Post your November Challenge here!

Just to start things off, here's my challenge:

* Stick to new strength training plan ... just twice a week for November (will increase to 3x per week in December).
* Continue successful habits from previous months of daily exercise (with rest days as needed) and following my 2000 calorie healthy meal plan (with cheat meals each week).

I've already posted this to the October thread, but my goal for November is the same as last November:

*Write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.


Since there are a few folks here doing NaNoWriMo, I'm thinking it would be cool to have a thread under the November Challenge specifically for NaNoers. Would that be kosher?


www.NaNoWriMo.org

I'm a veteran of FranklinCovey, and ZTD captures the essence of Covey's First Things First methodology with simplicity and elegance. After losing a dear friend in an extremely stressful crisis, I find that failing to focus on one thing at a time is the major leak in my ability to keep important commitments. As a parent, designer, and student, I'm often a little overwhelmed with the demands on my schedule.

My challenge for November is Habit 4/Focus. Specifically, I want to use the hours that my daughter is in school to complete my three Most Important Tasks every weekday, in addition to the class meetings and other things.

Warmest regards,
john

On October I choose a simple habit, that would made me happy - and in fact did make it - Keep a small drawing journal. This help me because I keep trying do things only when its a perfect time for do them, and now I believe I can deal more effectively with "imperfection".

But for November, I choose a hard one for me.

KEEP A MOURNING DAILY ROUTINE

Most of my day usually get of track because I don't have a specific time for wake up, or have breakfast, or exercise, ironing my clothes or whatever. This one is a hard one, because I kind like of this "mess" - But everybody says that wakening up early, doing exercises in the morning etc are doing wonders for them, So I decided to give a shot.

Starting on November 1st: MOURNING DAILY ROUTINE
- Wake up at 6:00am.
- 30 minutes of Treadmills.
- 500 words for NaNoWriMo.
- healthy breakfast.
- Go to work 8:30.

I know it looks to much for one habit, but, for my experience with myself, the hard part is: got out of bed at 6:00am (and go to bed before 12:00pm to accomplish that). I will put all of this checks on Joe's Goals, otherwise I'll be crazy.

My habit for October was to exercise daily. So far I'm 21/30. My first habit in November will be to exercise daily again. The second habit I want to cover is journaling everyday.

Changing my goal!

My new goal, on top of my October goal will be to exercise and do some sit-ups, push-ups, whatever gets me moving at thisp oint.

I feel like I've gained a stomach and nothing else since I've been here, so I think this may help a LOT in getting my energy back and letting off some stress.

Hi there, fellow challengers!

I'm going to review my task and project lists twice daily. First, not later than 2 hours before I leave for university in the morning. (As a student I face variying schedules every day so this seems reasonable.) Second, constantly at 8.00 p.m.

At the moment, I focus too much on processing my inbox and still struggle with the review. I'm not new to GTD and suppose that reviewing twice daily may seem a bit much, but I really want this habit to stick. Once I cannot do without, I can reduce the amount of times daily.

At the Weekends, the stated times may change, we'll see, but twice daily is the main goal.

Once again (if there's one thing I'm consistent at, it's self-sabotage), I've chosen two goals for this month:

#1: Develop a habit of taking my vitamins (currently, a zinc, a calcium, and a multivitamin) every morning just before a meal.

#2: Not necessarily establish a habit, but get through the month of November with 2000 words a day written for NaNoWriMo.

keep writing at least a page a day for my final school project... I hope I can make it and keep it all December too... I will aslo continue with my "Don't be a couch potato challenge", no more coke for me!...

This one is fairly simple: play my guitar for 30 minutes each evening before bed. My reasoning for this is two-fold:
1. I've been playing guitar for a year now and I'd like to take my skills up further; I have not put in the time to see the result I would like and this is a start to changing that.
2. Things done before sleep are the "loudest" in your mental stereo; when we sleep and the "volume" gets turned down, that which is the loudest becomes the easiest to hear the following day. I love science. :D

Good habiting!

Each Night before I go to sleep write 3 things that I am grateful for each day.

I understand the importance of this practice.

I will report back each day/week- going to be travelling for 2 weeks so this will be a great habit to develop.

