Balancing Life and Learning

[PunchTonic]

This is my 2nd challenge! I was looking at other guilds, but I think I'll just stay a Rebel for now until I can focus on diversify-ing my workouts. Sorry I'm late to the party, but better that then never, right??

My main focus this challenge is being diligent about studying, while making sure my progress towards a healthy lifestyle doesn't suffer (which was always the case with those fast food/caffeine-fueled all-night cram sessions in college). 

Current State: 

1. I was travelling at the end of the last challenge and fell off the wagon for working out regularly. I'm going to take on Beserxes and move to Bodyweight level 4 so I have a regular regimen again.

 

2. I'm stuck somewhere in Level 4 for eating right. I eat veggies all the time, and don't consume liquid calories all that much, but I want to reach level 5. 

 

3. I'm working on applying to finishing a research paper from my undergraduate years and applying for graduate school, so I want to make sure I stay on track for those. 
 

GOALS:

I'll evaluate myself on this scale: 

Hell yeah! - I exceeded the goal for that week

Good job! - I hit the goal

Don't give up! Do better next week! - I didn't make the goal

 

1. Workout 3x/week - I already play volleyball regularly, so this is only for times I work out outside those games.

 

2. Replace a carb 5x a week - I'm eating a vegetarian-ish diet, so this is about finding alternatives to sandwiches and pasta, mostly! Haha!

3. Read 2 academic papers a week - I'm in the writing phase of a research paper, so I need to be proactive about supplementing my data with what exists in the literature. I've been struggling with this for at least half a year, but my advisor is shooting for the end of August to have a complete draft, so this needs to be a high priority now!

 

4. Study GRE 5 hours a week - That's about 1 hour every weekday, which I think is manageable. I want to take the exam in the next month or 2, so this is also requires a dedicated effort!

Thanks for reading!

 

 

 

[NY153]

Good luck with your challenge, you have some very well thought out goals. What is your field of study?

I am in a similar position, I also have to finish and submit a research paper by the end of August. So I can completely relate to what you wrote about late night working/studying. I don't drink coffee so I always keep snacking if I have to work at night. (One of the many things I am working on to change...)

Keep us updated how it is going.

[PunchTonic]

On 7/21/2016 at 8:14 AM, NY153 said:

What is your field of study?

 

I study biology! I've been out of school for about a year and a half now, so that's an extra challenge. I think I'm up for it though!  
What are you studying?

[PunchTonic]

Week 1 update: I didn't make a lot of my goals, partly due to the fact that I started in the middle of the week, but I really just need to re-focus and remember why I do this. AND TO STOP MAKING EXCUSES!

1. Workout - Do better next week! 0/3 (Again, I still play volleyball 3x a week, so I'm not entirely sedentary, but I want to do more).

 

2. Replace a carb - You know... I don't think I did this all week. So I'll say I need to  Do better next week! What I realized is that it's difficult to just "replace a carb" when I don't eat them regularly. I've refined this goal to having a NO CARB lunch. I live with 2 other people and whatever gets cooked for dinner is what we eat. I have control over what I make, but not others. I have complete control over what I eat for lunch 100% of the time though, so that's what I'll aim for! 

3. Read 2 academic papers - Do better next week! 0/2 I think the secret to this one is picking out in advance which articles to read. Then it's a matter of doing that

 

4. Study GRE - Do better next week! 2/5 So I didn't COMPLETELY whiff on this one, but the weekend came and I thought I was going to get to it, but I didn't. womp womp. I'll get my 5 hours in this week!

 

 

Overall, the report card from this past week was pretty abysmal, but I'm respawning from here! 

[NY153]

Yay, but you have some partial successes, that definitely counts! You'll do better this week!

 

On 2016. 07. 26. at 0:43 AM, PunchTonic said:

What are you studying?

 

I graduated in earth sciences, and now I am a full time researcher, hence the paper writing. So no official studying now, but I still have to read and study a lot to stay up to date.  

[PunchTonic]

On 7/27/2016 at 0:48 PM, NY153 said:

Yay, but you have some partial successes, that definitely counts! You'll do better this week!

 

 

I graduated in earth sciences, and now I am a full time researcher, hence the paper writing. So no official studying now, but I still have to read and study a lot to stay up to date.  

 

 

Oh very cool! I totally got out of practice reading scientific articles (and writing them....). How many would you say you read a week? This is getting a little bit off topic, but I want to be a full-time researcher career-wise, so I'm curious as to how much one reads just to stay on top of the goings-on in the field when it's not "required" for a paper or anything.

How long have you been part of the academy? 

[NY153]

Sorry for the belated answer, the weekend got really busy. It is hard to tell how much I read, it varies a lot from week to week, depending which phase of the research I am doing. What I did is that I sign up for alert emails at the major publishers' sites, so I regularly get a whole bunch of new papers which is relevant to my field. But I don't actually  fully read them just scan them and save the important ones. I graduated three years ago and have been working in a research institute since.

