Daily journaling, −2 points, consistently for stints of a month or so with large gaps. I tried to keep up a morning journaling practice of gratitude journaling, priming myself on a number of important meta-level questions, and keeping track of what I was planning to do that day in pursuit of my high-level goals. In the end, all this really did was take up a lot of time every morning and leave me with a sort of scattered and unsatisfied mentality about how there’s so much to do.
Monthly journaling, +7 points, pretty consistently for 3 years. At the start of each month I open up a new Evernote document and write in it whenever I feel like it. Some of my journal entries are ten thousand word essays. Some of them are just aggregations of links that I thought were interesting that month. Usually the entries are divided by topic, with some of the topics usually being physical health, mental/”spiritual” development, and progress on long-term projects or life events. At the end of each month, I share the journal entry with a handful of very close friends. The journal provides a nice long-term record of my thought processes regarding my life and my projects, it’s really nice to be able to look back over it, and it never at any time feels like a chore. It keeps me focused and excited about my long-term projects because I like to have progress that I can write about and share with my friends.
Beeminder, +3 points, off and on for over 3 years. That point score might drop lower if I fully accounted for all the time I put into thinking through Beeminder goals, and for all the money I’ve lost by failing at them. Some Beeminder goals turn out to be good, some turn out to just make you hate Beeminder and not do what you wanted to do anyway. Just making sure your goals are SMART goals does not seem to be an adequate criterion.
Getting Things Done, +1 points, off and on for over 4 years. A system which sucks up a large amount of time and rarely provides a return on that investment, relative to just mentally keeping track of things. I can’t really say that I drop the ball more frequently when I’m not actively using GTD.
Meditation, +3 points, off and on for 3 years. The utility of meditation depends very much on what’s going on in my life.
Exercise, +4 points, random stints. While I’m consistently working out, my energy and emotional-endocrine-whatever balance seems much better and I get more done. I’m just in a better mood overall.
Children, +10 points, 4.5 years. You can’t really not do things when you have children. That “I’ll do it later” voice just kind of shrivels up and dies eventually, at least regarding kid-related stuff.
Following obsession energy, +10 points, 3 years. I’ve written a book and an iPhone app just by noticing that I was really excited about those projects and feeding those obsessions, riding those waves until they ran out. They always run out eventually, but I accomplish so much more for having let just let myself loose and not trying to constrain myself to working on what I “should” be working on.
I like the sound of the monthly journalling thing—normally I see reviewing included in these things as some kind of virtuous-but-dull thing people make themselves sit down to do at the end of the week or whatever, and it sounds so unappealing I can never be bothered to even try it. Your version sounds pretty enjoyable.
In that case, I’ll add the detail that I use a Blogger blog and grant specific permissions to my friends, and then email them letting them know when a new entry is posted. I also always try to post “discussion questions” at the end of my entries, where I prompt them for feedback on whatever it was I was thinking about that month. This greatly increases the odds that they actually post comments and then we can have a discussion. It’s much more fun when there’s two-way communication.
Daily journaling, −2 points, consistently for stints of a month or so with large gaps. I tried to keep up a morning journaling practice of gratitude journaling, priming myself on a number of important meta-level questions, and keeping track of what I was planning to do that day in pursuit of my high-level goals. In the end, all this really did was take up a lot of time every morning and leave me with a sort of scattered and unsatisfied mentality about how there’s so much to do.
Monthly journaling, +7 points, pretty consistently for 3 years. At the start of each month I open up a new Evernote document and write in it whenever I feel like it. Some of my journal entries are ten thousand word essays. Some of them are just aggregations of links that I thought were interesting that month. Usually the entries are divided by topic, with some of the topics usually being physical health, mental/”spiritual” development, and progress on long-term projects or life events. At the end of each month, I share the journal entry with a handful of very close friends. The journal provides a nice long-term record of my thought processes regarding my life and my projects, it’s really nice to be able to look back over it, and it never at any time feels like a chore. It keeps me focused and excited about my long-term projects because I like to have progress that I can write about and share with my friends.
Beeminder, +3 points, off and on for over 3 years. That point score might drop lower if I fully accounted for all the time I put into thinking through Beeminder goals, and for all the money I’ve lost by failing at them. Some Beeminder goals turn out to be good, some turn out to just make you hate Beeminder and not do what you wanted to do anyway. Just making sure your goals are SMART goals does not seem to be an adequate criterion.
Getting Things Done, +1 points, off and on for over 4 years. A system which sucks up a large amount of time and rarely provides a return on that investment, relative to just mentally keeping track of things. I can’t really say that I drop the ball more frequently when I’m not actively using GTD.
Meditation, +3 points, off and on for 3 years. The utility of meditation depends very much on what’s going on in my life.
Exercise, +4 points, random stints. While I’m consistently working out, my energy and emotional-endocrine-whatever balance seems much better and I get more done. I’m just in a better mood overall.
Children, +10 points, 4.5 years. You can’t really not do things when you have children. That “I’ll do it later” voice just kind of shrivels up and dies eventually, at least regarding kid-related stuff.
Following obsession energy, +10 points, 3 years. I’ve written a book and an iPhone app just by noticing that I was really excited about those projects and feeding those obsessions, riding those waves until they ran out. They always run out eventually, but I accomplish so much more for having let just let myself loose and not trying to constrain myself to working on what I “should” be working on.
I like the sound of the monthly journalling thing—normally I see reviewing included in these things as some kind of virtuous-but-dull thing people make themselves sit down to do at the end of the week or whatever, and it sounds so unappealing I can never be bothered to even try it. Your version sounds pretty enjoyable.
In that case, I’ll add the detail that I use a Blogger blog and grant specific permissions to my friends, and then email them letting them know when a new entry is posted. I also always try to post “discussion questions” at the end of my entries, where I prompt them for feedback on whatever it was I was thinking about that month. This greatly increases the odds that they actually post comments and then we can have a discussion. It’s much more fun when there’s two-way communication.