Last month summary: Launched mobile analytics on iPhone before the holidays, had a great visit from Chris Finley (old highschool friend) and his wife while KA and Niko were in Delaware, celebrated a quiet Christmas (got Niko into Little Bits though), and did NYE at Amy and Thors (where Niko stayed up past midnight for the first time).
Weight: 181.2 (+1.2 m/m, +7 y/y -- bad trend!)
Outcome of previous goal: MISS. Wrote my 750 words on 11 days (hoping for 20).
New goal: Upholding the yearly tradition of health month in January with some friends: no alcohol, coffee, drugs, refined flour/sugar, dairy, white rice, or red meat. I'm allowing 1 amnesty day where I can break all the rules. Write 750 words on 11 or more days.
Interests:
- Co-active coaching, Motivational coaching
- Quantum realism: read all of Brian Whitworth's published chapters
- History of the Transformers shows/comics: starting with Wikipedia and ending up on Unicron's tfwiki.net page
Summary: Venessa and Lillia visited us for a week; sis, Ryan, and Adelyn visited for 3 days and for Thanksgiving; first big Thanksgiving at the new house (we have chairs); work on front of the house continues, the worst is probably over.
Weight: 180 (+2)
Outcome of previous goal: Hit! Wrote 750 Words on 22 days.
New goal: Write 750 words on 20 or more days, again, because that was good.
Summary: Started serious work on the outside of the house, attended my 20th year reunion, celebrated our 6th anniversary (Ajanta), and Kellianne's birthday (first party at the new house).
Weight: 178
Outcome of previous goal: Miss. Did pushups on 0 out of 30 days. Still entirely off the wagon.
New goal: Write 750 words on 20 or more days.
Summary: Amongst other things (that I can't really remember): bought a house, moved in.
Weight: 179.0 (-0.4)
Outcome of previous goal: Miss. Did pushups on 0 out of 30 days. Completely fell off the wagon.
New goal: Do pushups on 2 or more days (low bars ftw)
Summary: Amongst other things (that I can't really remember): visited Seattle, went to a wedding.
Weight: didn't weigh myself this month - my scale is out of batteries
Outcome of previous goal: Miss. Did pushups on 1 out of 30 days. Completely fell off the wagon.
New goal: Didn't make a goal for this month. Circumstances have disabled my goal-making momentum.
Summary: Looked at open houses every Sunday, made an offer on a house, lost. Shipped something cool at work. Started a new side project: Valleyball. Went to yoga at work, once, and failed to go back again (even though I'd like to).
Weight: didn't weigh myself this month - my scale is out of batteries
Outcome of previous goal: Miss. Did pushups on 9 out of 31 days... definitely did not continue the trend from last month. Circumstances shifted: lots of guests this month, getting my morning routine out of whack, and we were distracted by making an offer on a house (and all the errands that entails). Also, lots of work stuff: shipping Tweet activity dash, starting a new project, performance reviews, etc. As circumstances shift back into the morning routine's favor, I'm hopping back on the pushup wagon this month.
New goal: Do pushups on 9 or more days.
Codex edits: Added Paul Buchheit's Startup School talk to my personal canon.
Weight: 179.4 (+2.1 - hmmm.)
Outcome of previous goal: Hit! Did pushups on 19 out of the 30 days. Also tied my record for slow pushups. Hoping to continue this trend this month.
New goal: Do pushups on 19 or more days.
Notes: Spent some time this month working on busterbenson.com. Added a full-lifetime visualization, and links to my online archive by week.
Weight: 177.3 (+2.6)
Outcome of previous goal: Super miss. I did 60 slow pushups in May (6 out of 31 days: 19%). My 5 month streak of doing fewer pushups each month continues... in fact it was a pretty indulgent and lazy month all around. We spent a week in Richmond for Mother's Day, half-brother meeting, and Rick Webb birthday celebrating. We had the Pixels as guests, we spent a couple days camping in the Redwoods, and even spent a day in Yountville eating at The French Laundry and other delicious restaurants and wineries. We celebrated both Niko and my birthdays. So I gained almost 3 pounds, did barely any pushups, and had a ton of fun doing it all.
New goal: Do pushups on 6 or more days. I'm going to focus for a few months on getting back into a daily (or at least semi-daily) pushup routine and not focus on how many.
Notes: I also spent some time re-thinking this monthly review, and have decided to create a bit of a framework that involves a set of things I want to remind myself of daily, monthly, and yearly. My birthday review sums it up. And I started a new side project (the first I've allowed myself since shutting down Habit Labs) called Hyoomans which is an attempt to create a game largely inspired by iterated prisoner's dilemma. It's still very early and completely unplayable, but it has been fun to work on when the spare minute arises.
