The Plan: month one 2008

Health
I exercised 291 days last year! That's 291 more than the year before. I don't have that much room to improve this year, but I'd like to get closer to 365.
I've been wondering if I should push myself to work harder while exercising, because I have been doing pretty much the same thing all year. I think I might sign up for a session or two with a personal trainer because I still haven't felt confident enough to use the weights and I've been thinking about it most of the year.

The main thing I still need to work on is eating better. The holidays was not a good time to start a food-based goal. Now, though, I will definitely stick to my 5 fruits and vegetables a day, plus an extra one, if I eat 2 snacks, instead of 1 (but no more!).

I'd also like to get more sleep. I feel a lot better and everything is easier if I don't stay up too late. I'm going to try to go to sleep by midnight, or possibly 11pm, on weeknights.

Lab
I did 1244 blocks of 30 minutes work/reading last year. I'm not going to convert that into hours per week, because then I will feel pathetic. I'm sure it's a big improvement over the year before, at least. It does seem pretty ridiculous to only be doing 3.5 hours of work a day, even if it is an improvement, so I'd like to get up to a proper work day soon. I think I might take a different approach. I'm going to leave the house by 9.30am every day, and leave lab at 6.30pm (unless I'm busy working) and within that time I get no more than 3 hours of internet. That leaves ~5 hours for actual work. I can probably waste a fair bit of that on lunch and/or chatting with SuperGradStudent (who turns out to be kind of a slacker, too) so this might not be very different from what I've been doing. I can work on reducing the amount of internet later.

As for what I need to work on, I pretty much ignored my stated goals all year. Focussing on how much time I spent working meant I did things to fill in that time, rather than working towards completing my projects. That has to change. I have three main areas I need to work on, so the new rule is I have to do something every day to move all three of them forward, even if it's just planning or reading. Hopefully, thinking about the actual goal every day will help me make progress. I bought a new little notebook, in which I will make a list at the end of every day of what the next actions are for the following day.

It's kind of hard to list specific goals while being cryptic, so I'll just list the three main areas:

• gene X in vitro
• gene X in vivo
• gene set

I will definitely have something publishable on gene X this year and I'd like to publish the gene set, too. I have to remember that every day.

Social
I didn't make so much progress here. I tried the group therapy program, but I don't think it made a real difference. I did do some things with friends, but I'd like to do more. I need to spend less time in my room. I think I said in the enormous meme that I don't feel like I'm hiding so much anymore, but I'm still sitting in my room a lot, mainly because it's easy, and cosy, to just grab my laptop while I'm in bed. I'm going to try to at least take my laptop into a communal room, so that I talk to my housemates more.

I'm going to try again to organise dinner with people in my program. Now that I don't have group therapy on Wednesdays, I can go to the knitting group. I'm going to set up calendar reminders to email people at home more often, too.

Family
This dropped off The Plan last year because I didn't know what to do. I've hardly talked to my dad or my brothers in the last few months, though, and I'd like to do something about that. I'll set up reminders to email them more, too.

Unselfish
Another category that disappeared. I still like the idea of doing something to help people, but I'm still feeling wary of trying to do too much and like I should be concentrating on my work, since I'm still not doing enough of that. One of the tutoring places I looked at asked for a reference from your employer and I was worried that if I asked my advisor, he'd think I should be doing more work in lab before thinking of anything else. I guess I'll try to do more work then think about it again. In the meantime, I'll set up reminders to give blood more regularly.

I added entries in my Joe's goals page for more general things like practising piano and keeping my room tidy. I have done better about being tidy when I'm trying not to break a chain of days when I got ticks for it, but then once I miss a day it's easy not to restart. I think I need a reward for getting so many points, but I never did come up with anything to use as a reward. Maybe I'll try the personal olympics thing again, though. I'll aim for 800 points for bronze, 900 for silver and 1000 for gold.

I like the idea several people have posted about of having a theme for the year, but I think I need much more structure and specificity than that to get anything done.