Guilt.

For a reason I can't remember now, I stopped writing 1 post a week.  It was probably some lame excuse like "Oh not tonight...another night...maybe tomorrow..."

That thing called Guilt

I feel/felt terrible about it.  I had it going so good for about 2 months.  I wanted to change.  I was starting to change.  Then I "spilled the milk."  And I cried about it too (internally/metaphorically speaking).  These negative feelings chained me down and like a snowball rolling down a hill...they kept building over time.  Each day I put it off, the thought of starting up again felt worse and worse.  Each day, that emotional quicksand called guilt crept 1 inch higher - it was paralyzing.  I finally gave myself a swift kick in the butt to get started again.  My breathing is getting lighter just writing this.

Well...guess momentum is a law of nature not limited to physics.  And it's going to take more practice to change certain limiting ADHD habits.  For now, I'm going to tell myself that it's ok to be human.

Exactly how long is 1 hour?

Recently, I realized that I had a very poor concept of time.

I wasn't finishing all the things I wanted to.  Time would just seem to "slip" by me during the day (and on weekends in particular).  For the first time in my life, I started catching myself whenever I started saying a variation of these:

"Oh crap! What?  It's ____ o'clock already?"
"I just got really into it and guess I lost track of time."
"Wow, where did the weekend go?"
"This will only take ___ minutes."  [Meanwhile...]
"I forgot about our appointment..."

I am Sorry.

If I have any acquaintances, friends, or family reading this, I deeply apologize for every single time I was late or procrastinated.  This isn't meant to be an apology blog.  As the title states, it's for my own use as I track my self development progress 30 days at a time.

It doesn't stop, however, how I terrible I can feel about about the damage done by this particular bad habit of mine.  Even more troubling to my conscience is that I vividly remember the disappointment in your faces (if face to face) and voices (if over the phone).  They stay with me.  Nothing sucks more than hurting the people you care about and who care about you, inadvertent or not.  I'm working on getting my act together.  I promise you that.

Solution?

Well, not sure exactly.  If I knew I wouldn't be having this problem lol.  All those "time management" books and workshops given in school never seemed to work.

However, a funny thought came to me.  I began thinking about how well I would judge the passing of time without the use of any clocks or devices.  Well, I could probably gauge 5, 10, 15 minutes within reason...but 30 minutes or 1 hour?  I wasn't too sure about that.

So...I've decided to set the my phone alarm clock to go off at the start of every hour (6am - 9pm).

Sound crazy?  Yes.

Will it probably annoy the heck out of everyone around me?  Yes.

But when you want change badly, you've got to try something out of the box.  I'll be testing it to see if it offers any positive change.  At best this will force me to keep checking my phone and hence my calendar, and I'll be able to see how on/off track I am throughout the day.

It's always the same formula, just like learning to ride a bike.

So every day I usually walk the dog around our estate once in the morning and once in the evening.  For the past 2-3 nights, I've spotted this Indian woman in her 50's learning how to ride a bike.  

You could tell she was still learning because it was quite obvious.  For one, she couldn't go 1-2 meters without putting a foot down to catch herself.  Secondly, she had a spotter.  A younger gentleman (her son?) was walking close by her side, helping to catch her if she fell off course.  As I walked the dog along the dimly lit path, I could overhear his whispers of encouragement and advice when we passed by.

"Damn, I'm impressed" I thought to myself. 

Seeing her, I couldn't help but reminisce of when I first learned how to ride a bike.  I think I was 6?  I remember riding with 2 training wheels, gradually reducing it to 1, and then finally riding without any at all.  Man, it seems so long ago.  That was such a fun summer.

The woman doesn't know this, but she inspired me.  I think it takes guts to go out and learn something that society assumes the majority adults already know.

She reminded me that no matter what skill we're after, it's always the same formula just like riding a bike.  It seems difficult at first, but with perseverance and time all will seem effortless.  Any frustration we encounter now is temporary.

Props old lady.

You know what's Fucked Up?

Different Habits, Different Transitions

There are varying levels of difficulty when it comes to changing old habits or adding new ones.  I found not playing video games relatively easy.  On the other hand, using my schedule book was at least 5x more difficult.  It takes more skill to manage your time effectively and obviously my skill level is not where I want it to be.

A major part of growing comes down to:  self-awareness, self-discipline, planning, and preparation.   I know this because the moments I strayed from my goals, I can track it back to forgoing one of these.

