[SymphonicDan] and the Checklist #2 [level 14]

[raptron]

Boo for illness getting in the way of plans, but generally speaking, you did get a lot of good work in! Awesome.

[SymphonicDan]

So today I've actually had a very successful day I had the afternoon off work, so went to the weightlifting gym for the first time in ages:

• low bar squats: tried these again, and the weight feels so much easier compared to high bar! However, it's tough on the wrists so I didn't go above 82.5kg (192#) even though I can do multiple reps at this weight. I checked me form with the gym owner and apparently it's fine. I guess over time my wrist will get more comfortable in that position. New PR of 62.5kg x 20 (137#) although I've only done 20RMs before with high bar so doesn't quite compare.
• high bar squats: I'm back in the 100kg club (220#) for the first time since February Not sure why my legs are stronger today than usual? Maybe the gymnastics or running? Maybe I actually have energy at the moment for a change?
• overhead press: short play on this - arms are tired from Sunday's gymnastics rings and Monday's gymnastics
• deadlift: was super careful with form for 90kg, and even got a video to verify it 110kg was good the first time but then got sketchy so I stopped
• bar muscle-ups: I was working towards these a while ago and didn't get far. Today I tried some low bar dips (single bar, not parallel bars) and some high wide pull-ups. If I can get the pull-ups high enough and the dips low enough then I can do these. I'm a few centimetres away. Someone who looked pretty experienced even asked me for advice on them

This evening I've eaten so much food it's ridiculous lol, and I'm still not at all full...

 

Also, I'm doing well at calculation training:

• calendar dates: finally broke my record - set in February - by calculating 36 dates in a minute Plus, I have some ideas of things to improve over the Christmas holiday so I'm hoping that I'll get to 40+ soon
• square roots: broke my record here too, with 308 points - and I have lots of ideas for further training here, so I'm hoping that soon I'll be one of the few people in the world who can get a perfect score of 360

Less exciting was gymnastics yesterday, where I failed once more at flips, but at least threw some good front handsprings, did some ring forward rolls, got feedback about my abysmal round-offs, and made some cartwheel progress.

 

I'm generally quite a happy person, but I want to do an experiment to see what things make me happy/unhappy. Several times per day, at random, I'll get an alert to prompt me to record:

• happiness, scored out of 10
• what I'm currently doing
• what I'm currently thinking
• whether my muscles are tensed
• whether I'm listening to music
• +more things

Then, I can analyze it for patterns I haven't arranged details yet, but I'd like to do this as part of my next challenge. If anyone else reading this would be interested in doing it in parallel with me, let me know because that could be cool

 

I'm excited to start the next challenge already, but apparently the rules are changing :S Does anyone know what the changes will be?

[Lilith]

Very nice to know your legs are getting stronger again! You squat crazy amounts so you definitely must have already had strong legs, but hey, improvement is the name of the game right?

 

Great job at calculation training too! 

 

Monitoring how you feel and trying to find out why is something that would be very beneficial, if done correctly. How will you prompt yourself randomly to do that? Set an alarm? 

[Mad Hatter]

I'd be interested!

Nice job on the PRs

I don't know anything about the new rules but it seems like you'll be able to get xp for epic quest stuff, so maybe it will be tied in to that somehow? I hope they'll post more soon, I'm really curious!

[annyshay]

I'm generally quite a happy person, but I want to do an experiment to see what things make me happy/unhappy. Several times per day, at random, I'll get an alert to prompt me to record:

• happiness, scored out of 10
• what I'm currently doing
• what I'm currently thinking
• whether my muscles are tensed
• whether I'm listening to music
• +more things

Then, I can analyze it for patterns I haven't arranged details yet, but I'd like to do this as part of my next challenge. If anyone else reading this would be interested in doing it in parallel with me, let me know because that could be cool

Brain hacking?!  I'm in!

 

Monitoring how you feel and trying to find out why is something that would be very beneficial, if done correctly. How will you prompt yourself randomly to do that? Set an alarm? 

Also interested in your plan here.

[SymphonicDan]

Monitoring how you feel and trying to find out why is something that would be very beneficial, if done correctly. How will you prompt yourself randomly to do that? Set an alarm? 

 

I'm not yet sure - there are some apps already that are designed for happiness tracking like this, but I'm not yet sure whether they are what I want. There may be a simpler app that just gives me alerts at random times and I can write down the data on paper or whatever.

