juliebarkley

For this challenge I will continue my previous challenge. I got a bit of a late start, so a short mini-challenge is just a perfect opportunity to get the most out of it. Here are the seeds I've planted in my garden so far: After I fold and put away my scarf, I will take my dirty clothes to the laundry room, then I will celebrate by doing a big victory sign. After I decide to go to bed, I will pick one important task for the following day and highlight it, then I will celebrate by whispering "I got this". After I get out of my chair at home, I will do two pushups, then I will celebrate by doing a fist pump. After I get up to eat supper, I will choose a book to read and bring it with me, then I will celebrate by hugging it to my chest. After I put my clothes in the laundry basket, I will knock on my son's door, then I will celebrate by smiling big. Here are my new additions: After my son goes to bed, I will select an audition, then I will give myself a tiny clap. After I do my Duolingo, I will read one person's challenge, then I will imagine that person smiling. And I still have ideas for more. The little plants fill my garden in one of three ways: they grow, they spread, or they multiply. The laundry, important task, and reading have grown - more reading happens, more tasks get done, or more laundry gets folded. The laundry has also spread - it became the anchor for a new habit, like a runner planting a new tiny plant. The pushups may grow, but I can feel that they will also multiply, inspiring new habits that are not directly related but have a similar goal. Happy challenge!

Like so many things, it's hard to find the right time and balance. I'm still trying to figure out what works best, but step one is actually showing up. I got a little wrapped up in my important tasks of present research and purchase over the weekend. It's been a weird couple of days. But the habits have held, I still have the list, and it looks like the next challenge is a shorter than average one - perfect to roll over into. So I shall do that tomorrow. Later my friends!

Yeah, didn't manage to visit a single one other than my own, friend. Not a lot of report. Mostly just ticking along. Hope everyone is having a lovely Thanksgiving weekend!

Thanks. How did people manage when things were busier here? I know I did better a few years ago, even though there's less to go through now. Maybe it's like when you hear retired people talk about how busy they are, and how they can't figure out how they ever had time for a job. I shall try! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All right, time for a new seed. After my son goes to bed, I will select an audition, then I will give myself a tiny clap.

Thanks! It's nice to know I'm not alone in this. This is true! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Still haven't looked to expand on my present seeds, but they are working really well and I'm happy with them. I have spontaneously done extra laundry folding when taking down laundry, extra pushups, and extra tasks though, which I believe is how this is supposed to work.

Need to bear in mind the "people change by feeling good, not by feeling bad" bit of advice. Also, just realizing how close we are to the end of this challenge, I will be carrying this one forward. And hopefully dropping in on at least one person's challenge next time. Can't believe I haven't even glanced at the ones from this round yet. Definitely a thing to look to habitify, because I value you all and want to offer support and presence.

Today was the first day I did not progress on my important task. Nothing else new to report.

That's how it's supposed to go. You have to go in with the spirit of experimentation. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I have not done any thinking about new habits, or much of anything else. I've been sick for the last two days. I feel like it's finally turning though.

Okay, here's where the habits stand: After I fold and put away my scarf, I will take my dirty clothes to the laundry room, then I will celebrate by doing a big victory sign. This one is working great, and feels like a really solid and natural trigger. And it means I've been folding my scarves and not just throwing them in the corner too! No changes. After I decide to go to bed, I will pick one important task for the following day and highlight it, then I will celebrate by thinking "I got this". This one is also working great. No changes. After I get out of my chair at home, I will do two pushups, then I will celebrate by doing a fist pump. I forget occasionally, but there are a lot of pushups being done. I think it is good as well. After I get back from my walk, I will open a book (instead of the computer), then I will celebrate by pausing and taking a deep breath. This one is less good. I thought that after being out in the cold, the transition to cozy would feel nice and natural, but it has not been so. Instead, I'm finding that my natural reading time is during and/or after supper. So, a change: After I get up to eat supper, I will choose a book to read and bring it with me, then I will celebrate by looking at it, pausing to anticipate, and taking a deep breath. After I hear my son get home, I will go say hello, then I will celebrate by smiling big. This one is not working at all. First, my son often gets home before me. Second, I don't always hear him. Third, he's been driving me home so that he can practice, so I see him at different times than usual. The natural time to take a moment to connect with him is actually after the laundry habit, because the laundry room is across the hall from his bedroom, where he hangs out. So, another change. After I put my clothes in the laundry basket, I will knock on my son's door, then I will celebrate by smiling big. I think I have room for 1-2 new habits, so I shall have a think about those tomorrow.

Thanks! It really works. Heh. I am not actually planning to be a nun; I think it was the play on the word "habit" that got us there. 😅 They are helping though! Both in breaking inertia and in creating a feeling of success. Then, once solid, they can be built upon. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Son didn't go to school, so that habit didn't trigger. And I didn't go to work (or anywhere else), so the scarf habit didn't either. But pushups did, and opening my book (though I almost forgot!), and picking my task will happen anon. I've got my important task done three days in a row! Pushups happen multiple times throughout the day, so it is already feeling pretty solid. The others have been more sporadic, so I'm going to give them a little more time to pass into muscle memory before adding more seeds. I might tweak a couple of the existing ones though, thinking about it. More tomorrow.

