish. It has been a learning process which I will share and I can honestly say that, overall, I am pleased with what I have been able to do.

Let me reiterate my Productive tasks:

Business Plan / The Novel Mind: Everyday

French Refresh: 3 times per week

Chinese Study: Everyday

Free writing: Everyday

Recovery Exercises: Everyday

Read: Everyday

Yoga: Everyday

Meditation: Everyday

Exercise: Everyday

Freestyle: Everyday

Record Mixtape: Everyday*

There were some other goals which were not based in the productivity APP but they will be more suitable to revisit at the end of the month. You can check my first post here.

Now, I will go through each task individually to talk about as I have completed 21 days (more or less).

Business Plan / The Novel Mind: A few weeks ago I have been sort of split between what I wanted to spend my time on. I have a product idea that I could try to put in motion but I also want to create this website as my own portfolio and outlet. I decided to include them both in one and see which one I had the tendency to do more. This was almost 100% in favor of this website. It is possible that once this site reaches a look and consistency that I am satisfied with that I will then put some more attention to the product idea to see if it would be possible and/or viable. My work for the site ranged and it was difficult to do something for it everyday. Some of the definite “wins” would be editing a few excerpts of my hitchhiking series and working on the design while some of the lows were writing bits on my phone which I would then add into a post. Overall, I am mildly satisfied with the progress here mainly due to the fact that the site is still not quite presentable and has a long way to go. On the other hand, I’ve come up with a lot of ideas for it which I hope will really come to fruition by the end of the month thereafter I can focus more on content production. The reason why it is a few days behind is due to the fact that I changed the name two days in to the streak.

French Refresh: I began to take brief conversation lessons on iTalki and I just completed my 4th lesson today. Overall it is going very well. A lot of the language is coming back to me slowly but surely and the lessons have definitely gotten slightly more fluent. As far as keeping up with the habit, I definitely think I can improve. I sometimes found myself scrambling to do something for it and just flipping through some pre-made flashcards from Lingopie won’t do the trick in the long run. Alternatively, I did finish the season of Bertrand on Lingopie and I really enjoyed it. I will continue with it and try to plan ahead in the future. At the end of the month I will have a conversation with a close friend of mine to really gauge my progress so I intend to prepare for that.

Chinese Study: My Chinese study, at the moment, mainly consists of clearing my Anki deck (ideally everyday) as well as adding new cards. About two weeks ago I finished adding the rest of the words from the HSK 1-3 frequency dictionary which gave me some extra days to make headway on my goal of adding all of the words from the HSK 4 frequency dictionary by the end of September. At the moment I am about 20% of the way through it so I believe it could be tight to finish by my initial but I am satisfied with daily review and frequent additions. I found the test dates for HSK 4 and plan to register soon for the test in December. Once I am finished adding all the cards into Anki I will be in good shape to spend more time doing exercises and speaking with my coworkers. I had some really successful days of adding 20 or so cards as well as clearing my deck but I also had some difficult days where I relied on my minimum and only went through 10-20 cards. Overall, I am satisfied and feel myself improving. My improvements are also making me quite optimistic because of all the new, useful words I am learning!

Free writing: This largely relates to either a journal entry and/or lyrics to a new song. I keep up with my journal pretty much every day and I believe it has been instrumental to all that I have been able to do. I am also working on a new song. In the future I would like to see more time put into songs and lyrics but I am satisfied right now after 21 days. Some “wins” have been writing a page or two in my journal and the progress on a new song while one of the lows happened this weekend where I was really rushed and I just typed a block of text freely into the dedicated note on my phone while I was a little tipsy. The positive here was that the urge to check-off the habit was very strong.

Recovery Exercises: Although my ankle is still tight I have noticed some increased range and more fluidity when I rely on the movement in yoga.

Read: This habit was the push I needed to finally finish The History of Western Philosophy. I really enjoyed the book but it was very long and took a solid 3 months of reading. I was able to almost two weeks ago and I have since picked up The Snows of Kilimanjaro and other short stories by Ernest Hemingway. I am almost finished them and can’t wait for the next book!

Yoga: Yoga has been the most life changing and perspective changing habit that I have been doing over the past three weeks. There were only four days where I didn’t do an actual session and relied on a full body stretch to supplement my practice. I have been following Rodney Yee videos then for the other days and the change has been extremely noticeable. It has felt as though I have been shaking off rust from my body which I didn’t even know was there. It is now the most important part of my day and the one I am most thankful for. My movements are feeling increasingly fluid and crisp while open and awake. The change I have noticed in only this period of time has made me really excited to see the change at the end of the month when I check-in again.

Meditation: I have noticed my ability to get slightly deeper more quickly in meditation over the past 3 weeks. I really cherish this part of my day to center my attention and focus on myself.

Exercise: My exercise routine is in the evening when I get home from work and do a four minute ab session with 1 minute of jump rope + 10 push ups *3. I have slowly noticed my core becoming stronger though I still need a few pauses but the 1.5 minute plank has become much easier. In the past week I have noticed the jump rope session become much easier and now I use the last one to play around and switch between feet to do different rhythms. I also have added in a few extra push ups here and there when I am feeling strong. I think as it becomes more easier that I will add another session and do it *4. It is perfect because it is effective but doesn’t take very long. My muscle tone has definitely improved, my belly from the summer travels is nearly gone and my six pack from when I was a teenager is starting to come out again.

Freestyle: My goal is to maintain my freestyle ability for the moments when I need it. I performed at a party last weekend and was asked to do a freestyle so that was where this habit has paid off. I still can always improve but it’s fun and I am slowly getting better. I usually just do one beat or twice when time was really pressed I did some accapella bars to myself.

Record Mixtape: There’s an asterisk on this one for a reason and that is because I quickly found out that it would not be possible to do every day. This is mainly due to the fact that it is equipment heavy and I need to be more or less alone for it so 5 of the 6 weekend days I had to skip it. I have kept up with it well during the week days and completed two songs in the past 14 “sessions”. I can get these numbers up but it means that the tape is now 33% completed as opposed to 16% before which I see as a huge win. The last two songs are some of the best I think yet so I am seeing progress as well as the movement to the completion of this goal.