May Goals Review
In January, I started a monthly review of my main 2020 goals, which were to:
- ✅ create 1hr/day 260 days out of the year: on-track
- ✅ read 1hr/day 260 days out of the year: on-track
- ✅ get in physical shape: on-track
And for May, I had some specific goals:
- ✅ Eat healthy every single day this month. Done, except for a weekend getaway that I'd planned for and allowed myself to eat whatever on.
- ❌ Continue writing daily, but put that daily effort towards higher value posts. I had internally set a goal of 1 hr/day working on higher value posts, and it was way too much for a starter goal. I ended up burning myself out and not wanting to write at all. Oops.
- ✅ Add daily meditation to my routine. Done. Just 5-10 minutes a day but it counts!
- ✅ Do bodyweight workouts 3x/week. Done.
- ❌ 'Big Ideas Only' on Fridays: where I ask myself what the largest problem I could be solving is, and ask what I'm doing to solve it. This was a fail, I did it once. I'm just too exhausted by Friday to tackle something like this.
What you measure, matters. And by measuring this stuff daily and monthly, I can see a clear improvement in what I make, what I consume, and my physical health routines. Let's take a look at May.
In May
I consumed:
- My First Million Podcast (for when you're looking for your next big idea)
- Akin Futures newsletter (for great corporate strategy news and insights)
- Workaholics Anonymous book of Recovery and book of Discovery. I got the official program materials about a week ago and it has already helped me lessen my time anxiety and understand that I work compulsively because I'm addicted to stress (that's really a thing, who knew?) and busyness. It's a fascinating read.
I created:
- How a Lazy Bitch Like me Learned to be Productive (resulting in: front pg of Hacker News and Indie Hackers, 20K views, 550+ Twitter followers)
- A post about my first Workaholics Anonymous meeting, which sparked a small discussion on Indie Hackers.
- An internal talk at Auth0 (my employer) called "How to get Sh*t Done with Other Teams, without being Blocked by Them." People reached out to say it was the best marketing talk we've had this year, so I'll be posting a version of it here in June.
Personal Goals Progress in May
Nutrition
I had a goal to eat healthy every single day in May. Strangely, it was really easy to do this. I'd already been working towards this goal, as you can see from the above graph. Adding in such a concrete goal made every choice this month black or white, making it very simple for my brain to make healthy decisions.
In June, I'll continue to eat the way I am, while cutting out meals after 7:30pm.
Exercise
I've been exercising very regularly lately. I attribute this to:
- tracking my exercise daily and monthly (makes it easy to get back on track)
- good weather for going outside and running/hiking
I lost 2 lbs this month. I'm getting very close to my goal weight, so it makes sense that I didn't lose a lot. I also went to my doctor and got blood tests done; everything looks good!
Creating
I've created pretty prolifically all year. I'm considering scaling this back a bit, and trying to take Saturdays off from creating in order to have a better balance and reduce the chances of burning out.
Reading
On average, I consumed about an hour or more of high value information daily in May. 'High value information' is pretty subjective, but I know when I'm consuming something of quality or not, and I don't BS myself in order to make my numbers look better.
Personal Updates
As usual, I explored Washington state. Here are some of my favorite photos from this month.
June Goals
- Implement a bedtime routine
- take a week off from creating June 18th-June 25th
- Meditate 15+ minutes each day
- No food after 7:30pm
That's it! I'll see you in a month for the next review!