Monthly Review: August 2015
7 Sep 2015
At the start of each month I do a review in my journal of my goals, habits, and experiments from the past month. In January 2015 I started publishing my monthly reviews on my blog instead of keeping them private. You can see them all in my monthly reviews category.
WHAT DID I COMPLETE THAT I AM PROUD OF IN AUGUST?
It's getting a lot harder to find anything to include in this section lately. Between have a full-time job where things don't change a lot day-to-day, and working on the goals I set for myself, I don't get much else done that I'm especially proud of.
WHAT GOALS DID I ATTEMPT IN AUGUST?
- Publish the first of my new blog series about building the iOS app for Exist: Yes! I actually published two posts: Building Exist for iOS: introducing the dashboard and Exist for iOS: Adding the mood card.
- Work on Exist for iOS: Yes! I had a few things I listed last month that I wanted to get done in the app in August. I did them all, and an extra one (the mood card mentioned in the post above).
WHAT 1 HABIT DID I FOCUS ON FOR AUGUST? (HOW DID THAT GO?)
Exercise.
I wanted to make exercising a regular habit, which meant I had to add it into my morning routine. I'm pretty hopeless at sticking to any commitment if I don't do it in the morning, so even though I prefer exercising in the afternoon, this was the best way to make sure I kept it up regularly.
For about 2-3 weeks I was running 4 times/week as part of my morning routine. After a few weeks I was getting really bored with running. I've been listening to audiobooks but I've had a hard time finding anything that keeps my interest enough to make running less boring. I used to look forward to running because it gave me time to listen to my favourite podcasts but I've run out of new podcast episodes and my favourite shows can't keep up with my voracious listening habits.
I also wasn't losing any weight, so I was lacking any motivation to keep running.
I did get to take these cool sunrise photos as I ran along the creek, though.
However, I also added a short (< 10 minutes) bodyweight workout to my morning routine that I've stuck with throughout the whole month.
WHAT EXPERIMENTS DID I TRY?
None.
MY HOMESCREEN IN AUGUST
MOST PLAYED MUSIC IN AUGUST
- Joshua Radin
- Us The Duo
- Milky Chance
TIME SPENT CODING
27h 48m
Huge increase from just under 15 hours last month. Yay! It definitely takes effort to find the time for programming, but when I do I really enjoy it so I need to keep this up.
BOOKS READ
- You Are What You Speak, Robert Lane Greene
- NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children, Po Bronson
- The Sirens of Titan, Kurt Vonnegut
- Mountains Beyond Mountains, Tracy Kidder
PLAYS SEEN
None.
MONEY SPENT
~$3,962.
Biggest chunks: $1293 for rent, $700 tax repayment, $479 for a computer monitor, $277 for a keyboard.
Goals for September
I WANT TO COMPLETE:
- Work on Exist for iOS: layout the weather card and send new version with dashboard to beta testers.
- Publish 2 new posts about building Exist for iOS on the Hello Code blog (one about the weather card and one about the bedtime/wake time graph that I did last weekend).
- Complete all my promotions tasks for littlelogs: we were lucky to get some extra attention around littlelogs in the past week when it was featured on Hacker News and Product Hunt. I have some tasks planned for September to keep the momentum going.
I WANT TO FOCUS ON THIS 1 HABIT:
My morning routine.
I don't have a specific habit I want to focus on in September, but I want to keep up my regular morning routine which includes waking up early, practising French, reading a nonfiction book, and a short bodyweight workout.