Author: Ryan

Keeping track of what I’m eating has opened the lid on a number of habits I have. I often don’t notice how often I eat or what it is I’m eating. This is especially influenced by my current state.

Attention to Food

One of the biggest benefits I’ve experienced is an increased awareness of what I eat and when. I’ve tried to make meals a bit more structured, but I haven’t quite addressed my other problem, snacking.

The amount of snacking I’ve done throughout the day is surprising. There was a day this past week where most of my calorie intake was from snacks throughout the day. Not even all of my meals combined that day added up.

Recognizing a behavior is the first step to taking action to adjust it. I know that most of my snacking is done at work. It’s easy to grab a treat a co-worker brought in and take my mind off a stressful day for even a minute or two. A helpful fix to this can be removing the ease of which I can get up and grab a snack.

I solved the possibility of going to the vending machine by not bringing my wallet to work unless needed. Though coming up with a solution for easily available snacks is still beyond me. If you have any ideas, let me know!

Mood Inspires Food

It’s funny how simple it seems that how we feel really impacts our diet, and then our diet impacts how we feel. During days of stress, I’ve found myself eating whatever junk I can get my hands on. While days that I feel accomplished or gratified, I can easily grab a healthier bite.

It makes me wonder, if eating better foods, we can trick ourselves that we’re in a better mood than we are. That might have to be an experiment during this trial. I’d love to set up a hack for myself to get back on track after a tough day.

Tools of the Trade

My Fitness Pal is a pretty commonly referenced app when people decide to start tracking their eating habits. I’ve enjoyed it so far. It’s simple to use, but there’s a lot of work that goes into early set up.

Each food item has to be searched in a massive database, and finding the right dish that coincides with what you ate can be a bit of a puzzle. Especially if you have a broad range of foods in a meal.

I’m interested to try out some other apps or practices for tracking this info. If you have any recommendations, let me know if the comments, and I’ll give it a try!

There’s no feeling like clearing your to-do list before others are even up for the day. Waking up earlier is something I never really thought I’d be able to do. For years I claimed, “I’m not a morning person,” which really held me back from pursuing something like this. Throughout the trial I’ve felt better in terms of both the overall feel of a day, as well as made much greater progress on bigger projects.

Control the Course of the Day

Waking up early has allowed me to steer the direction of my day. Yesterday, for example, I didn’t get out of bed when I wanted to and thus didn’t get what I wanted to done. By the time I got home from a long day at work, I was too exhausted to make any progress on other goals.

Today, however, regardless of what happens after I write this post, I have already completed the biggest item on my list for the day. Being able to start the day off in accordance to my plan usually helps guide the course of the rest of the day.

Back to yesterday, starting the day out of control pushed the day overall in that direction. The entire day was spent reacting to things out of my control, causing stress and frustration for nearly the entire day. While we do not have control in every situation of our lives, stacking a few in our favor can help us to cope with those that aren’t.

Moving the Needle

The feeling of accomplishment I’ve experienced has already been highlighted in my other posts for this trial, but what am I accomplishing? There are a few other projects that have been on my mind that I haven’t made the time to put concentrated effort on for a long time.

One may not be a major project, but finally clearing out the items from my minimalism trial has nearly come to a close. With five things left as of this morning, I’ve been able to gift, donate, or sell everything else. These last five are on my for sale list, which was well over double in size prior to being able to tackle posting and coordinating sales when I had the energy to in the morning.

 Most activities done, the above included, have been more in the spirit of maintenance and consolidation. Simple things like re-organizing certain spaces that have gone out of order, researching cost saving matters for projects like this blog, and other mundane activities that are often brushed aside.

I have been tinkering with some larger ventures, but want to have more concrete progress before discussing those further.

What’s Next?

This trial, which I absolutely loved, has now come to a close. I’m still going to keep the momentum on waking up earlier. However, I might shoot for 5 to 5:30, with a little more wiggle room on the weekends. The feeling I’m getting from doing more in the morning is phenomenal. I can’t recommend trying this out enough.

Next up, I’m going to be shifting focus from sleep to diet by keeping a food journal.

Last week saw rocky waters for this trial. I was struggling to get up on time, and frequently failed to come close to my morning goal. After the drop in compliance, I needed to make some changes to the systems I had in place to make sure I was sticking to what I wanted.

Systems? What Systems?

In a previous trial, I put together an accountability group. It’s helped both me and the others in the group make more progress on the things we’ve put off, as well as build better habits.

This week, one friend felt he was spending too much time on his phone and was going to track it in his iPhone. To do so, he decided he was going to use the phone’s new feature to limit screen time for him.

