green eggs

Hey, parent Do you carry your notebook with you? If you don't like your handwriting, you could always try keeping notes electronically. Or use a big fat fountain pen. Most handwriting looks good that way

You did? Hey, fantastic Hi mom! (Pops? ) I did mostly good: - call someone, yup. Monday Gely and yesterday my niece - compliments: getting there... Mon I made some encouraging noises towards fellow strummers at our guitar practice session, and yesterday I complimented out IT guys on some solid project work - writing: yup - no social media before 9:30. Mon was OK, but fail yesterday and this morning. This one may be overly ambitious. How are your own goals going?

I wish my company would provide Danish pastries! On the other hand, I'd probably eat too many of them too... Sounds like you have some solid goals. How are you going to go about the forgiveness thing? The othe goals all seem very concrete to me, but I'm missing specifics here.

Great link, Eirlys, and a good reminder that compliments don't have to be huge and over-the-top. I got started on editing this morning by starting to retread my first draft and making notes. Yesterday I did some research on how to edit a novel and that seems to be a good first step (after "let it lie for a while - but I think seven years covers that ). So my an is to read through steadily without getting stuck into rewriting immediately, make notes on stuff that needs doing/research/thinking about, and then take things forward from there. This morning, for instance, I noted that I need to make decisions about my timeline, sketch out a more detailed backhround to the history and how the world works, and find out something about guns..,

Thanks, Nusuth, I'm sure there'll be both ups and downs

Thanks, Eve. I set daily goals on purpose because then it's easier to remember to do them. I'm just using a simple points system. I'll always take 80% as success. That gives me some leeway for days off, but not too often. I just discovered Lift as an app for tracking goals, so will be trying that out too.

Hi Eirlys! Yes, fiction. For a few years I did nanowrimo every year (some more successfully than others), so I have a virtual drawer of first drafts and unfinished manuscripts, many of which have a thriller or mystery aspect. My intent is to take a particular story where I actually got to "the end", and start editing. I'm thinking that might be a gentler re-start than having to come up with a whole new story. Put who knows what might happen if my muse overcomes me

Something I just read on the subject of happiness and positivity: http://m.theweek.com/article/index/271200/what-can-your-iphone-teach-you-about-happiness And there's a lot more where that came from in the various links in the article.

Curious as to how you're going about this one (because I'm admittedly highly sceptical in this regard but also ridiculously short-sighted (or "schassaugert" as the Austrians charmingly put it)). Please do post more.

Oh, I get it. I've been reading around on the subject over the last couple of years. One thing that seems to work is not to dwell on the negative. Not in the sense of ignoring the bad stuff, but to quit bashing myself over the head with it, quit analysing it (which usually means trying to blame myself), and try to reframe things in a positive light if at all possible, looking for the silver lining. I've found that just keeping a simple list of things I'm grateful for each night helps a whole bunch in that respect, and slowly slowly I can see my responses to certain things changing. It's not always easy, but it's worth it!

