Alanna's déjà vu challenge

[Alanna]

I'm still wrapping up my thesis and dealing with a lot of life stressors this challenge, so I'm basically doing what worked last challenge.

 

 

Goal 1: In bed, lights out, by 12 am. To avoid super late nights if I miss my target, I'm tracking the number of minutes early/late, not a binary yes/no. Two early minutes can be used to mitigate one late minute. 

 

Goal 2: 3x walks per week and 2x strength training workouts (bodyweight, dumbbells, and/or yoga) per week. One of my big focuses for the latter will be pistol squats (currently on step 4, working towards step 5, of this progression). I'd like to add another skill-based progression... maybe an L-sit?? Suggestions are welcome, but handstands and pull-ups/chin-ups are out until I have more space and take my rings out!  Bonus: track what I do for each workout and how it feels.

 

Goal 3: No store-bought/gifted biscuits, sweets or other sugary concoctions, and no refined sugar. Didn't really have a problem with this last challenge, but keeping it as a goal so I'm not tempted to binge sugar while writing. 

 

Goal 4 (new!): No social media (including NF) from 10:15 am to 4:15 pm on work days, and a 30 min limit on social media from 4:15 - 6:30 pm. Messenger is fine as long as it is brief. Youtube is fine for music, anything work-related, and fitness demos if I work out during that time.

 

I might be slightly missing in action as I try to wrap up my writing. 

 

Now I just have to make sure I don't get stuck in a time loop and repeat this challenge and the end of my PhD ad infinitum...

 

[Alanna]

Placeholder for weekly recaps

[Grizzy]

Just now, Alanna said:

To avoid super late nights if I miss my target, I'm tracking the number of minutes early/late, not a binary yes/no. Two early minutes can be used to mitigate one late minute

This is brilliant! I have trouble with the binary .. it becomes 11:55 or 4 AM.

[TimovieMan]

I'm seeing some similarities to what I have in mind for this challenge! Following!

 

 

I'm seeing some similarities to what I have in mind for this challenge! Following!

[ninjakitten]

I remember how hard it was to reign in snacking while writing my thesis. (I tend to use snacks of all things to procrastinate.)

 

I'll keep my fingers crossed and will follow along. Good luck. 💚

[Sunrise]

Another Tamora Pierce fan here who just finished my own degree. Second master's, but neither of which required a thesis thank goodness!

 

I also love the non-binary nature of the sleep goal. Sometimes you just have to tweak the standard goal to make it work for you. Good luck!

[Rebel Pilot Gar]

Sounds like you have a good plan! Love the non-binary way of tracking your bedtime goal.

 

Good luck with thesis stuff!

[Rookie]

I'm here to cheer you on!

 

I also love Tamora Pierce and just reread the 3 series I have of hers recently. Including the Song of the Lioness series with Alanna. Which is what I always thought of when I read your name and saw your profile picture 😅 but I never thought to ask if that's how you chose your name.

[Mad Hatter]

Here of course!  

[Harriet]

16 hours ago, Alanna said:

Goal 4 (new!): No social media (including NF) from 10 am to 6 pm on work days.

 

Ooh, tough. But your PhD deserves some focused attention. Good luck!

[NeuroPunkNonsense]

If it ain't broke don't fix it. Following for more Alanna awesomeness.

[Alanna]

15 hours ago, Sunrise said:

I also love the non-binary nature of the sleep goal. Sometimes you just have to tweak the standard goal to make it work for you. Good luck!

 

19 hours ago, Grizzy said:

This is brilliant! I have trouble with the binary .. it becomes 11:55 or 4 AM.

 

15 hours ago, Rebel Pilot Gar said:

Sounds like you have a good plan! Love the non-binary way of tracking your bedtime goal.

 

Yeah, I learned from early challenges that a binary sleep goal isn't effective for me for similar reasons as Grizzy 😅. When using that format, it also sucks if you miss it by a minute or two, even though that can actually be great progress! 

 

17 hours ago, TimovieMan said:

I'm seeing some similarities to what I have in mind for this challenge! Following!

 

 

I'm seeing some similarities to what I have in mind for this challenge! Following!

 

 

18 hours ago, ninjakitten said:

I remember how hard it was to reign in snacking while writing my thesis. (I tend to use snacks of all things to procrastinate.)

 

I'll keep my fingers crossed and will follow along. Good luck. 💚

 

It is harder to type when you have one or both hands full! Thank you

 

16 hours ago, Sunrise said:

Another Tamora Pierce fan here who just finished my own degree. Second master's, but neither of which required a thesis thank goodness!

 

 

15 hours ago, Rookie said:

I'm here to cheer you on!

 

I also love Tamora Pierce and just reread the 3 series I have of hers recently. Including the Song of the Lioness series with Alanna. Which is what I always thought of when I read your name and saw your profile picture 😅 but I never thought to ask if that's how you chose your name.

 

I did choose my username after Tamora Pierce's Alanna 😁. It's always nice to meet fellow fans of her work! 

 

11 hours ago, Mad Hatter said:

Here of course!  

 

Let's see if I can get that pistol squat this challenge!

 

3 hours ago, Harriet said:

 

Ooh, tough. But your PhD deserves some focused attention. Good luck!

