December 2019 Review

The end of the year is always a packed time. The end-of-year holidays often bring travel plans and parties, and this year was no exception. While the holidays also brought a 12-day stretch off work, I didn’t spend the whole month doing nothing (though there was plenty of downtime mixed in!).

The beginning of the month, sadly, brought another departure from the team at work. The goodbyes did involve a few good nights out with him, and for that part I’m thankful at least. Having resumed dating at the end of November, I had a few dates early this month as well, and went to see a coworker’s girlfriend perform with her band. All that to say, the first couple weeks involved a lot of late nights.

This of course continued into the middle of the month with the company holiday party - officially titled The Thankie Games. We divided the company into 3 teams, donned our custom t-shirts, performed skits in an opening ceremony, and proceeded to spend a full Thursday competing in a series of games in an effort to win our fabled unicorn head trophy. Yes, the company I work for is amazing, thank you for noticing. This year’s games included rounds of Code Names (an excellent board game), a blind ice cream taste test, axe throwing, and company trivia, followed by a dinner at Threes Brewing in Brooklyn. All told, the party lasted a full 12 hours, and was incredible. Other events for the month included seeing Star Wars Episode 9 (twice) and Frozen 2, traveling to Maine for Christmas, and a fairly spontaneous trip to Boston for New Year’s Eve.

Amidst all of that, I also began working a little more earnestly on an open source project which I hope to release early 2020, managed to see a dentist for the first time in about 4 years, and oh yeah - signed a lease on a new apartment! Midway through January I’ll be moving from Queens to Brooklyn, which I’m quite excited about!

All to say, December was a busy but exciting month, and I think I great way to close the year. I’ll have more to say in my upcoming annual review, per usual, but for now: the numbers...

Productivity

Unsurprisingly, my productivity dipped a bit though December. With the holidays and all the company events surrounding them, in addition to the time off for them, December was a pretty slow month on this front.

• Productivity pulse of 78 (-1)
• Met All Productive Time goal 5/15 days
• Average 4h 23m (-13m) productive time per day

RescueTime Top 5 Categories:

1. Software Development (30%)
2. Communication & Scheduling (30%)
3. Business (14%)
4. Utilities (9%)
5. Social Networking (4%)

Correlations:

Wednesday is continuing to prove to be my most productive day of the week, so at least I’m consistent. Unsurprisingly, when I sleep poorly (or just less), I’m more distracted at work. I’m unsure what precisely to make of the productivity and having a bad day correlation… Either being more productive makes me crankier and thus likely to rate the day poorly, or when I’m having a bad day for some reason I’m just more focused? I’m not sure.

• I’m more productive on Wednesdays (26%)
• I log more distracting time when I get less sleep (27%) and when I tag “headache” more (30%)
• I’m more productive when I have a worse day (25%)

Health

The obvious standout here is how much of my income was spent. I had to pay first month’s rent and security deposit on the new apartment in December, so my savings took a huge hit. The good news is that January is already paid and I only pay half a month in February so hopefully I can put just about all of it back really soon. I’m a little surprised I didn’t sleep more on all my time off, but in retrospect I did end up staying up super late pretty much every night so, oh well.

• Average of 7,164 steps / day (-0.1%)
• Average of 2,118 calories / day (+4.1%)
• Average of 6 hours 46 minutes of sleep / night (-7.3%)
• Average weight of 134.7 lbs (+0.6%)
• Average body fat percentage of 9.1% (+2.2%)
• Average of 222mg of caffeine / day (+13.8%)
• I spent 161.3% of my income¹

Correlations:

It sure seems like I celebrate on Fridays by eating more, and consequently having a good day? I know correlations don’t necessarily work that way, but seeing these two amused me. I’m fascinated by the fact that I seem to eat more on days before I have a date. Perhaps some nervous eating is happening? Not really sure. And finally, sleeping more on days after I skip a workout? Curious to see if that one continues.

• I spend more time asleep on days after I work out less (15%)
• I consume more calories on Fridays (21%) and have a better day when I consume more calories (21%).
• I tag “date” more on days after I eat more calories (21%)

December’s Focus

In December I had hoped to prepare for moving and to begin drafting my annual review. I made very little progress on the moving front, other than signing the lease. I managed to write about half of my annual review, though! I will hopefully have that published within a couple days.

January’s Focus

I have exactly one thing to do in January: move. It will consume most of my spare time so I will not try to accomplish anything else. Here’s to 2020!

¹Monthly spending is calculated as expenses, divided by income, minus 2%. The 2% reflects my 401k savings, which never arrives as income in Mint. This is to help me better estimate what my overall savings rate is.