I want to keep the goals from the last challenge as daily habits (lets assume I do them). That means 3x weekly yoga, almost daily J-exercises, daily work post-it, fewer carbs, and a daily evening routine which includes gratefulness exercises and putting stuff in place to make my mornings no-brainers. But I also continue on my goal towards a happy, active retirement. That's a long way off, of course, but I want to lay the groundwork now, and there are a bunch of studies out there which show that stuff like getting healthy (hence yoga and diet: check) is one part of it, but also that seniors with wider circles of friends and greater community support do better. Hence I want to try and improve on that part of my life, since I'm a natural introvert with a relatively small circle of friends I need to take care of. And goal 4 is about getting back to creativity, because keeping an active mind is another part of staying healthy, active and happy longer. So.... Communication: Goal 1) call *someone* everyday. This is working towards improving my communication in friendships. Over the last few years I've become telephone shy, though I can remember back to a time a few years ago where I could talk to certain friends on the phone for hours at a time. Also, I need to get better at keeping in touch with people - some friendships just seem to slide. So, call *someone* everyday, and log who. That's going to cost me some serious willpower, trust me. Goal 2) make at least one complement daily. Along similar lines. Could be a stranger, friend or work colleague, but work towards being more (genuinetly) positive with people. Also, log the complement for future reference (and scoring purposes). Goal 3) Social meida abstinence before 9.30am and after 10pm. It's distracting, and it stops me communicating with people in person. This basically means e-mail, facebook and online dating sites. And yes, I'm including work e-mail in that with the idea of trying to get something significant done in the morning. Creativity: Goal 4) Writing every morning before work. Could be taking notes, editing or working on an actual story. I want to start writing again, and since it's November and therefore Nanowrimo, this seems appropriate. So, use some of that social-media-free time in the morning (before work) to do some writing or editing. On an aside, guitar practice needs to become a habit, but I worry that adding that as a goal here will be too much, so I came up with the genius thing of adding the following to my evening routine: Put the guitar on the sofa. Then if I want to sit down at lunchtime (which I often do after lunch), I have to physically move the guitar to do so, and it might at least inspire me to do a few minutes.

Hahahaha I love it. Cheer the f up. Yup, I can jump on that bandwagon. That's part of where I'm going too. Good luck!

Wow, that's a lot to be getting on with Eirlys. Good luck! There'll be a positivity aspect to my challenge too. I've been doing the "note at least three things I'm grateful for" thing most days for a good long while now, and it's a very positive thing. Hope you have as much joy with it as I do. It's very rare that I can't come up with three - sometimes I even come up with ten in a single day!.

Your subject line made me smile Welcome!

Wow, we get a *palace*. How cool is that!

I reported out in my thread, but in summary: I had some great weeks, some OK weeks and some I-totally-fell-off-the-wagon weeks because of travelling and the stress surrounding preparing for travelling / getting back to normal. Actually, even in those weeks I did "better" than I would have done if I hadn't had challenge goals to guide me. Now I need a new challenge because there's some goals I'm chomping at the bit to get started on. I want to keep the goals from the last challenge as daily habits (lets assume I do them), i.e. yoga/j-exercises, daily work post-it, carbs, and evening routine. Most of what I need to add is to do with "lifestyle" stuff rather than exercise or diet. I'm assuming nobody's going to kick me in the ass for that Some of the stuff I'm thinking of: Bettering my communication in friendships. Over the last few years I've become telephone shy, though I can remember back to a time a few years ago where I could talk to certain friends on the phone for hours at a time. Also, I need to get better at keeping in touch with people - some friendships just seem to slide. So, call *someone* everyday. That's going to cost me some serious willpower, trust me.Similarly, try to pass out at least one compliment every day. I need to be more positive with people...Social meida abstinence before 9.30am and after 10pm. That basically means e-mail, facebook and online dating sites. And yes, I'm including work e-mail in that with the idea of trying to get something significant done in the morning.I want to start writing again, and since it's November (tomorrow!) and therefore Nanowrimo, this seems appropriate. Here, I'm thinking 1) carry a notebook, and 2) use some of that social-media-free time in the morning (before work) to do some writing or editing. Since I'm not feeling horrendously creative, probably more editing / working on stuff that already exists. I'd like to get back into a groove I had once with writing, but it's been a good few years.Also: guitar practice needs to become a habit, but I worry that adding that as a goal here will be too much, so yesterday I came up with the genius thing of adding the following to my evening routine: Put the guitar on the sofa. Then if I want to sit down at lunchtime (which I often do after lunch), I have to physically move the guitar to do so, and it might at least inspire me to do a few minutes. So, anyone else revving up to go on the next challenge, or with similar stuff they want to do / consider?

Hi Gypsy. Sounds good to be concentrating on the really important stuff. You might find that after your body has gotten used to the changed time schedule you can get away with a little less sleep and can push bedtime back half an hour.