 

The alerts must be at random times so that I don't alter my activity when I'm expecting one. They also need to be only during waking time otherwise I'll get entries like:

• 0430 in the morning
• 2/10 happiness
• activity: sleeping
• thoughts: argh why did it have to wake me up now?!

 

I'd be interested!

Brain hacking?!  I'm in!

 

Cool I'll have a think about how to arrange this for everyone!

[Talvi]

Well done on passing this challenge.  It was truly an epic list that you started with, and you did well to knock some things off it.  It turns out that you are a speedy looney! 

 

I'm curious as to why you want to do your happiness experiment - do you think your mood could be better balanced?  Or do you just want to know what things perturb your good mood?  

[SymphonicDan]

Well done on passing this challenge.  It was truly an epic list that you started with, and you did well to knock some things off it.  It turns out that you are a speedy looney! 

 

Haha, back in the day I used to do some sprinting (12.50 sec for 100m was my record) so 400 metres is still okay... I've never been good at long distance though... the distances you run are scary! I'll be interested to see how long I take for 5k...

 

I'm curious as to why you want to do your happiness experiment - do you think your mood could be better balanced?  Or do you just want to know what things perturb your good mood?

 

The second thing.^ I'm guessing there are some hacks and heuristics I can discover, which will help me be (even) happier. I've been trying out some things for the experiment the last couple days and already I've learnt:

• being tired essentially puts a cap on how happy I am... so if everything's lame, I might be a 2/10 irrespective of how awake I am... but if everything's great then I might be 8/10 when well-rested, but no more than 5/10 when tired
• being focused on something makes me happy. So if I'm absorbed in some task, that's good To be fair I already knew this (c.f. Csikszentmihalyi) but it's nice to see it demonstrated!

[Talvi]

I was tempted for a moment to join you on the data collection, but I don't think I'd learn anything new.     I'm pretty emotionally attached to the success of my experiments and the amount of food in my belly.   So for happiness, I just need the laws of nature to bend to my every will and whim.... and to be well-fed
 

You have pointed out in previous challenges that you need to go to bed earlier.  Are you often tired?   Also, if you are reading this message then you should go to bed!!!   Shoo Dan!

[Lilith]

Hmm that's cool though. If you find an app, do let me know! I might be interested in that as well  

[Lara]

 

 

Haha, back in the day I used to do some sprinting (12.50 sec for 100m was my record) so 400 metres is still okay... I've never been good at long distance though... the distances you run are scary! I'll be interested to see how long I take for 5k...

 

 

 

The second thing.^ I'm guessing there are some hacks and heuristics I can discover, which will help me be (even) happier. I've been trying out some things for the experiment the last couple days and already I've learnt:

• being tired essentially puts a cap on how happy I am... so if everything's lame, I might be a 2/10 irrespective of how awake I am... but if everything's great then I might be 8/10 when well-rested, but no more than 5/10 when tired
• being focused on something makes me happy. So if I'm absorbed in some task, that's good To be fair I already knew this (c.f. Csikszentmihalyi) but it's nice to see it demonstrated!

 

 

I'm thinking on reading Csikszentmihalyi book, is it really worth it? Which is your opinion on it?

 

By the way, congrats on your C. You're a bit harsh on yourself considering you've been feeling sick and tired...

 

I like your hapiness goal. When I used to write my "positive things of the day" after some time I realised that many things that made me feel happy were very "small" things, but they awoke very intense feelings. 

[SymphonicDan]

By the way, congrats on your C. You're a bit harsh on yourself considering you've been feeling sick and tired...

 

Thanks I think my average over all 14 challenges is a C or C+ Clearly I have inappropriately high expectations for myself! 

 

I'm thinking on reading Csikszentmihalyi book, is it really worth it? Which is your opinion on it?

I've never read anything by Csikszentmihalyi, but I've read about his work (and about positive psychology in general) and find it very interesting. I'd recommend anyone reading this to spend 20 minutes sometime reading Wikipedia articles for Flow (psychology) and related topics. I also highly recommend "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman, and not just because the author has the best first name

 

I like your hapiness goal. When I used to write my "positive things of the day" after some time I realised that many things that made me feel happy were very "small" things, but they awoke very intense feelings.

