February 2019 Review

The big highlight of February is that I went on vacation with Tia and her family to St. Maarten! The trip was truly incredible, despite a bit of sunburn on my back… This was my first trip out of the country, which made it extra exciting. We had lots of beach time, I went snorkeling and saw some sea turtles, parasailing for the first time, and we hiked Mt. Scenery on the island of Saba. It was an absolutely amazing week, and I hope to go back someday.

Other highlights include seeing Isn’t It Romantic, which was a pretty cute romcom, a weekend trip to Foxwoods to see Jim Gaffigan live (and he was hilarious), a wonderful Valentine’s date night of dinner and bowling with Tia, and my company moving to a new office. We are now located in the financial district of Manhattan, right next to the famous bull statue.

February was also my first month without Facebook, and I expect to reflect more fully on it at some point, but I’ll say at this point that I really, really do not miss being on Facebook in the slightest.

And now, on with the summary.

Productivity

Going on vacation for a week was great, and made for far fewer work days in February. The days I did work, I was productive for about 7 more minutes per day, and hit my productivity goal far more often. Overall, I was real productive this month!

Being the month without Facebook also seems to have knocked social media off my top 5 categories in RescueTime during work hours. I definitely thought Twitter was the bigger distraction, but that seems less likely the case with social media falling off the list.

• Productivity pulse of 77 (+2)
• Met All Productive Time goal 10/14 days
• Average 5h 10m (+7m) productive time per day

RescueTime Top 5 Categories:

1. Software Development (34%)
2. Communication & Scheduling (31%)
3. Business (9%)
4. Utilities (8%)
5. Reference & Learning (5%)

Correlations:

Tuesday remains my most productive day of the week, though not quite as strongly. There’s a certain irony in using Slack more when I email more, given that Slack is pitched as an email replacement.

• I’m more productive on Tuesdays (18%)
• I use Slack more when I send more emails (21%)

Health

Bit more walking, good chunk more sleep, more eating all leading to a touch more weight – not a bad thing for me. I’m surprised I didn’t spend more of my money, considering how much I spent on vacation.

• Average of 6,625 steps / day (+4%)
• Average of 2,474 calories / day (+15.7%)
• Average of 7 hours 42 minutes of sleep / night (+4.5%)
• Average weight of 144.9lbs (+1.4%)
• Average body fat percentage of 12.4% (4.3%)
• I spent 81.2% of my income¹

Correlations:

I found it interesting that these same correlations from January exist, but are all slightly weaker. It’s possible the weakening is due to vacation, but it’ll be interesting to see if it changes when reviewing March.

• I have a better day when I consume more calories (22%)
• I consume more caffeine when I sleep less (32%)
• I have a better day when I don’t track ‘no breakfast’ (33%), when I’m not tweeting (22%), and when I spend more time asleep (17%)

February’s Focus

1. Actually relax on vacation

Connecting my cell phone cost $10/day, and the hotel wifi was even more expensive so I spent almost the entire vacation without internet. It was pretty freeing, and relaxing. It was an incredible week.

2. Read a damn book

I didn’t get to this, unfortunately. I’ve been rewatching Game of Thrones with the final season approaching, so I haven’t made much time to read.

3. File my taxes

Check this off the list! My return already landed in my account at time of writing. My return was about double what I expected, and I used most of it to pay off a student loan! My first paid in full. One down, 10 to go.

4. Start contributing to a 401k

It’s not a lot – just 2% of my income – but it’s a start on a 401k so, at least there’s that.

March’s Focus

1. Start a Book

Since I failed to read a book, I decided to aim a little lower and just *start* a book.

2. Get health insurance

In April I will be turning 26, which means I’ll have to start paying for my own health insurance, which is going to be… less than fun. I have quite a few plans to choose from through work, so I get to spend time reviewing those.

Again, I’ve taken a while to get to writing this, so I’m leaving March’s focus pretty small. Hopefully I can pull the next one together a bit more quickly come April.

1 Monthly 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.