Changes to codex:
- Added descriptions about my top 5 favorite ideas to the lexicon
- Broke out "on privacy" as a separate section in my beliefs
- Added "iterated prisoner's dilemma" to lexicon
Weight: 174.7 (+1.4)
Outcome of previous goal: Miss. I did 129 slow pushups in April (12 out of 30 days: 40%). My 4 month streak of doing fewer pushups each month continues... but this month I did switch it up to do even slower pushups than the month before. Instead of resting at the bottom and top of each pushup, I'm trying to keep a constant slow speed at all times. I learned this in slow weights a few years ago and it makes them much harder while also making it harder to "cheat" by hopping up and down too fast.
New goal: Do more than 129 slow pushups (only count first set) on 13 or more days.
Weight: 173.3 (-0.8)
Outcome of previous goal: Miss. I did 148 slow pushups in March (13 out of 31 days: 42%), but I went from a best of 15 to a best of 18, for a 20% improvement. Totally fell off the wagon (and so far in the first few days of April still off the wagon). Also got sick and didn't get down to 167.1 lbs -- still hovering above 170. Sort of a loser of a month for me all around. Oops!
New goal: Do more than 148 slow pushups (only count first set) on 14 or more days.
Weight: 174.1 (+1.6)
Outcome of previous goal: Miss. I did 183 slow pushups in Feb (19 out of 28 days: 68%), but I went from a best of 12 to a best of 15, for a 25% improvement. They're definitely starting to feel easier, and I feel like my form is improving.
New goal: Do more than 183 slow pushups (only count first set) on 20 or more days. Also, lose 4% of my weight and get to 167.1 lbs.
Weight: 172.7 (-0.5)
Outcome of previous goal: Hit. I'm only counting the first set of the day, as I found I'm more likely to find the time if I only focus on 1 set. Did 192 last month on 20 out of 28 days. I'm also using pushup bars and doing them in as close to perfect form as I can, very slowly. Finding that 10 slow, good posture pushups is pretty tough. On days when I'm not feeling it, I am fine with doing only a couple -- doing them every day (eventually) is more important than doing a whole bunch on a single day. I want to make this a life-long goal, something I do every day even when I'm 80 years old.
New goal: Do more than 192 pushups (only count first set) on 20 or more days.
Quality moments from previous month:
- 3rd-5th: Nursing Kellianne with her healing foot post-surgery. Fun for Niko and I to take care of her and watch her watch all of Doctor Who.
- 10th: Hack week at work, won.
- 12th: Went to Children's Fairyland with Niko, Brasa, Bode, Alykah, Zuri, Spike, Indy, Juniper.
- 18th: Dinner at Anneke and Casey's (first time at their place)
- 20th: Long bike ride with Niko where he biked up the pedestrian bridge (both ways) without stopping!
- 23rd: My work project launched: analytics.twitter.com (super smooth launch, team is in high spirits)
- 23rd: First date night in a long time: Wood Tavern. Funny conversations with the bartender and other guests.
- 25th: Quality neighbor dinner time with Bode and Brasa while kids watched movies
- 26th: Went to the steam trains with Niko, went on the trains 3 times!
- 29th: Quality friend times with Tony Stubblebine and Sarah. They brought dinner to us.
- 30th: ModelViewCulture launch party, got to celebrate Amelia's new thing
Weight: 173.2 (+1.6)
Outcome of previous goal: Hit
New goal: Do pushups at least 4 days a week, find a baseline for pushups in a month that I can try to beat next month. I need to do at least the minimal amount of exercise other than bike riding because I feel like my energy levels are really low. Admittedly, none of my interests have anything to do with pushups... I just choose them because they're the easiest. But there's no internal motivation beyond easiness pushing me forward. Is it possible to enjoy pushups for themselves? If this doesn't work I may need to rely on biking more as my outlet for exercise.
Quality moments from previous month:
- 1st: Went to Scribe with Katie, met up with Mira and Tom
- 6th: Katie stayed with us, we played Cards Against Humanity
- 7th: Picked out a Christmas tree with Bojee and Alycah
- 8th: Hilarious dinner at Paisan with Katie and Jimmy James
- 15th: Went to Tilden Park Carousel with Brasa, Bojee, and friends
- 16th: Made a Thomas train out of construction paper with Niko. Big hit.