While I can’t directly copy this approach for my waking habit, I can fine tune existing systems and introduce new failsafes to get the habit running smoothly. For example, actually waking up at 5 AM each day is my goal for the group this week. If I slip up even once, that’s breakfast for four out of my pocket.

A few other systems I have in place are habits I do just before bed or first thing in the morning. Before I go to bed, I of course set my alarm clocks. I have a sleep tracker on my phone as well as an old school bell analog clock. The latter is on the other side of the room, so I need to spring up to turn it off.

Next, I try to make my bed immediately upon waking up. If everything is set and in order, I’m far less likely to try and sneak back under the covers. Then, I’ll put on the socks and shoes I’ve laid out the night before to go for a short walk around the block. Once outside, the chance of wanted to go back to bed are next to none.

Why Systems Work

Two reasons stand out to me as the keys of why systems work. Reminders and fallbacks.

We live in a world of near constant distraction. Responsibilities, other people, advertisements, notifications, and endless possibility cross our path basically every day. It’s not hard to believe that sometimes we forget about the goals we truely set out to do.

By doing small things, I’ve sought to keep pushing little reminders of those goals. Right now, these are focused on my mornings, but they have taken a number of forms in the past.

Many of these reminders also serve as easy ways to fallback into previously established habits. I mentioned earlier that I have my shoes ready so I can quickly get a walk in upon waking up. These not only remind me that I need to walk, but even forgetting why they are there, I still put them on and walk without thinking why.

Our brains want to take as many mental shortcuts as possible. Setting up easy fallbacks greases the wheels for managing habits. Letting our minds take shortcuts for our habits allows saving mental energy for more complex tasks.

What systems can you put in place today to make your habits and goals easier to stick to?

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

I’m starting this post almost two hours later than last weeks. Yes, it is because I woke up almost two hours later than last week. Even without 100% compliance, I am getting the benefits I was looking for with this trial. Today gave me a lot to think about even if I’ve only been up for a few minutes.

Don’t React If It’s Unneccessary

In the past, my morning strategy was wake up, roll out of bed, and make my way to work. I used the morning routine trial to try and shake that up, which definitely helped. The problem was that should I ever wake up off of what I had planned, I would be thrown into a panic.

If I didn’t have time to get to everything I wanted to, I would rush leading to me reacting all day trying to catch up to my plan. I was particularly bad before having any morning routine established. I’ve had countless days of up and out the door. Forgetting lunch, not taking care of any of my to-do list, etc. This morning I woke up a little after 7 and that instinct kicked in.

“Oh no, I need to do this, this, and this.” I thought for a moment when my eyes opened. Then I took a deep breath and got up as I normally would and got ready accordingly. I’m definitely not going to be able to get as much as I was hoping to done, but I can still be the one in control of my day.

Lifestyle Change is Hard

I write a lot about not sticking to what I set out for myself on this blog, which can be pretty damn frustrating. I didn’t follow X as closely as I wanted, or I failed at doing Y each day. This has felt particularly true of the last few trials.

Author James Clear has popped up a ton in the various media I follow, so I decided to give him a deeper look. His annual review post for 2017 really jumped out to me. I love retrospectives and reviews people give for periods of time. It’s nice to get an idea of what someone thinks, especially when that someone is you.

In his reviews, James has a whole section for what didn’t go as well as he had hoped. I couldn’t help but really stick to the section, as I’ve found myself struggling with keeping up with these trials. In reading through, I realized that so many of the trials I’ve done lately are actually pretty major lifestyle changes, and those can take some time to settle in.

If you find yourself not quite where you want to be with a new habit, practice, or even just your morning, don’t rush it. Take a small step back and look at what is really going on. Then, get back on track with a new, better plan.

This is definitely the earliest I’ve written for this blog. It’s currently 5:39 AM in the morning, and I’ve already accomplished more than some days I’ve experienced by 5:39 PM. Getting up at 5 AM each morning – 6 on the weekend – has proven to be more fulfilling than I expected. This early time in the morning gives me a level of purpose to my day and productivity I really can’t recreate at other times, though has had its own set of difficulties.

Morning Task Roundup

I typically have at least one or two specific tasks I need to accomplish on a given day. In the past, these were things I would save until late into the day. After work and re-energizing from said work often led to having overdue tasks from a prior day because I didn’t get to everything.

Now, I’m able to often get everything done before I even leave for work. I’ve written in the past about ideas pertaining will power and focus being resources a person has that deplete throughout the day. Waking up early may cost some of that will power, but is negligible compared to a day of commutes, work, socializing, cooking, eating, etc.