 

 It's true - unexpected small things can sometimes be so much more profound than some things that are supposed to make you happy. Positive psychology is complicated! Last weekend I met up with a friend (girl that I like) and went to a concert of my favourite band (Nightwish) who played my favourite song (seriously stop what you're doing for 11 minutes and check this out). It was all very nice, but probably my happiest moments were bumping into an one of the cheerleaders crossing a road in London, and eating a lamb kebab that exceeded my expectations for how good food can be at a train station (pomegranate seeds!)

 

 

Hmm that's cool though. If you find an app, do let me know! I might be interested in that as well

I've found 6 apps, and tried 2 of them I have one running most of the day so I can figure out the experiments could work. Would be cool to have you joining in - I'll post details for everyone in the next few days.

[Lara]

 

I've never read anything by Csikszentmihalyi, but I've read about his work (and about positive psychology in general) and find it very interesting. I'd recommend anyone reading this to spend 20 minutes sometime reading Wikipedia articles for Flow (psychology) and related topics. I also highly recommend "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Daniel Kahneman, and not just because the author has the best first name

 

 

 It's true - unexpected small things can sometimes be so much more profound than some things that are supposed to make you happy. Positive psychology is complicated! Last weekend I met up with a friend (girl that I like) and went to a concert of my favourite band (Nightwish) who played my favourite song (seriously stop what you're doing for 11 minutes and check this out). It was all very nice, but probably my happiest moments were bumping into an one of the cheerleaders crossing a road in London, and eating a lamb kebab that exceeded my expectations for how good food can be at a train station (pomegranate seeds!)

 

 

I've found 6 apps, and tried 2 of them I have one running most of the day so I can figure out the experiments could work. Would be cool to have you joining in - I'll post details for everyone in the next few days.

 

Daniel Kahneman's book was one of my rewards in a past challenge, but it has been patiently sitting in my bookcase for months now  Maybe it's already time.

I found your link very interesting, thanks for sharing. I'll put Csikszentmihalyi on my reading list (it is only me or everyone has reading lists that will still be there when I'm gone?)

 

Glad to see you had such a nice weekend.

Unexpected good food is a great reason to feel happy!

[Lilith]

Looking forward to your post so everyone can join in! And I just wanted to wish you happy holidays! 

[SymphonicDan]

Merry Christmas everyone, and happy random week between Christmas and New Year when everything is a bit mixed up

 

Some things:

• I've lost over 2kg in weight over the last few months, while feeling full a lot of the time and doing less sport than over the summer. Confusing...
• In mental arithmetic I've improved calendar dates to 37 in a minute yay (3 more than the official British record), and started/planned several other training systems, especially for square roots. Not as much progress so far as I'd like though.
• My gymnastics rings are with me at my parents' house now, but the weather has been grim so I haven't used them yet...
• To track my sleep, I downloaded the Sleep Time app. After one night of data it looks very reasonable and I'll try it some more.

[Lilith]

Bodies are mystical majestic beings. Apparently. 

 

YAY FOR BEING BETTER AT MENTAL NUMBER THINGS! I suck you can do all the calculations for me  

[Nymeria]

I still think you had a great challenge, even if you always grade yourself harshly.  

 

 

crow: these feel solid now, and I don't need a pillow in front of my because I no longer faceplant lol. Now concentrating on pointing toes, looking ahead and pushing more with my shoulders

 

Sounds like you're close to a point to move on to elbow levers and crane.  Both should help you progress to a planche (assuming you're aiming for that).  

 

 

I'm generally quite a happy person, but I want to do an experiment to see what things make me happy/unhappy. Several times per day, at random, I'll get an alert to prompt me to record:

• happiness, scored out of 10
• what I'm currently doing
• what I'm currently thinking
• whether my muscles are tensed
• whether I'm listening to music
• +more things

 

I'm not going to join in on this, as I'm going to focus on high quality sleep instead, but I find the whole data collection very interesting.  I especially find it interesting to track whether you have tense muscles.  I've found that when I often feel anxious or agitated, my muscles are very very tense.  It's probably one of the reasons yoga has been so helpful to me.

 

• being tired essentially puts a cap on how happy I am... so if everything's lame, I might be a 2/10 irrespective of how awake I am... but if everything's great then I might be 8/10 when well-rested, but no more than 5/10 when tired

 

I've found that poor sleep is my #1 mood killer.  If I didn't get enough sleep or the quality of my sleep was bad, I'm much more prone to bad anxiety, depression, or general unproductively.  

