Monthly Review: July 2017

July was my strongest month of the year, financially; enabled by refinancing my student loans and getting a raise at work. July also saw some changes to productivity, and good progress on my main goals.

Productivity

On the productivity front, I appear to have made huge strides. It’s not a totally apt comparison as I’ve taken to not tracking the first half hour at my desk every morning. Like most people, I take a bit of time to settle in and prepare for work so I’ve stopped time tracking my morning ritual as it’s not quite time I intend to be productive in. As a result, the productivity pulse is a bit inflated, but reflects actual “work time” rather than all time on the computer.

I also met my productivity time goal almost every day I was in the office. I also averaged 5 hours 9 minutes of productive time per day, so I think I’ve reached a point where I should increase my goal. Starting in August, I’m raising the goal from 4.5 hours to 5 hours.

• Productivity pulse of 77 (+4)
• Average of 0 completed tasks per day
• Met All Productive Time goal 18/19 days

RescueTime Top 5 Categories:

1. Software Development (41%)
2. Communication & Scheduling (28%)
3. Business (10%)
4. Social Networking (8%)
5. Utilities (5%)

Correlations:

• I’m more productive on Tuesdays (24%) and Wednesdays (23%)
• I consume more calories when I’m more productive (17%)
• I have more great days (rated a 5) when I receive fewer emails (19%)

Health

It looks like I was far more active in July than normal, which is probably true, because I spent a number of weekends walking along the Erie Canal. One day in particular is probably skewing the average pretty heavily though - I went for a 16.5 mile walk one day totaling a little over 36,000 steps. Without that, the average is probably substantially lower.

I also managed to reign in spending this month, and received a raise at work which helped on the financial front, which I’m pretty thankful for.

• Average of 7,460 steps / day (+44.1%)
• Average of 2,328 calories / day (-6.9%)
• Average of 6h 29minutes of sleep / night (-2.8%)
• Average weight of 143.3lbs (-0.5%)
• Average body fat percentage of 12.5% (+2.5%)
• I spent 92.8% of my income

Correlations:

Exist recently introduced custom tagging, which enables me to track anything I want. One of those things is writing, for when I work on a blog post or other non-work piece fo writing. While there isn’t much data to correlate yet, one did surface - I track “writing” more when I get more sleep. Perhaps being well rested makes writing seem easier.

• I spend more time asleep when I go to bed earlier (53%)
• I track “writing” more when I spend more time asleep (29%)
• I have more great days when I go to bed later (13%)
• I consume more calories when I got bed earlier (11%)

Books Finished

I managed to finish two books this month. To be fair, the first only had about 100 pages left, but the fact that I finished another after that is something I’m happy about.

• /Throne of Jade/ by Naomi Novik (4/5)
• /Black Powder War/ by Naomi Novik (4/5)

Both books are a continuation of the series I’ve been reading. It imagines the Napoleonic Wars with dragons as a branch of the military and it’s really fascinating. A neat blend of politics, war and fantasy. On to the 4th!

Main Goal Progress

I deposited $35.51 to savings this month, bringing my total to $3,353.47. Not the best effort, but at least it’s some progress.

I also didn’t make great progress on my credit card, ending the month with a balance of $562.74. I would’ve paid it down a bit more, but most of my spending at restaurants this month went on it because I get an extra cash back bonus on restaurants. I also had a moment of weakness where I decided to buy a new computer to use as my Plex server - certainly an expense I didn’t need, but I am happy with the purchase. The fact that my balance still came down is good enough.

I completed my pull-up work outs 12/16 times this month, which I’m happy about. On average, each workout was 5.33 sets of 5.9 repetitions, which is an improvement of 1.3 reps per set from last month. It’s been an easy habit to keep, so hopefully I keep making decent progress.

Main Goal Next Month

With the extra wiggle room in my budget afforded by refinancing and my raise, I want to get my damn credit card back under control. Along with the usual continue to workout, and finish at least one book I’m not looking to add anything new to the mix just yet.