This post, for example, is generally something that I wait until late into the evening to write. Normally, the back of my mind is working on this throughout the entirety of the day, as I know I “have” to do it. Now, I can get this published before work even crosses my mind.

5 AM Focus

In his book Start, Jon Acuff suggests finding your 5 AM. I may have taken this a bit literally, but the idea is to find any time of the day when work can be done uninterrupted. It could be 5 AM, 9 PM, 12 AM, etc.

I boasted in the past of being a night owl and the farthest thing from a morning person, but I don’t think I ever really appreciated how great the morning could be. I am able to get highly focused work done without interruptions or distractions. No one is texting me, calling me, or otherwise trying to contact me. They are either asleep, or have their own focus they are holding dear.

Not All Sunshine

Now, I would be lying if I said all of this was completely easy to do. The first couple days, I was able to get up no problem. Then a college Homecoming weekend quickly threw a wrench into the 6 AM goal I sought to hit for weekends. This week then started a little rocky, but I’ve seem to have settled things out.

To my surprise, waking up wasn’t really too difficult. I actually got up and felt rested. The problems came when I didn’t really know what I should do at that point.

It’s starting to get rather cold and dark in Eastern Iowa, so a habit started in which I’ll wrap myself in a light blanket and lay back down. You can see where this goes.

I decided what I needed was a quick action I could do with little to no resistance that forced me out of the house for at least a few minutes. Once out and about, it’s feels dumb to try and go back to bed.

I also started implementing some old morning habits that kind of died off after months of negligence. A short workout in the morning has been another fun way to sort of shock my system. I’m hoping to continue improving on the routines I had worked on in the past. If you have any suggestions or want to share what time “your 5 AM” is, please let me know in the comments below!

The different writing goals I’ve set for myself over the past few weeks have been a mix of compliance and failure. Changing things up at the midpoint definitely helped, but it didn’t take long for bad habits to get in the way again.. Overall, things were still a ton of fun. I was able to try a lot of different styles of writing that I don’t get to explore as much here.

Need for a Change

The beginning of the trial I was feeling good, writing just about every night. The problem was my writing was really accomplishing what I wanted. The 750 words I was writing simply become a journal, which I had already given a try early on.

I then tried to write on different subjects, but then I wasn’t doing well in hitting the word count I was aiming for. Thus, another change was in sight.

Changing the frame of the trial from 750 words to 250 words before I left for work definitely helped. I found myself getting up early and exceeding my word count on several days.

Unfortunately, this did not last as long as I would have hoped. Staying up late one night too many led to bad mornings of getting up with little time to write led to rushed or skipping writing that day.

Cross Discipline

My favorite part of this trial was branching out into different styles of writing I don’t often get to explore with the format of this blog.

I wrote essays on different media, a movie review, and some general thought pieces on things that interest me. I have a particular interest in personal finance, and I really enjoyed a piece I did on debt.

Throughout this trial I’ve actually thought of starting a separate personal blog that was a lot less structured, and really to serve as a place to publish works that don’t really fit the idea for this blog. It also gives me the excuse to have less of a regular release schedule there. It’s not a wholely new idea and still up in the air, but let me know if that’s something you would be interested in reading.

At the End of It All

This trial was really a learning session for practicing different approaches  for accomplishing better writing habits. It was also a huge opportunity to strengthen other writing styles.

In some ways it was a success, but unfortunately in others it was not so much. I do think writing in the morning is the best method for me. The thing I need to focus on is other habits to enable that.

With that in mind, I am going to try a habit I’ve been putting off for some time. I am going to try and wake up at 5 AM every weekday and 6 AM on the weekends over the next four weeks. I have never been a morning person, and so I want to push myself far beyond my comfort zone.

Adjusting my daily writing objective to be done first thing in the morning has really helped me stay on track. Other than one day that involved a lot of travel, I’ve written my 250-word goal without issue. Addressing my writing early has helped me to get away from journaling and writing more topical pieces I don’t feel fit the format of this blog.

If You’re Going to Do Something Do It First

The struggle I had in the previous post was that I found myself burnt out by the end of the day. Hitting a word count goal quickly became writing whatever came from mind to page the fastest. To try and combat this, I adjusted my goal this past week. Instead of 750 words per day, I am only aiming for a minimum of 250. The caveat is that I need to complete the writing before I leave for the day.

This adjustment means one of the first things I do in the morning is write. What I love writing early is that I usually write well over my word goal. One day I wrote over 500 words. 