- 17th: Inspiring product manager Christmas party, going away party for Mark (our intern)
- 19th: Twitter holiday party: biggest fanciest party we've ever been to (at City Hall)
- 20th: Closed on sale of my Belltown loft! Paid off all credit cards and the car as well. Stoked.
- 21st: Christmas Tree Lane in Alameda
- 24th: Christmas Eve at Kristy's house with Mom, Ryan and Adelyn (Ryan's reading of The Night Before Christmas went over especially well)
- 25th: Adelyn saying "I'm feeling really good right now!" after opening gifts
- 26th: Delicious dinner at Sushi Kimo
- 27th: Great bike ride to Corona del Mar with Kellianne
Self-declared badges:
- Sold The House Badge
- Debt Free Badge
Weight: 171.6 (+0.0)
Outcome of previous goal: Hit
New goal: Come up with a plan for next year's version of Rabbit Rabbit.
Quality moments from previous month:
- 7th: Twitter IPO, celebrated with coworkers and Kellianne at Ryan Sarver’s get together at Tradition. I feel grateful for a chance to participate in Twitter’s history.
- 8th: Dinner with Brasa, Bojee, and Alycka at their house. I can tell we’re going to become friends.
- 10th: Took the training wheels off Niko’s bike, and discovered that he was able to ride it after only about 15 minutes of practice!
- 16-17th: Kellianne’s in Seattle so Niko and I had the weekend to ourselves. A first? Took the opportunity to super-bond with the little guy. Fave moments include biking to the Farmer’s Market, having him read The Giving Tree to me, letting him be boss and come up with rules, tossing kettle corn into each others’ mouths while relaxing on the hammock, the Muppets dance party in our living room, and the long uphill bike ride up to College Ave for an ice cream.
- 21st: Highly enjoyable conversation with Tony Stubblebine at Smuggler’s Cove.
- 23rd: A fun birthday party for Niko’s friend Alykah, wherein we solidify our friendship with the neighbors down the street.
- 25th: Good conversation about work with Reeve.
- 28th: Kellianne hosted an amazing Thanksgiving with Marla, Max, Annaka, Casey, and kids.
- 30th: Katie visits and amongst other things a beautiful golden hour bike ride at the park.
Weight: 171.6 (+0.5)
Outcome of previous goal: Miss
New goal: I want to continue to track my modes through Lift at least 5 days a week. Write a blog post sometime in the month about finding the signal for quality time.
Weight: 171.1 (+0.9)
Outcome of previous goal: Miss
New goal: I want to continue to track my modes through Lift at least 5 days a week. And also, I want to write a blog post sometime in the month about finding a signal for quality time that isn’t so ambiguous.
Weight: 170.2
Outcome of previous goal: Hit
New goal: I want to continue to track my modes through Lift at least 5 days a week, and in addition track whether or not I experience quality time that matches the given mode. For example, quality sleep in recovery mode, meditation in self mode, quality time with someone in people mode, etc.
Outcome of previous goal: Miss
New goal: I want to take a step back from static goals and instead have mode-specific goals. First step, track my modes for a month (from Live Like a Hydra) to see how they break down.
Outcome of previous goal: Miss
New goal: I want to track at least 5 "quality times" a week. Quality times that count: quality time with Kellianne, Niko, myself, and work. I'm using a new app to track this, that my friend April passed along to me, it's called The Way of Life (iPhone). It's worth checking out.
Outcome of previous goal: Miss
New goal:* Meditate at least 5 minutes 5 days a week.
Outcome of previous goal: Hit
New goal: I want to do at least 1 thing a day (no days off) that A) gets me closer to being a marathoner B) I do on purpose for this resolution (no retroactive counting), and C) isn't "normal" for me to do. Meditation, running, other exercise, etc all count. I'm tracking my slogs on peabrain.co which has been working for me for a while now.
Outcome of previous goal: Hit
New goal: Meditate for at least 5 minutes a day, at least 6 days a week.
Outcome of previous goal: Hit
New goal: At least 5 days a week, do the following immediately upon waking up. 1) drink a glass of water, mentally recite "memento mori" 2) do at least 1 sun salutation while contemplating ways to be proactive in the day. 3) meditate for 5 minutes.
Outcome of previous goal: Miss
New goal: At least 5 days a week, start my day proactively by doing at least one of these 5 things before looking at my phone: drink a glass of water, stretch, do pushups, review my look, look, look haiku deck, hold my breath and meditate as long as I can.
New goal: At least 5 days a week, start my day proactively by doing at least one of these 6 things before looking at my phone: drink a glass of water, stretch, do pushups, do lunges, do plank, review my look, look, look haiku deck.