Monthly Review: March 2017

A few slip-ups set me back a bit on my financial goal for the month, but otherwise, I’m pretty happy with March.

Productivity

Maintaining a solid productivity pulse is some good news this month. I didn’t hit my All Productive Time goal at quite the same rate as last month, but on the days I did hit it, I was well over the 4.5 hour target. I managed 114% of the total All Productive Time if I had hit it every day, so I managed it, in a sense, just not quite as consistently as I’d like.

I’ve started making a habit of putting tasks in Todoist as well, so my average is starting to be greater than 0, but it’ll take a while to work out all the 0’s before this month.

• Productivity pulse of 70 (+0)
• Average of 1 completed tasks per day
• Met All Productive Time goal 17/23 days

RescueTime Top 5 Categories:

1. Communication & Scheduling (29%)
2. Software Development (22%)
3. Reference & Learning (12%)
4. Social Networking (11%)
5. Business (9%)

Correlations:

• I’m more productive on Tuesdays (25%) and Wednesdays (31%)
• I use terminal more when I complete more tasks (28%)

Health

All told, this was pretty good all around. I was significantly more actively (the warming weather helped!), started sleeping a little more, and kept my weight up - which is a big deal for me.

Unfortunately, I enjoyed dinner out a little too often this month and over spent there. I also didn’t realize my Amazon Prime membership renewed this month and didn’t budget for it so when that hit near the end of the month it put me out $100 I wasn’t prepared to spend. Without the membership renewal, I came in just barely overspending, so that surprise was what did me in the most. Another thing I forgot about was a subscription for the security software on my computer renewing for the year which put me out another $26.

• Average of 5,359 steps / day (+11.1%)
• Average of 2,382 calories / day (+5.6%)
• Average of 6h 52minutes of sleep / night (+8.4%)
• Average weight of 140.8lbs (+1%)
• Average body fat percentage of 11.7% (+3.5%)
• I spent 105.2% of my income in March

Correlations:

I found the Taylor Swift - heart rate correlation to be pretty amusing. I’m also not surprised that I check in the Dunkin Donuts more when I sleep less because I often grab breakfast there when I’m too tired to make breakfast myself, or when I don’t sleep well and try to sleep in a bit later to make up for it. Would probably be worthwhile to find easier breakfasts to bring to work to make my morning easier. It would certainly be cheaper.

• I spend more time asleep when I go to bed earlier (77%)
• I check in to Dunkin Donuts more when I spend less time asleep (13%)
• I have more bad days when I consume less energy (22%)
• I listen to more Taylor Swift when I have a lower heart rate (21%)

Books Finished

His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik

Happy to say I can add this section back this month. Goodreads, slightly unfortunately, won’t count it as I’m reading it in a book that contains the first 3 books in this series. The series imagines the Napoleonic War with dragons as a branch of the military. It’s rather good.

Main Goal Progress

In March I wanted to continue making progress on my financial goals of having $5,000 in savings, and paying off my credit card. I also wanted to get more sleep. It’s a mixed bag this month.

I deposited $262.94 into savings, bringing my balance up to $3,026.49, crossing a pretty big milestone. Unfortunately, my overspending at restaurants and the big surprise expenses were not good news for my credit card, as I finished the month with a balance of $497.32, up from $175… Ouch.

On the plus side, I didn’t spend any money on unnecessary shopping, so I managed to stick to that at least. I also did manage to get more sleep.

Main Goal Next Month

Having finished one book last month, I’d like to buckle down and try to finish two books (the next two in the series) by the end of April. My go-to activity in the evening has been to watch shows on Netflix, but if I can just swap out one episode of Parenthood a night for 45 minutes of reading instead I think I’ll get through the two books.

And, of course, getting that credit card balance back down, but I expect that’ll be tough as I have some irregular expenses in April. My car needs an oil change and some regular maintenance, and I’m going to Seattle for a conference (already passed as I’m writing this review a bit late, but I’ll discuss it in April’s review). If I can get the balance back below $400 I’ll consider it successful progress.