Does it suck to know I didn't always accomplish my goal?  Yes.  To tell you the truth it feels terrible, even worse to admit on here.  lol.

[Side Note:  You know what's Fucked Up?
Being 30 and realizing you don't have your shit together.
Sometimes I wonder, how did I ever accomplish anything in the past?

When I did, it was probably more the result of blind ambition.

A runaway car with no driver, zigzagging off the starting line, bursting to the finish.
No direction.  Just a lot of gas to burn.

As a kid, school was the only source of structured time for me.
Period. Period. Study Hall. Lunch.  Period.  Period.
I was the kid who started 15 page papers the night before they were due.
I'd "study" for a test the period before.
I remember, actually, being terrified of graduating college because
life would no longer be "structured."

Fucked up is
Being 30 and realizing you're having to learn:
self-awareness, self-discipline, planning, and preparation.
Skills you haven't mastered.]

New habits I will keep managing:

-No video games.  My interested in video games has wilted to zero.
-Exercising.  I will continue exercising at least once a day.  Might even post a video.
-Blogging.  1 post a week is still a can do.

New challenges to pursue next month:

1.  Expand on using my schedule book to plan my week and month.  Will also keep track of how long it takes me to do various tasks throughout the day.  (I don't think I've ever done this in my life lol.  I know I have to keep practicing.  This is the foundation of developing all other good habits.)
2.  No deep fried foods (Throwin' in an easy goal so I can feel good about myself lol)
3.  Save personal leisure time for weekends (internet surfing, watching MMA fights, etc.)

No Control over my Weekends

I just realized that I've been slacking on the 3rd Challenge - "Use my schedule book EVERY day."

Here's the thing...I haven't been using it on the weekends.  Weekends are when everyone is home together and plans just seem to get thrown together.  It didn't even enter my awareness at first.  I guess this is because I had subconsciously only considered M-F the only days that were my own.

I thought I had been using it everyday.

Just a realization.  Now I gotta do something about it.

No Video Games, No problem

No video games Day 16 of the challenge.

At this rate I feel like I'll never want to touch video games again lol.  I've been thinking something for a while that I want to share with you...

Just as with any leisure activity, I don't think there's anything inherently "wrong" with video games.

I've been thinking, however, that the high one gets from "beating" a game can be used as a psychological substitute for lack of achievement in your "real" life.  I think this is because we don't often set small little goals in real life that we can check off and take a moment to feel good about.

September 30 Day Challenge

September's First Week is Done.

I'd consider this first week mildly successful.  Because the first 30 day challenge to exercise every day went relatively smoothly (emphasis on relatively), I decided to step it up this month with 3 challenges.  Woot! 

Again...I've come to realize that I can be overly optimistic when setting goals.  There were obstacles along the way I just didn't foresee - almost all having to do with using my schedule book.

My three September 30 Day Challenges:
1.  No video games - Easy.
2.  Blog at least once a week - Easy.
3.  Use my schedule book EVERY day - Hard.

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1.  No video games?  Easy.  I usually play video games on the iphone at night right before bed.  It's my winding down ritual.  (My favorites, btw, are tower defense games and poker.)  Whenever I found myself mentally looking for the iphone out of habit, I'd catch myself and take a time out instead.  I'd remind myself, "What did I promise myself this month?".  Oh yeah, that's right...no video games. After 4-5 nights of this mental back and forth, I found myself not even wanting to play on the phone anymore.

2.  Blog once a week?  Easy.  As I write this now it's my second time this week.  There are 168 hours in one week.  Finding 1 or 2 hours to blog isn't difficult.

3.  Use my schedule book EVERY day?   Hard.  Sure, I could simply glance at my schedule book every morning, forget about it all day, and call that using it.  But I want to effectively use the book.

I think the BIGGEST challenge is getting confused when I happen to miss one of my scheduled tasks.  Do I just forget about it?  Where do I fit it in the missed task?  I admit, there were a couple times when I just told myself to forget about it.  Yes, I failed.  There was only one time when I really pushed myself to finish the task at an alternate time.

I feel terrible whenever I miss a task because:

- I forgot.

- The preceding task took longer than expected.

- Something totally unrelated came up and distracted me.

(Don't even get me started on how structured my weekends are.) 

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My goal for next week is to:
- make time for transition periods between tasks
- take more accurate records of how long it actually takes me to do things
- force myself to reschedule tasks that I miss