The Plan: month one

1. Health

• eat breakfast
  

This has been easy.

• bring my lunch from home

I've been doing this almost every day, too (except when we get free lunches, or I leave my nicely made lunch sitting on the counter at home...).

• cook dinner

I have been using real vegetables! Cooking once or twice a week makes enough food to have leftovers the other nights, so this hasn't been too hard, either.

• eat when I'm hungry, not just bored/sad

I've still been eating way too much sugary junk, even when I'm not actually hungry. Mainly when I'm procrastinating... Luckily, no food is allowed in lab, or I'd be snacking a lot more.

• go to bed before midnight
  

I've been getting better at this.

• go to the gym

This one is going well. The gold stars are definitely helping, but it's also a nice, concrete goal.

• get up at 7.10

I've been good about this on weekdays, but I still can't convince myself to get up that early on a weekend, when I don't really have a reason. I've tried planning to go grocery shopping or do laundry or even just read before going to the gym, but sleep always seems like a wiser choice. I think I'm okay with that, as long as I go to the gym at 9-ish.

I did make an appointment to get a physical, too, but it's not until March.

2. Professional
I wrote this update over a week ago, when I should have been working, so that should give you an idea of how well this section is going...

• stage 1: finish optimising the assay conditions, repeat the big set of experiments, analyse data

I'm mostly done optimising the conditions. I think my advisor has come up with yet another new plan that doesn't involve this big set of experiments, though. Or maybe the old plan is better after all... Either way, I need to keep working on it as if it is going ahead.

• stage 2: make/find the new reagents I need, use them

Not going so well. I need to find my list of reagents I want and clean it up so I can start looking for them.

• stage 3: in vivo stuff (not yet)
  
• side project 1: help SuperPostDoc (and hopefully get my name on that paper, too)

The oligos are annealed, but now they're sitting there while I try to figure out what to do with the vector.

• side project 2: help Swedish PostDoc figure out assay conditions for his experiments, and get him to help me figure out conditions for mine

The figuring out assay conditions part was pretty easy, actually. I need to do some cloning with the stuff for SuperPostDoc before we can go on to the next step, though.

• reading: read table of contents every week and set up pubmed alerts

Ha! I haven't read anything... Must start that, too. I did set up the pubmed alerts today, at least.

• get to lab before 10am every day
  

Not going so well, either. I can get up and go to the gym and have breakfast fairly efficiently, but then I still find it hard to actually get out of the house...

• work in 30 min blocks

This works reasonably well, when I actually stick to it. Maybe I should start carrying around a timer. I still find myself taking at least a 30 minute break for every block I work, which isn't so good.

• write in my lab book when I do experiments

I did this a few times... I should get up to date. You'd think I'd have learnt from the last experiment where I forgot to write down what order my plates were in and had to spend hours trying to figure it out, but apparently not... I did start catching up again, today.

3. Social

• social phobia program

I emailed to ask if I could do the screening in person and they said there was no need because it only takes a few minutes... Am I the only social phobic who can't talk on the phone?
I finally called today and it wasn't so terrible. They have a 2 month wait for an initial evaluation, though, and then probably a longer wait after that before a group will actually run. They make you wait until medications have been stable for at least 3 months, too, and I'm supposed to increase the Celexa dosage now, so I might not be able to do it anyway. I'm not sure I want to, because it sounds scary, so maybe waiting a few months is a good idea. They did say they could refer me to someone else who does CBT if I didn't want to wait that long. I wonder if that would be more helpful than the current therapist.
I just emailed the scary psychiatrist last night, too, to ask if I really should increase the dosage, since I haven't been feeling depressed and I didn't really get what it was supposed to be helping with. He still thinks I should, so I guess I should go pick up the new prescription today. I keep forgetting to take it, though...
I've also been ignoring an email from the procrastination group leader because she asked me to write a letter to little-kid-Lucy, which kind of seemed pointless. I guess I should email her back.

• email friends once a fortnight
• see friends here once a month

Hasn't happened. I'm still avoiding non-housemates mostly... I have seen a couple of bloggers, though, which is always good.

• don't hide in my room

I have been seeing a lot more of my housemates. I even watched a dvd in a communal area instead of in my room on my laptop! Going to the gym has helped with this, because it gets me out of my room in the morning and then I've been using my laptop in the dining room, instead of in bed.

• chores
• eat lunch with labmates

Not so good... It doesn't help that my lab is split between two different buildings now, so it's less likely that people are all around at lunch.

4. Family

• call home once a week
• email once a fortnight
  

Well, I called last week and Mum called this week right before I was going to.

5. Being Selfish

• volunteer
• donate platelets
  

I donated platelets this week.

6. Other

• piano
• mittens
• project 365

Mittens are done! And Project 365 is ongoing. I did play the piano once, right after I wrote The Plan, but that's it. I'm going to a new knitting workshop to knit a DNA scarf soon.

I'd also like to sort out all my photos from the last several trips I've taken.

So far, the health section is going pretty well, but it also seems like the easiest. The lab section doesn't look so good, but I have been a lot better than I was (I did way more hours of work in January than in November and December combined, and part of December was already an improvement from the rest of the year). I'm still feeling incompetent and easily distracted from thinking about work and very reluctant to actually start. I know the only way to get around that is to actually do some work and prove that I can, but I'm still finding that hard.
I've managed to stop hiding for the most part, but I haven't done anything about actively socialising. I'm feeling guilty for not emailing people at home (friends and family), so I keep ignoring their emails. I know that's not helping. If I could get started and clear out those old emails maybe I would be better at continuing.
I didn't do anything about volunteering, because I don't want to commit to anything before I know I'll actually be able to keep it up. Maybe I'll look into the possibilities, though.

I think The Plan for next month can stay mostly the same. I really want to get more done in lab and do better with keeping in touch with friends and family. I didn't really think specifically about the plan too much during the month. I'm still working on getting a GTD system set up that involves reviewing projects weekly. I think that would help with this stuff, as well as work things.
For now, I'm fairly happy with The Plan. And the fact that my enthusiasm for it has lasted a whole month! (I'm a bit early, but close enough)