Theophilus Goes Analog, Baby!

[theophilus]

Back to basics.

 

Nothing fancy. 

 

Totally lo-fi.

 

(Challenge title comes from a line in this song, one of my perennial running mix favorites:)

 

 

 

So yeah, a tongue-in-cheek dig at the self-important, well-to-do, esoteric hipsters of the ever-gentrifying Greenwich Village... I guess that's what passes for inspiration 12 months into this mess, but I'm going old school for my goals and my tracking system this week, trying all I can to get off my phone and onto paper.

 

Running

Keep making progress to 270 miles by July. I lost steam at the end of the last challenge, so now I need to log 59.5 miles by the end of this challenge to stay on track. That's just over 10 miles a week counting week zero; I can do that. I'll probably do 3-5 runs a week in the 2-5 mile range. 

 

 Eating/Drinking

Sub-goal A: When I do intermittent fasting, it really works, so I'll do it again. Back to doing it consistently each day, eating between noon and 8 PM, fasting  the rest of the day. Looking for full compliance, will consider it a success at 90% (missing <4 days).

 

Sub-goal B: No booze for the next 5 weeks. Adding this one because I've felt like shit the last few times I've had even 1-2 drinks. Again, aiming for 100%, will take 90% (sober all but 4 days).

 

Meditation

Renewed my Waking Up subscription last week, which means I've been at this off-and-on for over a year now. Using the motivation gained by having to shell out to renew my subscription to refocus on this goal a bit: just do some meditation each day. It'll probably be guided most days. Aiming fro 100% here too, but will take 80% (all but 8 days).

 

Screentime

This is my white whale this year. Started last challenge strong but need to bring it down more. My goal is no days with greater than 2 hours on my phone, and a weekly screen-time average of less than 90 minutes.

 

Finally, I'm going old school for my tracking this go-round. I'll still have the fancy spreadsheets and whatnot, but I've made an insert for my daily planner to log each of my major goals. I'm tying to start my day with this at my bedside to orient my day. And this should keep my goals at the forefront:

 

Spoiler

 

[theophilus]

Week 0, Day 1

Glorious weather in New England yesterday, got out for a lunchtime 4-miler.  

Kept IF and no booze.

No meditation though.

Screen time was a bit out of hand, but I only devised my goal at the end of the day so I'll give myself a free pass for yesterday. Things are looking much better so far today. 

 

[Xena]

It was a truly beautiful day today. Glad you got outside to enjoy. I'm a big fan of analog 🙂

[18ck]

Good to hear you've come out as non-binary (I've heard young folk use this phrase and assuming it means "eschewing computers in favour of analogue systems" right?)

The plans here seem really good - all manageable goals for solid long-term objectives. 

I like that recording in paper will help keep you off the screens. It's unfortunate & ironic that Waking Up is an app on a phone so the method we are using to be more mindful is embedded in the very thing that distracts us and draws us away from reality. Yet another thing I'm vaguely conflicted about, but I suppose it's a necessary compromise, at least for the time being... 😕

Anyway, have a good challenge! 

[theophilus]

8 hours ago, 18ck said:

Good to hear you've come out as non-binary (I've heard young folk use this phrase and assuming it means "eschewing computers in favour of analogue systems" right?)

 

I was with you up until all those u's at the end. Then my yankee brain just exploded. 

 

8 hours ago, 18ck said:

I like that recording in paper will help keep you off the screens. It's unfortunate & ironic that Waking Up is an app on a phone so the method we are using to be more mindful is embedded in the very thing that distracts us and draws us away from reality. Yet another thing I'm vaguely conflicted about, but I suppose it's a necessary compromise, at least for the time being... 😕

 

'zactly. There was something that was just too logically inconsistent for me to use my screen to try to manage screen time. I think I'm stuck with an app for meditation at least for a while though.  Getting to a place where I can do unguided meditation is going to take quite some time for me. But I did rearrange my apps to foreground the actually helpful/good-for-me apps (alarm, maps, Waking Up, Nike Running) and exiled my other apps to later pages. That's redirecting my attention and helping limit my time a bit. 

[18ck]

14 hours ago, theophilus said:

was with you up until all those u's at the end. Then my yankee brain just exploded. 

*chuckle*

Sorry, I didn't even notice that. And no, I can't explain why we write it like that either! 

[theophilus]

Gah! Completely forgot about my strength training goal!

 

I'll add it to the original post, but gonna keep going 2-3x/week with the bodyweight stuff.

 

Yesterday was decent: got out for a short run, kept IF, didn't drink; screentime was mixed, meditated but definitely dozed off.

[18ck]

Hello

Bit quiet over here. What's going on? 

[theophilus]

Yeah, bit quiet for sure. This week-ish has been batty. 

 

Mixed bag so far:

 

Running has been my best category.  Logged ~12.5 miles so far,  going to get out for another 3-4 later this afternoon.  This is pretty much on track for where I want to be.

 

Strength training has been a drag, only done two workouts so far.

 

IF has been a mess, very inconsistent with that.  Same with booze, had a glass of wine a couple nights in  a row.

 

Meditation has been ok, a few decent sessions. I started listening to "The Stoic Way" series on WakingUp, and I'm really digging this approach as a supplement to focused meditation time. Really good exercises to do throughout the day that don't require me to set aside chunks of time for meditation. 

 

Screen time has been a disaster....

 

I think a reset is in order? Yeah, let's do that.

 

[18ck]

That's a whole lot of running. How did the extra 3-4 miles go? A reset on the rest sounds like a plan.

 

I haven't listened to the stoic way yet. Does it tie in with the wider program or is it just a completely different set of ideas? I was always out off it because it didn't seem to fit in with the rest. 

[Jules Andromeda]

My whole current challenge is focused around a particular kind of screen time challenge, and I'm struggling, too.  So much mixed up with how we use screens for work, socially, as distractions, as hard-wired habits.  Like you, I've been trying to switch everything I can to paper, so I have a paper calendar for my personal life (though I have to use a Google calendar at work in order to share calendars with colleagues), a paper based tracking system for nutrition and daily task lists, and I've tried to doing some journaling on paper, as well.  Although I track my miles and weight and other stuff in a spreadsheet, I've de-linked Google Drive from my phone, so I have to use the laptop for that, not the phone.  . . .   Also trying to just physically remove my biggest distractions from me at the times of day when they're most tempting.  

 

Good luck as you keep going!

[Xena]

Hope you find some more peace this week!

[theophilus]

Things just not clicking this challenge. And that's ok.

 

I've got a metric shit-ton of work to do for finals while continuing to balance family responsibilities, registering for the bar, doing some research with a professor, trying to find a new apartment, and planning for the summer. I had basically discarded the challenge up till yesterday, falling into my usual all-or-nothing mindset and being super hard on myself for being in the "nothing" camp. Then I decided to do a quick bodyweight workout yesterday and felt a bajillion times better.  So here are my revised goals for the next couple weeks:

 

- Eat more veggies (when I can)

- Run or workout (when I can)

- Meditate (when I can)

- Don't stay up too late working (when I don't have to)

 

Modest as all get-out, but should allow me some modicum of success between now and the next challenge. 

[sarakingdom]

Adapting is a valuable skill. Sometimes the reality of our challenges doesn't match what we predicted it would be. And at the end of the day, the only truly necessary thing is to keep showing up to try again.

[18ck]

What she said 👆

[theophilus]

Well, that was rough. Time to rinse and repeat this challenge next time. Finals are done Friday, so I'll actually have a little mental capital to put towards the challenge.