You're right of course. I like the celebrations too. The author didn't say so, but it made me think of when I have trained the cats to do things - you want something that signals that they've done good and makes them feel good immediately. That's what these do for me. It makes perfect sense - you're training yourself to do something, after all. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I've been sick today, so some of the triggers didn't happen (I didn't go for a walk, and my son didn't go to school), but I did the ones that did trigger. I learned that when you are sick, you can reduce the difficulty of pushups while keeping the habit by doing them as wall pushups.

All of my habits (except the before bed one; that will happen soon) triggered today successfully. My arms are achy from the pushups. Had a conversation on how to fit another habit I've struggled with into my routine, and have an idea to try. And I got my important task done, which I had procrastinated on for months. Sure, some of this is bound to be that early wave of motivation excitement. But it's been a really successful day, and I'm really happy right now.

It is! And given how absent I've been, I'm going to have to roll it over, I think. You have to get your in with the nuns by age 45. And you need them to "approve" of you several times before that, so you'd need a little time to work them. (It's all just a popularity contest, I tell you!) And since I'm not a Catholic, I'd have to do the conversion process first. That's bound to take even more time. So a fudged birth certificate, or maybe conversion certificate, would give me some breathing room on this new career path of mine. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ All right. The book suggested a bunch of things. Variety. Not doing too many things at once. Theming tasks and prompts. But most importantly, picking the thing that seems easiest that will give the most impact, and that you are also excited and genuinely want to do (rather than feel like you should). So here are the first five habits I'm planting. I will most likely add more over the course of the challenge, change these, add to them, etc. They are a starting point for experimentation. I have lots more ideas and things I want to try. Let's see what will grow! After I fold and put away my scarf, I will take my dirty clothes to the laundry room, then I will celebrate by doing a big victory sign. After I decide to go to bed, I will pick one important task for the following day and highlight it, then I will celebrate by thinking "I got this". After I get out of my chair at home, I will do two pushups, then I will celebrate by doing a fist pump. After I get back from my walk, I will open a book (instead of the computer), then I will celebrate by pausing and taking a deep breath. After I hear my son get home, I will go say hello, then I will celebrate by smiling big. I will rehearse all of these tonight so that I will remember them, then roll them out tomorrow for real!

I'm almost but not quite there. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You know how I said I was going to have my stuff ready for today? Apparently I lied. I got all my notes done, and I have a nice clear step-by-step process. Also have a nice long list of prompts, daily occurrences to link things to, other potential habits to try, and celebrations. I've started the brainstorming and sorting process for all of my D&D stats. I still have to make things tiny and work on making each habit easier, plus actual pick the habits to start with. But my brain is tired from the brainstorming, so it'll have to wait until tomorrow or I'll make bad choices. In other non-habit news, my son decided I should be a nun for some reason I can't remember (probably to do with talking about his school's uniform), so we looked up the requirements for becoming a Catholic, Orthodox, and Buddhist nun. Takeaway: I would need to get started posthaste, or possibly get some forged documents. Which seems like a bad first step for entering religious orders, but hey. We then looked at a nun's blog, where she recommended stalking other blogs and friending nuns on Facebook. Then we wondered if there were nuns on Tiktok. There are. 😄

It's looking good. It's all still in progress. It is so lovely to be able to type and not wait for a minute after each phrase. Working on it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I decided to finish up Tiny Habits, and am currently flipping back to take a few notes (I have to return it). I'll be done that tonight, I think. Very excited to try it out! I have all day tomorrow to set up some good starting habits. But that's all I'm giving myself - I've wasted too much time and I don't want to get lost in perfectionism.

Oof. Replacing a motherboard sounds like more trouble than it's worth! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So, today I: - explored a new set of trails because the weather was so awesome; - played poker with friends; - helped my son with a finance assignment; - created a character for a new in-person D&D campaign starting tomorrow, and sorted out some other stuff for same. Today I did not: - finish setting up habits. I did make some progress on this challenge, but I am not going to have things ready today. The other stuff just took up too much time. But I don't regret any of it.

We will call that ... prep time. Time to work on it! Thankee. Though given how late I am starting, it may span two challenges. We shall see. As am I Cheets, as am I. Right?! Excellent! I have been of use! Welcome! Always lovely to have you! It hasn't, but now it can! That would be because I didn't post on it after creating it, most likely. I still love you. The hard drive is the story of the day, so... ______________________________________________________________________________ My hard drive has been a weight the last couple of weeks. It made the things I needed to do take four times longer than they really should, and the fact that things could crash, or the whole drive die, at any moment was quite stressful. And I really couldn't do much of anything extra, due to the lack of time and unpleasantness of computing. I wish I could say I made great use of the time by staying off the computer and doing other things, but that would be a lie. However, I have done a fair bit of tidying up in the last couple of days, so things are looking a little better. And I finished reading my language book too. And sorted things out for our Halloween. So I guess some offline things did happen. My new drive arrived on Thursday and got installed today. It should by all rights have been a ten minute job, but things did not go so smoothly, and it was a stressful three-hour affair before the computer finally recognized the drive. But now it is working! And I have a significantly larger drive to boot! I am feeling very !!!!, and I confess I have been just enjoying the smooth computer use and playing a few games rather than doing anything significant. But! My goal for tonight and tomorrow is to plan my flower garden. See you tomorrow!

