Monthly Review: April 2017

April was a pretty good month. At the very beginning of the month I went to Seattle for An Event Apart, which was absolutely incredible. I’ve been meaning to write a post about it but haven’t gotten around to it yet. My birthday was in April as well, and 24 is off to a good start. Aside from getting older, there weren’t many significant changes this month.

Productivity

My productivity at work is holding steady. Still working on making a habit of adding tasks to Todoist as I get them, but I do think I’m getting better about it. At the end of February I decided to schedule a “focus hour” at work, where I’d block all notifications and focus on a single task for one hour.

Unfortunately, this has been near impossible to stick to due to the nature of some of our projects at work right now. Our project planning process is also being refined a bit, which has made things pretty hectic. I think I’ll revisit the concept once we get our planning a little more formalized.

• Productivity pulse of 70 (+0)
• Average of 1 completed tasks per day
• Met All Productive Time goal 15/20 days

RescueTime Top 5 Categories:

1. Communication & Scheduling (26%)
2. Software Development (22%)
3. Business (19%)
4. Social Networking (12%)
5. Reference & Learning (5%)

Correlations:

• I’m more productive on Tuesdays (24%) and Wednesdays (27%)
• I use terminal more when I complete more tasks (30%)
• I complete more tasks on Tuesdays (23%)

Health

I did a lot more walking this month. Largely influenced by the excessive amount of walking I did when I went to Seattle. I walked everywhere while I was there. I expect the average to drop again next month. Also as a result of going to Seattle, I ended up justifying spending a little more money than I intended. I managed to keep just under all my income, but not quite enough to offset the amount I went over in March… Progress is slow.

• Average of 7,123 steps / day (+32.9%)
• Average of 2,345 calories / day (-1.5%)
• Average of 6h 32minutes of sleep / night (-7.2%)
• Average weight of 140.2lbs (-0.5%)
• Average body fat percentage of 11.6% (-1%)
• I spent 96.6% of my income

Correlations:

Something I find interesting here is that it seems my quality of sleep is improving a bit. I’m inferring that since the more time asleep correlation below isn’t as strong as last month - it would seem I’m spending more time asleep no matter when I go to bed. Sleeping more also may result in a greater appetite - or craving higher calorie foods. Something to look at, I think.

• I spend more time asleep when I go to bed earlier (56%)
• I consume more calories when I spend more time asleep (17%)
• I have more bad days when I spend less time asleep (17%) and more good days when I wake up later (24%)

Books Finished

None… Oops. I made some progress in the second book of the series I’m reading, but I didn’t actually finish it yet.

Main Goal Progress

I deposited $204.20 into savings, bringing my balance up to $3,230.69, which was a pretty strong month. Unfortunately, I went a little crazy in Seattle and I finished the month with a credit card balance of $586.64, up from $497.32. This means I failed at getting it below $400 like I intended.

I also failed to finish another book like I wanted. What I find is that by the time I get home I’m generally too tired to read, or at least think I am. I tend to favor something a bit more passive, like watching TV or playing a video game.

Main Goal Next Month

In May I’m going to more actively monitor my budget and spend less money to get my credit card balance back down. I also, one way or another, will finish the next book in the series I’ve started.

The new thing I’m going to take on is starting to work out. A few years ago I began trying to gain weight, which started me on tracking everything I eat. While I did manage to reach my goal weight after a couple years, I think I need to build muscle to gain anything further, as my weight has stabilized for almost a year. I’ve ordered a pull-up bar, and would like to start using it just a little bit this month to start figuring out what kind of routine I’d like to build.

The hardest part of any of these goals will be the discipline to stick to them. I’d like to report back something positive next month… We’ll see how that goes.