I look forward to being part of this forum

I'm going to get up 15 minutes earlier, 4:45, during the week. I'll continue my getting up not later than 6:00 on the weekends. The purpose of the extra time is to do a second set of my exercises in the morning; so that is part of it. I figure that will take 10 minutes more and am allowing 15 for breathing room.

Edit: ease your check-in with bookmarklets!
A bookmarklet is a JavaScript-code you can save as a bookmark (read more on Wikipedia). I am using this to insert the text for my daily check-in.
You have to do a bit of work on yourself, but hopefully you get it working:
[code:1:42f7034deb]javascript:(function(){document.getElementsByName('message')[0].value='Your Text goes here.';})()[/code:1:42f7034deb]
Keep in mind:
[list:42f7034deb][*:42f7034deb]Write everything in one line. Use \\n for a line break, don't hit enter.
[*:42f7034deb]If you want to use ', you have to write \'. Otherwise you break the script!
[*:42f7034deb]When you click the bookmark, the old text in the message area is deleted - so click the bookmark first, then enter your progress for the day.[/list:u:42f7034deb]
You need to add a bookmark with this JavaScript as the URL. In the first days of the forum, somebody had set up a page to generate this bookmarklet for you - unfortunately I couldn't find it anymore.
Anyway, as an example, this is the code I'm using for November:
[code:1:42f7034deb]javascript:(function(){document.getElementsByName('message')[0].value='If you want, you can read about [url=http://www.zenhabits.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=4236#4236]my motivation for the challenge[/url].\\n\\n[b]Cut down on alcohol (drink if at all on special occasions)[/b]: \\n[b]Cut down on sweets (cheat day is Saturday)[/b]: ';})()[/code:1:42f7034deb]

Let's move on to my November Challenge:
[list:42f7034deb][*:42f7034deb]Cut down on alcohol (drink if at all on special occasions): continued reporting from my challenge started at the 20th of October.
[*:42f7034deb]Cut down on sweets (cheat day is Saturday): this is my new challenge.[/list:u:42f7034deb]Explanation taken from my october analysis:
10. What will my November challenge be and what will I try to improve?
The best thing I can think about is re-establishing my life style from before the renovation of the bathroom. Thanks to Leo and other people, I had established to live healthy (near to no alcohol, daily sport, I drastically reduced sweets etc). Without bathroom, I didn't do sport as I could only take a shower like only every second day what led to more alcohol and sweets for me.
As the bathroom is finished, I immediately started with daily sport. This was no problem.
I began to cut down alcohol a week earlier. This also went well. I have nothing against treating oneself with a cocktail or glass of something from time of time if there is a special event to celebrate, but I never want drinking alcohol to become a regular habit. So I will continue to report on this in November.
I also want to cut back on sweets again. From time to time, sweets is ok, but in the last weeks I had more than the months before. I will take Leo (and many others) as an example and introduce Saturday as my cheat day. Let's see how this works!

Ah a new page on the calendar, I'm so excited for November. My goals were to get up early, be at work on time, exercise first thing in the morning and no treats during the week only on a weekend cheat treat. So far I managed to get up early and be at work early. I was thinking about all of you guys at 6:30 when I almost hit snooze...its great! I'm really looking forward to this.

I was originally going to wake at 6am, but this am was no go. I usually get up around 7:30-8, so 6:45 is ambitious enough.

Well I started near the end of October but never checked in or formally made it a goal... but now I have for November!

-Meditate for 5 minutes in the morning before leaving for work-

I have been doing this for a week now and already am starting to find it part of my routine. Lets see how it goes after a whole month!

1-Clothes & lunch ready night before
2-Sleep 8 hours

1) consume between 1400-1600 calories/day
2) exercise 30 minutes/day 4 days/week (S/S/T/F).

I am breaking my spear on this one, which I will most certainly continue in November from October. I must also restore my attention to daily posting of promises and their completion to draw me back to being accountable and present to my promises. The novelty of the Zen Habits Forum has worn off and I need some way to kick myself in the butt more energetically. I am adding this to my morning calendaring and my evening completion tracking.

Promise:

#3/4: Productivity/Visibility: 2 hours or more on accomplishment of a public commitment (to a client, readers, etc), with a public, visible result (web page, blog post, etc.)

This is a big deal because of year-end revenue claiming and also preparations that are already required for the first half of 2008. I am making myself more visible and that means a higher level of accountability of integrity or it is all for naught.