I can imagine how hard it can be to do it beside a full time job, but you are a NF rebel, you can do it!

How is your challenge going?

 

[PunchTonic]

3 hours ago, NY153 said:

Sorry for the belated answer, the weekend got really busy. It is hard to tell how much I read, it varies a lot from week to week, depending which phase of the research I am doing. What I did is that I sign up for alert emails at the major publishers' sites, so I regularly get a whole bunch of new papers which is relevant to my field. But I don't actually  fully read them just scan them and save the important ones. I graduated three years ago and have been working in a research institute since.

I can imagine how hard it can be to do it beside a full time job, but you are a NF rebel, you can do it!

How is your challenge going?

 

 

Ahhh, that's a good way to keep up to date. I'll keep that in mind for the future. 
 

The challenge is...going haha. Improving and seeing where I can still do better. I'll post a full week 2 report below.  

[PunchTonic]

Week 2 report: I didn't make a lot of my goals, partly due to the fact that I started in the middle of the week, but I really just need to re-focus and remember why I do this. AND TO STOP MAKING EXCUSES!

1. Workout - Do better next week! 0/3      Hmmm....Something isn't going well here. Obviously it's somewhere between a lack of motivation and accountability. I need to brainstorm some loot to unlock and find an accountabilibuddy IRL (as nice as the forums and facebook groups are for encouragement, I'm just not online enough for that to be my only source of accountability.)

 

2. Replace a carb - Do better next week! 4/5        OOOH I WAS SO CLOSE. After making my goal more specifically, "Don't eat carbs at lunch" because I have complete control over that meal, it made it a lot easier to hold myself to that standard. I went out of town this weekend, so I wasn't able to keep to this completely. I'm still working on ways to eat healthy but quick meals that don't involve pasta or bread.

3. Read 2 academic papers - Do better next week! 1.5/2       Again, I ALMOST did this. I went out of town for the weekend, and I was going to read articles in the car (I had them printed and everything!), but my bro likes to listen to audiobooks and podcasts and it was just impossible to focus. But again, the adjustment I made first week definitely made it easier.

 

4. Study GRE - Do better next week! 1/5        I slipped on this challenge, but I DID narrow which graduate schools I'll be applying to down to my top 3 choices. Now that I know that, I can find out the scores I need to try to get, so I kinda feel like I didn't fail at this one as much as my "score" would imply. 

 

 

So overall, even though my scores are not the best, I'm improving by altering the way I approach my challenges. I'm learning what works and doesn't all the time, so I still feel accomplished. "Out of sight, out of mind" is definitely how I mentally operate and I've learned that the more hyper-specific I am with my goals, the better I'm able to reach them (surprise, surprise - isn't that what EVERY article says about goal-making??  haha)

[LucentFrost]

Eventhough '[your] scores for Week 2 are not the best', you are still improving! Especially on your Replace a Carb quest.

 

I now realize that I always aim for the perfect score, and if I couldn't get it, I drop the challenge all the way. It's good to be reminded by your Week 2 report that it's more important to know what and where to improve and learn where to adjust, than not learning anything at all and just give it all up just because I slipped once. I'm surely keeping this in mind when I make my challenges or any other changes in my lifestyle that I'll say I'll do.

 

You can do this!  Go go go!

 

[PunchTonic]

Week 3 Report: 

Hello all! "Balance" is definitely difficult to find. 

1. Workout - Do better next week! 0/3 - Heh. To be completely honest, I don't think this one is getting done this challenge. And to be fair, it wasn't really the FOCUS of my challenge. I think I just wanted to see how I'd react with having "work-related" stress and trying to upkeep phyiscal fitness. Though this is a fail, not all hope is lost because....

2. Replace a carb -  Hell yeah! 6/5  - I totally CRUSHED IT this week. Most of my lunches were carb free (I brought salad greens to work so I'd never have an excuse to eat junk...for lunch at least) and some dinner/snacks were as well. Diet is 80% of the healthy-lifestyle crunch, so even though I'm struggling to do regular workouts, I'm still eating decently and making changes where it counts. 

 

3.  Read 2 academic papers - Good job! 2/2     So technically, I read one full paper, and 2 half of paper. But printing them definitely helped, and I've already got the ones I'm going to read this week. And this metric doesn't include the time I take actually writing the research paper that I'm reading these articles for. 

 

4. Study GRE - Do better next week! 0/5      I didn't make this goal, mostly because I was working on writing up my research paper. Studying for the GRE/applying to graduate school in general combined with writing the paper is the greatest challenge because they both require so much mental strength. It's hard for me to be able to do both well in a given day. I think this is because when I "get in the zone" either researching/writing or studying, I don't want to break my momentum and shift gears. While I go 2-3 hour stints each time, focusing on one thing, it becomes somewhat all or nothing. For the GRE this week, it was on the nothing side. Womp womp.

