August 2018 Review

August felt pretty busy, with a lot of my free time being consumed with various plans, but with summer coming to a close that isn’t surprising. Tia and I went to the Bronx Zoo for the second time in a year and had a wonderful time. We take our time at zoos, and spent I think 6 hours there. I’m sure we’ll go back again before winter.

We also saw an off-broadway musical, /Be More Chill/ (which has an amazing soundtrack). I tend to not really like musicals, but that’s two now I’ve seen with Tia that I really enjoyed so perhaps they’re growing on me.

Earlier in the month we took a trip up to Saratoga Springs to see Harry Potter in concert (a live orchestra performed the soundtrack as we watched the movie) and it was a fantastic trip. Made a few fun stops along the way, and I have to say that part of New York is just gorgeous.

We also went with Tia’s family to the New York Renaissance Faire, which was a lot of fun.

Productivity

My productivity pulse went up, even though I hit my goal less often and my average productive time dropped. Sounds like my productivity was just more varied throughout August.

• Productivity pulse of 76 (+2)
• Met All Productive Time goal 11/23 days
• Average 5h 3m (-8m) productive time per day

RescueTime Top 5 Categories:

1. Communication & Scheduling (32%)
2. Software Development (30%)
3. Design & Composition (10%)
4. Social Networking (8%)
5. Business (7%)

Correlations:

No interesting changes here, just a continuation of last month’s trends, mostly - though the correlations are /slightly/ weaker.

• I’m more productive on Tuesdays (18%) and Thursdays (17%)
• I eat more when I’m more productive (13%)

Health

A little extra sleep, a good month for saving, but a little less walking. Pretty good all around.

• Average of 8,562 steps / day (-10.5%)
• Average of 2,218 calories / day (-1.5%)
• Average of 7h 3minutes of sleep / night (+1.1%)
• Average weight of 139.5lbs (+0.3%)
• Average body fat percentage of 11.5% (+0.9%)
• I spent 81.9% of my income

Correlations:

Tuesday seems to be my new favorite day to tweet, and looks like by the end of the week I track coffee a bit more - sounds about right. One note

• I tweet more on Tuesdays (24%) and track “coffee” more on Fridays (23%)
• I consume more calories on Fridays (29%)
• I have more good days when I track “reading” more (15%)

August’s Focus

1. Finish my passport application

Still didn’t do this, but I must get it done ASAP.

2. Make an investment in my health

I did okay in this… I was taking the fiber supplement every day for a week or two, but it doesn’t taste good and I fell out of doing it… I need to find a better drink to mix it in. I was using iced tea, but I think I need something stronger tasting to help mask the flavor of the supplement. I also, however, ordered a new pair of running shoes (my current pair are extremely worn), and plan to start running in the morning. It took over a week for the shoes to arrive after I ordered them so we’re halfway through September and I /just/ received them so I’ll be getting to it a bit late, but better late than never.

3. Do the exercises in my planner

I also still didn’t do this… At this point I think I’m just going to consider my experiment to use a physical planner failed. It obviously doesn’t work for me, as much as I like the idea of it.

September’s Focus

1. Finish my passport application

I’ve set a daily reminder on my phone for this.

2. Get my eyes checked

I’ve noticed over the past couple months my eyes just feel increasingly tired at the end of the day. I haven’t had my eyes checked in a couple years, and I think it’s time for new glasses.

3. Start running

Now that summer is almost behind us, it’s no longer crazy hot outside. I’d like to start going for a run in the morning before work a couple times a week. I sleep in pretty late now (7:45), so my plan is to start waking up earlier and go for a 15-20 minute run a couple times a week. I made this decision a little too late to have good shoes, but they’ve finally arrived so I can pick this up in the second half of September.

4. Read another book

I read a book for the first time in a while and tore through it pretty quickly, actually. Only took about a 10 nights of reading right before going to sleep to finish one. I have more books in the series I’ve been reading so I’d like to just keep going with it.