February Recap: Month two of creating and reading daily (with graphs)
Oh, February. That blissful month where the sun finally started to set after 5pm in Seattle, where coronavirus wasn't quite a concern yet outside of Asia, where flowers began blooming and I bought a friggin' car. Yeah, February was a pretty good month! Let's recap.
Contents:
- Maker Related Goals
- Exercise
- Nutrition
- Financials
- Personal
- What I've learned, two months in
Maker Related Goals
I have two goals for 2020:
- Create 1 hr/day 5 days a week
- Read 30 min/day 5 days a week
In January, I read articles and 'junk food' things instead of books that would bring me some serious knowledge. So I said, 'in February, I am only going to count real books as 'reading time'.
Guess what happened? My reading times went down from an avg of 1 hr/day in January to 33 min/day in February. I'm reading just as much as ever, but I just prefer to get my information from sources other than books. 🤷♀️
Surprisingly, my creating times also went down from about 1 hr per day on avg to 33 minutes per day. This is because I committed to daily blogging and turns out my normal blogs take about half an hour to compose. While this is half of my daily 2020 goal, I'm creating daily, so I'm okay with it.
By the way, daily blogging is AMAZING. I don't do it for views, I do it 100% for myself, I write whatever I want, and I ship even if it's not great (as long as I've done my best for that day). My mental health is so much better since I started daily blogging in January and I can't recommend it enough.
Exercise
As you can see, January was a bust for exercising. I got the flu and it wrecked me, then when I got better it was icy and nasty and frankly I didn't have it in me to run outside in that weather.
In February I started getting some discipline back, and by the end of the month, you can see I'm starting to get back into a regular rhythm. March is shaping up to be even better still!
Nutrition
I'm judging this based on Dr. Greger's Daily Dozen App on my phone. It's got a list of healthy foods and my goal is to check off at least 15 a day (out of 24).
January was a stronger month for nutrition than February, even though I visited family for a week mid-January (you can see the resulting dip clearly).
I'm not sure why I ate slightly better in January. Maybe the increase in exercise increased my appetite? Maybe my January diet was a bit too strict to keep to long term? Your guess is as good as mine.
Financials
I bought a car last month. Soooo, my finances took a hit hahaha.
That being said, I am fairly good with my money and I saved 40% of my income last year. Would you like to see me openly talk about money and exactly what I do with it? If so, tweet me and let me know.
Personal
I bought a car. Here's the love story you never asked for, and never needed.
Dear car,
You arrived two months early because the salesman was trying to hit his quota, right in time for me to NOT TAKE PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION DURING CORONAVIRUS SEASON THANK YOU SWEET BABY JESUS.
Our first weekend together, we went to the ocean and then hiking through a rainforest. The second weekend, we made fun of people photographing seagulls and we explored islands and mountains. I can't wait to see what weekend #3 has in store.
Love,
Your Madikins
I also fell in love with Washington. I don't know what did it, but I want to stay here for a long time, and as a former nomad for 3 years, that is the weirdest feeling. In fact, I don't know if I've ever felt this way before! But a month later, even with Coronavirus being centered here, I still feel this way.
And finally, I attempted to turn my morning smoothies into smoothie bowls, and only moderately succeeded.
What have I learned, two months in?
- Keeping a daily public blog is THE BEST 🌈
- Regular creating and reading is more important than how much specific time is spent, and what specifically I choose to consume
- The autonomy that comes with owning a car is, for me, 100% worth the financial spend
That's all! See you again at the end of March!