 

This week, I'm going to continue focusing reducing carbs (I need to stop drinking beer...) and study for the GRE! 

 

[NY153]

Great improvements on third week! Congrats!  And week 4 is almost over! How is it going so far?

[PunchTonic]

On 8/10/2016 at 11:48 AM, NY153 said:

Great improvements on third week! Congrats!  And week 4 is almost over! How is it going so far?

 

It was going decently until.......V A C A T I O N (specifically, hosting my family for the weekend). 

Truly, everything went out the window. No studying was done, no work on the paper, no workouts. The one upshot is that I did consciously attempt to reduce carbs in my meals and, with the exception of the time we all went out for pizza, was mostly successful. I even ate a salad instead of getting fries with my burger (which I only ate half the bun of too). 
 

 

As a challenge overall, I learned a lot about my personal style regarding challenges and my habits that derail me or can set me up for success. So, though I didn't make the majority of my goals for the 4 weeks, I'm encouraged that some healthy eating habits are being established. 

Some things I've learned: 

1. Scheduling time to work on something and having the materials prepared ahead of time sets me up the best for actually doing the thing. This goes for cooking, reading, writing, etc. 

 

TO DO: I've never kept a google calendar or anything in the past. Day to day schooling is generally repetitious, so I know what I need to do each day. Now that I'm out of school and have a full-time job, saying "I need to do X" or "I should do Y" means squat. In addition, I'm the kind of person (like many people here) who has a lot of hobbies or is always wanting to work on a new skill. So I want to pick a few and schedule "personal development" time, which can include things like practicing ukulele, playing video games, skateboarding, learning to code, etc.  

I'm also the kind of person who over-commits to things. One of the greatest struggles I had this challenge was having time to sit down and study for the GRE or write my research paper because I was playing volleyball 3 times a week, sometimes for 2-3 hours in one day. I think if I have a visual of what kinds of activities take up the most time in my days, then I can make sure to keep them balanced. 
 

2. If I need to work on something, NOT going home immediately usually means I'll do it. I don't get anything done when I'm at home except to watch TV, snack, or nap. The days that I went to the library or stayed late at the office to use the wifi were days that I was most productive. The only downside is that I'm constantly hungry - I bring lunch to work most days, but I'm hungry afterwards too, so I end up eating random stuff lying around the office. I need to find some healthy, portable snacks for days I don't go home immediately. 
 

TO DO: Schedule in time in my new calendar to go to the library (2 hrs at a time). Try to pre-pack healthy snacks (PB and apple; carrot chips and dip). I just looked up some alternatives to hummus (I'm not a huge fan) that are also relatively healthy. 

 

3. Making one meal a "goal meal" helped me stick to my goals for that challenge. I could always justify the "sacrifice" of eating healthily for that one meal if I knew that was all I had to do to be successful. Ensuring that on meal got done made it so that I was able to reach my goal for the week and anything on top of that was a nice bonus that made me feel good and kept me going.

 

TO DO: I want to take this idea and expand it into my regular habit-forming routine. But in the meantime, I'm going to keep making lunch my "goal" meal.

 

4. For working out, I need a commitment that I can't skip out on (like paying for classes, or making plans with an accountabilibuddy). I learned this time around that I don't make time for working out and there's a SIGNIFICANT motivation barrier to do anything but play volleyball. Maybe there'd be a motivation barrier for that too, but I committed by paying for a whole session (6-8 games) in advance. I'm also trying to find ways to incentive-ize working out.

 

TO DO: Find an accountabilibuddy that will agree to train with me in person. I particularly want to start running regularly to see how I like that as a form of exercise to alternate with strength training. I also need to break down my running goals into weekly tasks that I can check off instead of just saying "go for a run this week!" That way, I can unlock some loot for doing all my workouts, in the beginning especially.

 

 

That's what I've learned this go-around. See you in the next challenge! 

 

 

 

[NY153]

On 8/16/2016 at 11:54 PM, PunchTonic said:

As a challenge overall, I learned a lot about my personal style regarding challenges and my habits that derail me or can set me up for success.

 

I think this is the most important that one can learn from a challenge. This will help you improve your strategy and focus on your energy where it is needed.

It seems to me you did good on your challenge, best of luck on your next one!

[PunchTonic]

4 hours ago, NY153 said:

It seems to me you did good on your challenge, best of luck on your next one!

 

 Thank you!

 

Here's the link to my new challenge, if you want to follow.  It's been great having your feedback!
 

 

[Saorsa]

I like your grading scale! I'm often too hard on myself and this seems like a more positive approach. Good luck!