[SymphonicDan]

Sounds like you're close to a point to move on to elbow levers and crane.  Both should help you progress to a planche (assuming you're aiming for that).  

 

I wasn't aiming for a planche, but now you mention it.... I've had mixed success with elbow levers in the past but would like to play with them some more, and I should look at what exactly a crane is so I can play with that. I've been watching your pokéyoga but they all just blur into one at the moment! Wounded crane dedicated to the flying sage or something... Thanks for the inspiration

[Mad Hatter]

Crane is a crow but with completely straight arms. Then the next step is to take the knees off the elbows and you're in a tuck planche.

[SymphonicDan]

Something strange happened today. I went for a 5km run It's the first time ever that I've done this and timed it, so I'm posting a vacuous "PR" of 23:20. I wasn't feeling particularly light-footed today so maybe another time I could get it down to ~22 mins. Probably won't become a hobby of mine, but a nice chance to do occasionally

 

Also today I hit 308 points for the second time for square roots, meaning that I've achieved my first criterion for deciding to compete at Las Vegas I've also proved to myself that I can get 42+ in a minute for calendar dates already (actual PR is 37), but every time I realise I'm doing well I get omg distracted shiny forget what hang on brain fail and waste the last 15 seconds on the clock :S Plus I've made some training programs that hopefully will get me towards 50...

 

So the new challenge system has been semi-explained, and from my partial understanding:

• future challenges will be 4 weeks
• future challenges will be partly hosted on some separate site with pages for character profiles etc. with a link to epic quests

Presumably we'll have 10 stat points per new level (15 stat points now * 4/6 because the challenges will be only 4/6 as long), stat points will be {STR, DEX, STA, CON, WIS, CHA} like currently and there won't be further restrictions on format, so we can all continue doing what we know works well for us.

 

Based on that, here are some goals/thoughts for the next challenge:

• I'll continue with a points system like this challenge, including the goals I've achieved since last challenge
• for fitness, I'll have less emphasis on PR goals since I need to get back to my August 2015 fitness peak before PR-chasing becomes worthwhile
• for fitness, I'll have points for completing useful workouts (like in this challenge)
• sleep is important - I'll have a goal for a fixed bedtime
• I'll run the experiential happiness experiment
• I'll be including mental calculation goals, as I prepare for Memoriad 2016
• I'll add other miscellaneous to-do items, some attainable PRs and skills I want to learn, etc.

[Mad Hatter]

That's an amazing 5 km time, especially for not actually being a runner!

 

Congrats on all the PRs. Vegas is getting closer!

[KB Girl]

Somehow it completely fits that you're good with speedy calculations etc

Do you expect to get back to August level fitness quickly?

[SymphonicDan]

New challenge is up! See you over on the new forums

 

 

Do you expect to get back to August level fitness quickly?

 

Yep I should be able to - I've lost 2-3kg (hopefully fat and water but maybe also some muscle) and for AMRAPs I'm still around PR territory, but I don't feel as strong for 1RM things, and the lost weight will disadvantage my absolute numbers in weightlifting. Next challenge I'm going to do some solid workouts and not think about strength PRs until February.

[lucky fire dragon]

It was great fun following your challenge (as per usual ) and I second all the others in your usual too harsh judgement on how well you did, because you did pretty awesome. You pulled through very consistently and I didn't see any "pathetic" days, like you used to wonder about in some far away past

 

Your at a stage where progress takes longer, because the stuff you do is so hard already, even more impressive how you keep going up!

Same goes for those calculations that boggle me anyway... I used to like maths at school, but this goes wayyy over my head, so big kudos to you and cheering for VEGAS (please go, you will shine)

 

Am intrigued with the happiness experiment you're planning. Maybe I would be on board for that, I was pondering something similar for a while and like yours even better. I thought of tracking how happy I am before doing certain things, during and after and keeping log on that somehow. Goal would be to see which activities do give me how much satisfaction after all, both active and recreation activities. But as you say, a lot of other factors chime in, sleep, hunger, duration also plays a part, if I sit on something good for too long it will become a strain rather than fun,... also my idea would mean SO MUCH TRACKING and I don't want to spend more time on the documentary than on the actual things, you know what I mean? So this idea sounds great.

 

Heading over to your new thread to read more there

Just wanted to give big congrats on all your success here first