Changing this up a bit now that it’s firmly cemented (I hope) as a habit, and starting to look for patterns and data. Or in the data, if you can call this “data”... The variable is a totally key one: Sleep: I already know that my subjective experience of a given day can be colored one way or the other by sleep, but it’ll be interesting to look at this and see if there are other patterns.
Sleep: Sunday 12-13 July 9hr 2min - 94% (10:00-7:00)
Monday 13 July: 7 Green, 2 Yellow (Task List and Meditate)
Sleep: Monday 13 July-14 July 7hr 58min - 84% (11:00-7:00)
Tuesday 14 July: 5 Green, 1 Red (Strength Training), 3 Yellow (Task List, Meditate, Procastinate)
Tuesday 14-15 July 7hr 31min - 79% (12:00-7:25)
Wednesday 15 July: 6 Green, 1 Red (Strength Training), 2 Yellow (Task List, Meditate)
Wednesday 15-16 July - No app data. Garmin estimated 7hr 5min.
Thursday 16 July: 6 Green, 1 Red ( Strength Training) 2 Yellow (Impulse /snacking/), Procrastination)
Thursday 16-17 July 9hr 14 min - 94% (10:00-7:15)
Friday 17 July: 6 Green, 3 Yellow (Impulse /snacking/ and /emotional/, Procrastination, Meditation)
Friday 18-19 July 7hr 48min - 82% (10:40-6:30)
Saturday 18 July: 7 Green, 2 Red (Strength Training, Impulse /snacking/)
Saturday 19-20 July 8hr 58min - 94% (10:45-7:30)
Sunday 19 July: 6 Green, 3 Yellow (Strength Training, Task List, Impulse /emotion/)
Sunday 20-21 July 9hr 34min - 95% (10:00-07:35)
Comments: I see an interesting possible pattern here. Towards the end of the week I ran into a couple of yellow and red impulse control items. These are canary in the coalmine items for me: they often signal turbulence ahead in terms of my enjoyment of life and how enjoyable I am to be around. Subjectively, I would say that was right: the end of the week was less, um, “fun” than the beginning.
Looking back in the week, three things stand out:
First is meditation: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday were all yellow, meaning that I got less than the 20min minimum I’ve set as a goal.
Coupled to that, I skipped my secondary weight/strength/bodyweight/cross-training opportunities Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. I know from experience that there’s a definite mood-enhancing effect from slinging kettlebells around that’s above that from just running. (Which was very light at 20 scheduled miles plus walking the dog.)
Third, there is a gentle decline in sleep, from 9hrs to 8, 7 1/2, and then probably around 7hrs, with the quality index heading down with hours, sinking from 94% on the night of Sunday to Monday, to a low of 79%. Hours and quality jump back up heading into the new week.
So there is a lesson there. I already knew that exercise and sleep were important, but seeing them both decline and then seeing a dip in the measure that’s closest to a mood index was…interesting. Sleep should be well in hand this week.
The key for the remainder of this week is to not skip the “extra” work, cross-training or whatever. Since it is ungodly hot this week (right now it’s 94F on the front porch, with high humidity making it feel like a lovely, uh, 105F…) I think that instead of sweltering in the garage, maybe some time on the Peleton or yoga or something in the man cave might be on order. Will add that to the mix in a big way for the rest of the week…
This here is some of that empirical data I’ve been hearing about…