Helpful Habits

A majority of my thinking happens during long walks. For a few weeks now I’ve been trying to get a nightly walk in. It was during one of these walks I had probably one of my brightest ideas, “what if I did this in the morning to help spark my writing?”

I started trying to get shorter walks in right after waking up. A quick walk around the block has helped get ideas flowing while my body still wakes up. If you ever have a case of writer’s block, I recommend a walk, no matter how short.

Morning walks have been extremely helpful when I’m staring at a blank page with little in mind, but luckily, I’ve had a lot of topics bouncing around. Often, I’ve had an idea in mind the night before and will start writing it immediately after making my bed – the true first task of my day.

New Topics

The format of this blog has been a lot of fun, but I am cautious to move away from the trial and weekly post setup I’ve been utilizing for well over a year now. This 

A broad range of subjects interest me. I frequently read lifestyle and personal finance blogs and watch videos ranging from media analysis to cooking shows to outright educational content.

Taking this time to write in the morning has been a lot of fun to explore these other interests. I don’t expect that I’ll move away from this format on this blog, but I’ve long thought about creating a separate personal blog that was a little more loosely run. Posts might be made as written and completed, rather than on a particular schedule.

In the past week, I’ve written about debt, The Lord of the Rings, and even themes found in one of my favorite games. I have a suggestion from my cousin to write about “defeat” so I may be giving that a try in the coming days.

Everything so far has been early stage drafts, but I hope to expand and fine tune the ideas that I really enjoy writing about. One of the major objectives for this trial was to expand my writing in different directions, and even if I never “publish” what I’ve written over the past few weeks, I know I’m improving my craft. That is enough in my book.

My goal for the week was to focus on creating more concrete writing projects. I’ve had a number of ideas come to me for stories and even some non-fiction concepts, but my delivery of said items has been a miserable failure.

Everyone Has One

Excuses can definitely be made for why I haven’t been writing per my goal, but I’m not going to bring any up. The problem is not making writing a habit that I must do every day.

I often have found myself waiting until the end of a long day to finally get my writing goal completed. This is what has led to a journal type formal, as I typically write about the results of my day. It’s a nice way to decompress at the end of a long day.

Unfortunately, this is a terrible approach when trying to create content of value. Setting a number of words to reach as the last task of a long day leads to rushed writing seeking to hit a number.

I mentioned last week that the number was irrelevant to the goal, but it is simply a stand-in for putting quality effort into writing.

Mid-Trial Adjustment

In order to attempt to better settle this rocky habit, I am going to try and hit only 250 words before leaving to head to work. The goal here is to put some effort first thing in the morning. The word count may be a little loosely followed as a measure of success.

During my morning routine trial, setting a first win of the day was one of the elements I wanted to establish each morning. It’s been a while since I’ve made a point to do so.

Writing early will hopefully help to push writing about particular subjects or project more likely. Instead of waiting until the end of a day of work, chores, and other commitments, I’ll have the energy to focus on writing first thing. In theory anyway.

For the past week, I’ve been writing at least 750 words every day. This has mostly come in the form of journaling. Writing so often has given me the opportunity to improve.

Not Just a Journal

A lot of the writing I’ve been doing has been mostly freeform without much planning or structure. This leads to a lot of written entries becoming journals about the day that just occurred. Writing whatever comes to mind usually revolves around the experiences I had throughout the day. Though, I have mixed in rough outlines of ideas that I’d like to work on.

One day, I started writing the broad strokes regarding a video essay inspired by Lessons Animation Taught Us by Mikey Neumann. There were a few ideas I had to respond to his “challenge” to his audience to release a personal version of his video.

When writing out the ideas I had, they quickly became a lot less profound then I was hoping. Once the words hit the paper, well screen, the direction I was going in didn’t really make sense. However, actually exploring those ideas was still a lot of fun, even if the end result wasn’t what I was hoping. This is the part of writing every day that I am enjoying so far. There is no goal, the word count is arbitrary. The point is to just write. Anything.

Get Good

It’s evident that writing nearly every week for well over a year now has improved my writing. I’m frightened to go back to those early posts. In fact, I read one a few weeks ago and was floored by how rough it was to get through. It really was a testament to how far I’ve come with practice.

As much as it pains me, that’s one of my favorite parts of this blog. I have a virtual record of my improvement over time. I am interested to see if there is a marginal difference in this post and the final one of this trial in a few weeks.

This post is going to be relatively short. Over the next week, I do want to push myself to try more complex writing projects. Until next time!