 

I originally wasn't going to have a PhD goal and then realised I should use some of this NF motivation for a very important and urgent task. I've outsourced the social media block by buying Cold Turkey's pro version so I can schedule the blocks in advance. I do need to figure out how to take short breaks, though... today I ended up hoovering and pretending my partner was a drum when I went stir crazy from writing 😅.

[Alanna]

39 minutes ago, Atrytone said:

If it ain't broke don't fix it. Following for more Alanna awesomeness.

 

Exactly! Although I am looking forward to having more mental space and time so I have more bandwidth for trying new things/revisiting old things... maybe rings and rollerblading?!

 

----------------------

 

Week 0, Sunday

 

Sleep: 11:56 pm (total early/late time: 4/0 minutes)

Exercise: Went for a walk

Sweets: None

Social media ban: N/A, not a work day. 

[Scaly Freak]

20 hours ago, Alanna said:

Goal 1: In bed, lights out, by 12 am. To avoid super late nights if I miss my target, I'm tracking the number of minutes early/late, not a binary yes/no. Two early minutes can be used to mitigate one late minute. 

 

Stealing this, for common sense and self-forgiveness reasons.  

[Mad Hatter]

22 minutes ago, Alanna said:

today I ended up hoovering and pretending my partner was a drum when I went stir crazy from writing 😅

Haha 😂My flat has never been as clean as during my final year exams + thesis writing period, anything to procrastinate!

[Alanna]

13 minutes ago, Scaly Freak said:

 

Stealing this, for common sense and self-forgiveness reasons.  

 

Steal away - maybe I will start a sleep goal revolution 😆. The one downside of this approach is that it is easy to consistently sneak an extra 5-10 minutes of lateness since the small misses don't matter as much. In theory, if I was doing the hard deadline properly, I would be making sure to get in bed 5-10 minutes in advance of my target so I don't miss it. That doesn't happen for me, though, so I'll accept the near misses instead of the big misses! I hope it works well for you, too  

[Alanna]

3 minutes ago, Mad Hatter said:

Haha 😂My flat has never been as clean as during my final year exams + thesis writing period, anything to procrastinate!

 

 

[Mad Hatter]

Spot on! 😄

[Alanna]

Week 0, Monday

 

Sleep: 11:56 pm again (total early/late time: 8/0 minutes)

Exercise: A rather late walk in the dark

Sweets: None

Social media ban: followed, with the help of  Cold Turkey. I think I need to amend or shorten the hours, though, because I like to take a break ~late afternoon/early evening and then work some more afterwards if I have the energy or a mentally-easier task. 

[miss_marissa]

Do you have a dated planned for your defense or graduation? 

[Harriet]

I have nothing helpful to say about the thesis procrastination, only sympathy 😄

[Alanna]

5 hours ago, miss_marissa said:

Do you have a dated planned for your defense or graduation? 

 My viva is in the process of being scheduled. They are usually at least a couple months after thesis submission because there has to be time for the uni to process your thesis and the examiners to read it. Graduation will depends on how long corrections take (and the ceremony will depend on COVID!). My thesis submission will be during this challenge 😬.

 

1 hour ago, Harriet said:

I have nothing helpful to say about the thesis procrastination, only sympathy 😄

Haha, thank you. I'm also figuring out that it's about balance and figuring out max productivity without burning out, too, as for any project this big. 

[Alanna]

Week 0, Tuesday

 

Sleep: 11:59 pm (total early/late time: 9/0 minutes)

Exercise: Nothing today. I seem to have a lot of intertia to strength workouts earlier in the week. I've been feeling wired but tired the past few days, which doesn't help.

Sweets: None

Social media ban: followed, no thanks to breaking Cold Turkey by updating it 😂. I managed to fix it late last night so it should be available for the rest of the challenge. 

 

I also finally retrieved my Garmin account details, synced it with my new phone, and started wearing it - we'll see how stressed it thinks I am...

[Alanna]

Week 0, Wednesday

 

Sleep: 11:57 pm (total early/late time: 12/0 minutes) Silly me, I hadn't gone to bed yet and tracked the previous night. Actual time was 12:24 am (9/24 minutes early/late) - I'm stressed about our pets and needed some extra time to read and wind down. In some of my old challenges I would report the night before, sleep-wise, to make it easier to track everything else that happened during the day - I might go back to that.  

Exercise: Nothing today

Sweets: None

Social media ban: I've decided to tweak this and give myself a break allowance - will update my challenge goals when I figure out what that is. 30 minutes felt a little long, especially since I didn't use up all of my allowance. Maybe I'll try 20 minutes tomorrow? Otherwise, the social media limits (rather than a strict ban) went well today.

 

Still feeling sparked, and I realised I haven't been having as many snacks recently, so I suspect food might be the issue. I've been waking up kind of hungry too, which is unusual for me when I eat at maintenance (so I suspect I'm not hitting it). 

 

[ninjakitten]

1 hour ago, Alanna said:

Sweets: None

 

I cannot put into words how impressive that is to me. 😅 I barely manage to cut back to one... dessert type of thing after dinner atm and it's a real struggle.