The Plan: month 8 (I think)

I know you don't care about The Plan (and it's not like I've built up any readerly goodwill by posting other things you might be interested in, I'm sorry. One more person can still comment on the last post and I'll send you a present, though!). I just played 3 games of 5-minute Scrabble instead of doing any work, though (at least I won), so I need some help to get back on track. I've even lost track of what month I'm on... I did finally get a whole month's worth of stars after losing momentum last month. It was a struggle, though. I was away on Sunday and should've started the new set of stars yesterday, but I gave up before I even started and checked email and blogs before doing any work. It's too late for today as well, but maybe setting out my goals will help me make something of the day, anyway.

1. Health


That doesn't look as bad as I was expecting. I did keep my room tidy for most of the month. I think I need to work on getting more sleep and eating better, despite how often the graph says I ate real meals. I know I keep saying this... Maybe I should make the stars conditional on something like that. I'm scared to, though, because I don't really think I can do it.

2. Lab


I forgot about the personal olympics thing, but I did enough to get a silver medal, anyway! I didn't realise I was doing so well (everything except writing in my lab book went up; even getting to lab by 10am) because it felt like such a struggle. What was really killing me was reading for an hour, but that was only because I kept putting it off until late at night. I think I'm going to keep the same plan (2.5 hours of work, 1 hour of reading) but make it a condition that I have to finish by 10pm. I need to focus on the specific things I keep forgetting about until I write these posts, too...

* stage 1: finish optimising the assay conditions, repeat the big set of experiments, analyse
I'm back working on figuring out assay conditions, but I have some data to analyse once I'm finished with this post that might help.

* stage 2: make/find the new reagents I need, use them
I need to pick the most important ones to make now. (I didn't do anything on that last month, but I still need to)

* stage 3: in vivo stuff.
I can actually try this now! Or almost, anyway. I should start this month, anyway. (likewise, I didn't need to change that from last time...)

3. Social
The book club I've been going to has been fun. The social anxiety group therapy is ongoing still (I have another post to write about that). I've done some fun things this month with people. The housemate I went to see the Wolves in the Walls with was teasing me about staying in my room all the time, though, so I guess I still need to work on that. I have been doing the crossword with my housemates, though.

I feel better about how I'm going after writing this out. I still haven't figured out any rewards for this, but maybe I should now.