🟢 January No meat I’ve found that the key to giving up things you really want is to start by giving things you kind of want. Willpower is a muscle that needs to be built up over time.
🟢 February No social media Felt much happier and more productive. Downloaded lots of books for free from the library and carried my Kindle around everywhere. Whenever I felt the impulse to pull out my phone I pulled out my Kindle instead. Read a ton of books. Loved it.
🔴 March No screens after 9 PM Total fail. Re-adjusted the goal to keep my phone out of the bedroom. This cut back on the mindless AM/PM mindless scrolling which I think helped me sleep better. Invested in an alarm clock and a light-up pen to jot down the random thoughts I had as I was falling asleep.
🟢 April No sugar or alcohol First two weeks were kind of a bummer but fine. Third week I thought I was going to die from the sugar cravings. Fourth week I felt invincible. My energy and focus improved drastically. My mental fog was gone. When I did eat sugar again I felt like absolute garbage. The experience did make me think I should try this again.
🟢 May Reduce non-rent spending by 50% I lumped in some other tasks here, including manually itemizing and tracking every dollar I spend and consolidating my retirement accounts. I did my budgeting in a spreadsheet. This forced me to reckon with every purchase. The number of charges I had to enter for Lyft/Uber was so annoying that I took a bike safety workshop so I could conquer my fears of biking and get around the city without ride shares.
🟢 June Powerlift 2x/week This was good, though did not result in a habit that stuck beyond the end of the month as I’d hoped.
🟢 July Write in a journal every day Obsessed with this. Everyone should do it. I limit my entries to ONE PAGE. Here’s how I structure it:
  1. Quick log of what I did that day
  2. Write the word FEELING + then some quick notes about how I felt that day
  3. Then I write down 3 of the following words with a few thoughts for each one:
  1. At the end of each month, I go back through and do a summary, again only one page. I structure it the same way but this time I’m looking for patterns across the entries. | | 🟡 | August | Meditate every day | I traveled a lot this month which knocked me out of my routine, but I did manage to meditate for at least 10 minute on 21 days. | | 🟢 | September | Get coffee with six new people | I’ve been interviewing people for a side project I’m working on, so this one was pretty easy. I’ve loved having an excuse to reach out to people and learn more about their lives and careers. | | 🟡 | October | Call ten different friends | I ended up having calls with 5 old friends over the course of the month. Scheduling is honestly the hardest part. Wish I had done better. | | 🔴 | November | Walk 10k steps every day | Total fail. I was traveling for three weeks and spent one of those weeks living on a boat. Also when I got back to SF there were crazy wildfires so the air outside was poison. Did not plan this well. | | 🟡 | December | Volunteer 1x/week | Did this twice but then failed to keep it up when the holidays kicked into gear. |