New challenge, kinda.

I ran across this old cartoon by José María Nieto today: "I don't see any reason to be optimistic. What do you think the new year will bring us?" "I believe it will bring flowers." "Really? Why?" "Because I am planting flowers." And decided it was a perfect sentiment for a challenge. (I tried to storify it in my head, but sadly I failed.) It works for the wider world, and in the microcosm of one's own life. I still need to work out which seeds I want to plant. In my own life and in the world. I haven't done this yet, but I needed to get a challenge up so that I don't forget. Time is passing so quickly lately. My habits book should help, but I'm not done. So my seeds will be imperfect. But imperfect seeds are better than no seeds.

Thanks! The estimate is two weeks before the new drive arrives, so I shall have to be good with my backups! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I guess this is the end of the challenge. I feel like I started a lot stronger than I ended. The habits book that I'm reading is a good refresher on how habits work, and how to build good habits that work. It also emphasizes that habits stick when you feel good, not when you feel bad, and that a failed habit it not a personal failure, but an opportunity to tinker with an arrangement that didn't work out. Since that was the purpose of this challenge and I've had some difficulties, it's worth thinking about why while trying to avoid feeling bad or guilty. I think my biggest problem was that for most of the habits I wanted to build, I failed to set a trigger. This was obvious for my work habit especially. I would think about it randomly from time to time, but there was never anything to signal that it was time to work on it. Then it would get too late, and it often wouldn't happen. Another issue was the habits not being sufficiently planned. For the STR/DEX "use outdoor equipment and find places to parkour", it wasn't clear on any particular day what I was trying to do, and I didn't take the time beforehand to go and get the equipment and put it in an accessible spot. For work, I could have planned the day before what I would do the following day, to take the decision element out of it, or picked something that would be the same every day to get the ball rolling. That sort of thing. There is probably more too. I have found that the Maui habit stuck almost immediately, so clearly I can set habits. It just may require more intentionality in the planning, and the willingness to go super small. I will need to have a good think about my goals for next time and how to plan them. Look at my annual plan. Put in more physical activity, because frankly I'm getting a bit antsy from having only walked for this whole challenge period. I also realized that I had not picked books for October. 😅 Tiny Habits is not the sort of book that it makes sense to binge, so I'm going to keep reading it a bit at a time. My non-fiction book for the month is Speak Not: Empire, Identity, and the Politics of Language, which looks at Welsh, Hawaiian, and Cantonese, with short sections on Afrikaans and Hebrew. For fiction, I'm not sure. I may read the only horror I have out, The Bone Mother, in honour of the month. All right. See you soon!

Computer problem diagnosed. My hard drive is failing, and unlike last time, it's actually giving me some warning. So I will have a new drive on its way tonight, and my little patient has some surgery in its future. Should still be able to do stuff with books, but audio recording of any kind will have to wait for the new drive. It's just too risky from a crashes-and-corruption standpoint when the drive doesn't seem to be able to tell the system that it is too hot. So I shall finish labelling and packing the box I have almost ready to go.

This day has fewer accomplishments to boast than I would like. I did email, but it took forever. Partly because I did some more time-consuming emails today, but also because the computer problems I have are definitely getting worse. Priority tomorrow is going to be diagnosing this issue, because my computer is rapidly becoming nearly unusable.

It was a good day for sure. I knew this one would not be much in terms of accomplishments, because after getting home, I had time to do the last bits of game prep, then play a different game, then start the first game while playing the second one. And that is really it for today.

STR/DEX: Yes! INT: Yes! WIS: Yes! CHA: Yes! Occupational: Yes! Organizational: Yes! Language: Yes! Other: Yes! In addition to being successful in all of the things above, I started getting the Werewolf game I run set up for a new round, finished knitting one of the mittens (minus the thumb), and cast on the second one. I also have a shiny new music stand to use for recordings, and should have a new violin bow coming soon. (Mine is getting quite threadbare). So it has been a good day.

STR/DEX: I did not walk today, alas, except to the restaurant. INT: Not yet, but I shall. WIS: It's a good morning habit I have developed. CHA: No. Occupational: I did. It was small, but it was something. Organizational: Email. Again. Language: Yes. Other: Nope. But I have a bunch of things to do tomorrow. I'm going to continue knitting tonight. But tomorrow, I have a long list of errands I need to run, so it will be a day of accomplishments!