The Plan: month six

I got off to a good start this morning, but I've slowed down this evening... Maybe writing out my new plans will help.

1. Health



The "real dinner" line jumped way back up, mainly because I started counting meals eaten out, since at least I ate a meal instead of filling up on junk food. This week, I cut up a bunch of stuff for salads for lunches and cooked enough vaguely-moroccan stew-thing to last all week. The veges in the farm share are more appealing now, too (yay, corn!), so I'm hoping to use some more of them. I did more tidying than in previous months, but I'm not sure that translated to my room actually being pleasantly uncluttered. So, not a good month, really.
I said I was going to start using the weights at the gym. I don't think I can claim success on that one, since I've only done that once. It took me all month to work up the courage to even venture into the weights area, but now that I've realised there's a slightly less scary circuit, I'll hopefully use it more often. I just noticed there's some kind of strength class on Friday mornings so I'm going to try to go to that, too. I was thinking I might need a personal trainer to overcome my fear of the weights room and, while that didn't turn out to be true, I'm still considering it. I can go around using the machines, but I still feel like I don't know what I'm doing. Of course, I'm also scared of having a trainer see how pathetic I am...
I got up early this morning and, while it was very tempting to go back to bed after my alarm went off (it's on the other side of the room, in an attempt to force me to wake up), it was very nice to have a bunch of ticks on my joe's goals page before 10am.

2. Professional



Last month's super-high point for time worked was an aberration, but this month wasn't so bad, especially considering it wasn't a whole month. I'm trying something ambitious this month: adding another whole hour a day of reading (since my "papers to read" bookmark folder (which I just resorted to after firefox started running slow, with the 50 million papers open in tabs) just keeps growing). And I'm aiming for a total of 20 hours of work a week, which is another 2.5 hours spread out over the week. That still seems pathetic, especially after reading all the discussion about whether or not academic work can be confined to a 9-5 job, but it'll be a big jump from 12.5. In aid of this goal, I'm going to try to limit non-work internet use to 2 hours before either 6pm, or I've done 3.5 hours of work, whichever comes later.

* stage 1: finish optimising the assay conditions, repeat the big set of experiments, analyse
I figured out a way of analysing my data that I think makes sense, although it doesn't give me graphs quite this pretty... I'm waiting for new reagents so I can test whether it will work again. I'm back to being aimless in terms of knowing what to do next. I thought I could just go ahead with the rest of the big set of experiments, but now my advisor is asking if I want to do various other things instead. Argh. This is why I need to read more, though.

* stage 2: make/find the new reagents I need, use them
I need to read more for this, too. And then actually do something with my list that's been sitting around for months.

* stage 3: in vivo stuff.
I did set up an experiment with this stuff last week, but then I killed my cells... I just set it up again today. Remind me not to add antibiotics this time.

3. Social
I've been doing better at emailing people, although still not as much as at the start of the year. I have been more sociable, I think, but I've also kind of been hiding from my housemates a bit. I missed out on a couple of fun things they were doing because I just haven't been around, or joined in their conversation properly. I'll try to work on that.
I'm not sure what else to do...

5. Being Selfish
I gave blood! It was so quick and easy compared to trying to donate platelets.
I'm not sure what else to do. I'm still contemplating the idea of tutoring, but maybe I really am too selfish and/or scared.

6. Other
Maybe I should drop this category, too... Or come up with a goal. Oh, I should really get back to taking photos for project 365, I guess. And post my backlog...

I've been reading about various productivity and goal-setting systems at Reinhard Engels' Everyday Systems. I'd come across his shovelglove exercise routine before, but what caught my eye this time was the Personal Olympics. I'm setting the minimum blocks of work to satisfy my star goals (176) as a bronze medal. 198 is worth silver and 220 is gold. 176 is above even last months high score, but I think I can do it, besides any medal should be a stretch, I think.
I'm also thinking of trying his No-S diet (no sugar, snacks or sweets, except on days starting with S), because the no-sugar thing did work well for a while; it was only after I gave up on it that I started eating far too much rubbish. Getting to eat sweet things on weekends and special days might be enough to make it sustainable.

Okay, I only have to read for 53 more minutes to get my star for today, so I'm going back to it.