You made great progress. I really like that you wrote down the expected vs actual time it took to do stuff. That's a handy reminder for the future. Most of this stuff takes less time than we think it's going to Well done!

"I need to lighten up and remember that I should be enjoying this! " I could have written that Glad you're recovering, and it sounds like you managed to get something positive out of the challenge on the sleep front. And you also learned to take care if you first through stress, which is always a good thing. Good job!

Hey folks. Well, everything pretty much just went out of the window in Pittsburgh. I guess I didn't wander as far off the road as I might have if I hadn't been doing the challenge, but it has been mighty tempting to beat myself up about some stuff over the last few days. I'm trying to concentrate on the "hey, I got some of this stuff done despite being overworked, jetlagged, and tired" part, but my brain is a very self-critical place. So what happened? I flew out Saturday, did pretty well eating on the plane, considering (I had the luxury of flying business class, and this particular airline has a very good food service for business, which gives you a lot of flexibility).... OK, I'm going to try and keep a long story short and look at my goals one by one. No need to go over the minutae J-exercises: I did these once Yoga: Ditto, once. Essentially I was just too tired in the morning to get these done (I was working late several nights after meetngs to get stuff ready for the meeting the next day). Carbs: I ate dessert a couple of times at dinner, and I also ate breakfast potatoes every morning. However, since I had a very large breakfast each day, I mostly skipped lunch and just had an apple/banana and some nuts. That went pretty well. Also since being back at home this weekend I have had a couple of sweet treats. Was round at a friend's on Saturday evening, and managed to turn down the pasta he'd cooked. So, all in all I guess I managed to stay in the spirit of this better than if I hadn't been doing this challenge. Work post-it: out of the window because not a typical work week. Did try to make some notes of stuff to do, but not quite the same way because the dynamics of the week were so different than usual. But then, I wasn't really expecting to get this one done Evening routine: hard to say because so different. I guess in retrospect I did get quite a bit of this done. Certainly wasn't rushing around looking for stuff most mornings. So in this in-between week I'm back on the bandwagon with the goals from this challenge, just trying to get back into the flow again before the next challenge starts and I add a bunch of new goals. I'm not scoring this week, that doesn't seem fair given the circumstances, but I don't think I did too badly, all things considered.

OOOOwWWW!!! That sounds really evil, and I'm sorry you're in so much pain. Get better soon!

Well done on the yoga front and getting started on the financial front. Always a huge challenge. Have you tried moving some of the lower priority "to-do" stuff to a separate "later" and/or "maybe" list? That way it won't be forgotten but your to-do list will be less overwhelming.

Hi Gypsy, and thanks for the compliments. It's only taken me the best part of a decade to get this far It's totally coincidence that so much travel is happening during this challenge. I get maybe five business trips a year, so two during the same challenge (Florence and Pittsburgh) is a lot. Prague was a trip with a friend - I've been trying to expand my travel horizons to cross some places off my list. I have a goal to visit all the countries that border on Austria. Lemme see, that's.... Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Slovenia, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Lichtenstein. Just Lichtenstein left to go. Maybe next summer I've just come back from a work evening event where there was another three course set menu. This is becoming a pattern. Guess I need to develop an If, Then rule for this kind of situation. So... if I get into the set menu situation I will eat the food provided enough to be polite and sated but not any extraneous offerings (bread!!), and not stuff myself silly. And it will not affect my other food plans for the day (except skipping a meal in compensation is OK if - and only if - my mood and blood sugar can cope.

Sounds like you're making good progress. I don't envy you that digitisation project. I did it several years ago, and it was a LOT of work. Well done.

Hey Waanie. Sounds like you're making progress on your climbing, and you're taking good care of yourself. I never thought of a jigsaw as a way to calm down. Always thought it was the last resort of the chronically bored but now I think I get it. I read novels, and some people do jigsaws. Hmmmmm, might be an idea there now I think of them that way... (and maybe it would give me an excuse to clear an actual surface to do the puzzle on).