Daily check-in thread for July 19, 2007

Read books at least 1/2 an hour a day: 19/19

doing some exercises for the back every day: 18/19

Goal: 8 hours sleep.
Result: 7.25 hours, with some insomnia, and 3-4 snooze buttons.

The insomnia could be related to the chocolate (which has caffeine) I ate last night, which affected my other goal of losing 1# a week. These goals are really interrelated. Having a hard time with motivation right now.

Goal: At least one post per day in my blog.

Status: Success (Working Port Madness) for 19 July 2007. (15/17)

I am coming into July 19 with {16 for 18 in July}

Promises:

#1 Fitness: Yoga Zone beginner practice #1

#2 Get out: Today, that 45-minute time will be taken meeting my son at the train station and coming back home with him. He visits for a week. I also will continue lifting wires off the floor and cleaning in the office so he can use it as the guest room.

-"orcmid"

#1 is complete. I am noticing how much I need to continue this to stretch out my areas of inflexibility and also strengthen my back.

I will begin #2 following breakfast. It may take the remainder of the day. It will be good to have cleaned up the office and especially the maze of wires behind and between my computer systems.

Bill:

1. To go to bed and read when I get of work (22:30 CST) M- F
2. Get out of bed Monday - Friday at 06:00
3. Get up with my 3yr old on the weekends and let mama sleep in.
3. Establish a morning routine
4. Get my office cleaned up and organized
5. Start calling the 5k sales leads I purchased
6. Pass my next test towards the MCSE

1. I have successfully reach this goal everyday with the exception of the weekends.
2. This week has been a problem, I have been working a lot of overtime this week and haven't been getting out of bed until 7:00 am
3. Lastweekend was the first weekend where I got out of bed both days.
4. I have still working on finding a routine that suites me. I have been trying different things everyday.
5. I have been super productive on getting things done this week in my office. My inbox of things to be filed is completely gone. So now I am back to a good working environment.
6. I will start making calls on Monday.
7. I haven't had time to study this week, I have been swamped with work and long hours.

Goal 1 - to do morning routine
Goal 2 - 10 minutes decluttering
Goal 3 - 10 minutes housework

I've done my morning routine so that's 6 for 8
decluttered one of my kitchen drawers this evening so that's 5 for 8
I've done 10 minutes housework so that's 5 for 8

Feeling really good about this at the moment. I must remember to keep it up at the weekend. It's strange when I have more time I find it harder to focus. It's not like I'm asking too much here. Just a few simple tasks.

GOAL: do a chapter of German every day
RESULTS: I haven't checked in since the 15th. I haven't been getting German chapters done, but I have gone through one set of flash cards every day, so I've given myself .5 credits for that. My more pressing issue is getting the final draft of my dissertation off to the only committee member who hasn't seen it--BEFORE I leave for Austria on July 30th. SO, that's the priority right now...and it is going pretty well! That's why the German is taking a back seat.

goal: play guitar daily

worked on minor penetatonic scale exercises

Principles applied:

scales
strumming
hammer ons
pull offs

18 for 19

goal: exercise at least 30 minutes every day

Today I let my work day run over into the evening because I took a break to talk with a friend who called me in the afternoon and then had a drink on the deck with my husband when he got home. Then I had to go back to work because I had a deadline to meet. With all that, it was 8:30 before I started my exercise. I still managed to bike for 30 minutes, but it was touch and go on the motivation. Thankfully my husband cooked dinner and kept me company while I was exercising, or I'd never have gotten started. I also couldn't bring myself to break my streak - 19 for 19!

evening routine at 9:00. Done 13/19

It was one the lazy days today, just sat in front of the tv and did nothing, though not guilty about it though.
In the process watched a nice movie "Shall we dance"

Back to the challenge update
Goal : better use of my time on daily basis

1. reading emails no more than 3 times a day - just read them twice today, i am really proud of getting this habit in control, the weekend will prove a litmus test for this

2. reading " your money or your life" - read just 2 pages today, need to do some catching up
3. watching tv for 1 hour - watched it for about 4 hrs today, but as mentioned no guilty about it, hope to improve over the weekend.

Goal: Bike to work (and back)
Log entry: I admit I just felt too lazy today. 6-for-12 (50%)

Watchlist: Get up early (5:15 am)
Log entry: Another late start. The appointment yesterday (a barbecue party) went on forever, and I didn't make it to bed before 1:30 a.m. The baby was awake for another 2 hours after that. I was tired all day. 33-for-47 (70%)

Comments: I had an accident with my motor scooter on the way home from work. A lady in a BMW had not seen me and didn't yield my right of way. We did not crash, but I slid and fell off the scooter, which got damaged somewhat. My knee was bruised, but there seems to be no serious damage. I hope all will be well soon. My biking will have to wait a few (more :-( ) days so I can rest my knee.

Although it was not my fault at all and I reacted immediately and almost perfectly (I don't want to imagine what would have happened had I hit the BMW - probably I'd be hospitalized (or worse) now), I am upset that this incident happened to me. Had I taken the bike, this had probably never happened. But then again, something else could have happened. I'm glad nobody got hurt seriously.

I am coming into July 19 with {16 for 18 in July}

Promises:

#1 Fitness: Yoga Zone beginner practice #1

#2 Get out: Today, that 45-minute time will be taken meeting my son at the train station and coming back home with him. He visits for a week. I also will continue lifting wires off the floor and cleaning in the office so he can use it as the guest room.

-"orcmid"

#1 is complete. I am noticing how much I need to continue this to stretch out my areas of inflexibility and also strengthen my back.

I will begin #2 following breakfast. It may take the remainder of the day. It will be good to have cleaned up the office and especially the maze of wires behind and between my computer systems.

-"orcmid"

#2 is complete. I had my systems powered down and didn't get online to report until this morning though!

I am {17 for 19 in July}

goals of walking 5 mi per day, write down my food, do not eat past 8pm and pray
all done- motivation is not the same but i must continue
the alternative is not pretty- i missed one day of walking this week and the next day my attitude was not what i wanted it to be. someone pissed me off but my feelings were way out of control- i did restrain- myself thank goodness i do that today-

Wimped out on studying for the GRE AND exercising. Curled up with a book instead. 12 for 19.

Goal: lose 1#/wk through calorie max of 1600 calories/day.
Result: 1925 calories (2150 food less 225 exercise).

The low exercise-calorie days (just 45 min. of walking today--that's low for me; I try to make my base of exercise at least an hour of walking a day; I walk a lot for transportation) really make a difference in bloating my calorie total, i.e., I need to up the exercise on those days. I suppose I could drop the food calories but more exercise is much more appealing. And what's happening is on non-gym days, I can get into a calorie tornado. Maybe I need to focus more closely on calorie totals at mid-afternoon, which is when I can run into trouble, and really pause to consciously consider what I'm doing rather than going into a food trance. I've been doing "microtask" lists (as per Steve Pavlina's site) for work and they're really helping. Maybe I'll pull together a strategy for watching my daily calorie totals by mid-afternoon, including a microtask list plan of attack so the calories don't spin out of control.