Milo Land

March Review

Meditate at least 5 minutes

This has become a pretty solid part of my routine, assuming I am at my house. The location context is apparently a large part of my routine. I don't necessarily like this liability. The only times I missed was when I was somewhere else. I really want to drill down on why this is the case. Possible reasons could be

Exercise (do literally any exercise)

I had fallen on my skateboard and bruised my pectoral muscle, so took it fairly easy for the last few weeks of March. That being said, I still did a lot of biking, walking, and aikido. So at the very least I got a lot of cardio in, which is nice!

Journal at least one page

Essentially the same as the meditation answer. I can see the decline in this when I am not at home. Why is this? Not sure but will keep aware to learn more.

Watch Youtube less than one hour

This was altogether pretty good. I had a lot of other fun things to take up my time, from the house, to aikido, to time with friends. I essentially felt very little desire to sit and totally binge any Youtube. This is the goal!

The first week of April was more difficult, as I had some long sustained train rides where I was both slightly sleep deprived and also a bit low on calories. My willpower was low and I was a bit hangry, so I did end up in that binge Youtube space. The trend is positive though! I can definitively say I have lowered my desire or dependence on Youtube and I want to see it continue to trend downward.

Volunteer at least two hours a week

I did a little bit during the last couple of weeks but not a lot. I signed up for the final steps of the neighborhood emergency training I started in January, so once that is done there will probably be more opportunities, which is great.

I think there are a couple of things going on here that make this difficult to do, but the really big thing is that I don't have something that is reliable, consistent, low-investment, and easy to get to, like I have with something like my aikido practice. One place I volunteer is an hour bike ride away and only once a month; another is every week but is new to me (scary) and at a time that is difficult to commit to; another involves lots of meetings and planning on top of doing the things.

I know about myself that I am more or less a border collie. Just give me a job to do and I will do it. If there are unknowns surrounding it, I will get overwhelmed by it.

So I have a few things I think I need to do:

I think the essential issue is that if I can find something that matches all those factors well, it will be super easy for me to volunteer all the time. I want to use my time well and I need it to be frictionless as the things that have high friction will go away as soon as something else comes up.

Work on aikido four times a week

I went to my first Aikido seminar, which was really exciting! I really enjoyed the comradery there and felt like I got over a little bit of my anxiety there around taking up space, asking for what I need from others, and just letting unimportant shit go. Overall a great experience.

Otherwise, I have just been going to classes and having a good time. I found out there is another class I could be going to, so I'll be adding a little bit more to my weekly practice. I'm excited.

No screens before 9am or after 8pm

As usual, mornings are good and evenings are not. I think I need to replace my routine of laying on the bed and watching stuff with something else. I have been trying to stop and then do something else. But I think I need to replace that habit. Classic strategy, but I have not tried it yet. I need to brainstorm what I can do instead and maybe make it it's own thing. Not too much too soon, take it easy. But make it something that you can enjoy and is easy to stop doing (e.g. not Youtube, video games, or something else that is so sticky).

Spend 15 minutes praticing lockpicking

This was another fascinating month. Essentially I started the year not wanting to just give up on another started hobby. But ultimately, I have done that by more or less neglecting it entirely. I think I just need to accept that my hobbies are the way they are: freely starting, stopping, restarting, going away entirely, etc. From what I can understand, this is in line with my ADD, so I don't really want to push against something I can't change.

That said, I do want to continue pursuing the hobbies I am interested in. But how can I make this a loose enough goal that I will continue pursuing interesting hobbies without making it so mushy that I will do anything and say "I did it"? I want to have a want or desire to learn a new thing or get better at something, and I want to set aside time to work towards those new hobbies. But I don't want to feel like my natural pattern or rhythm is wrong or whatever. This is probably due for a larger discussion.

Install walls in our bedroom

We got all of the insulation up in the walls of the bedroom! The last step is getting up the drywall. I am still happy with the progress I had this month, but I know that I can do better next month. I want to be sleeping in there by next month, so I want to try and make a bit better progress overall than I did this time.

I think that perfectionism was/is the most prominent blocker. I didn't do work unless the conditions were right: only when friends could work with me on it, when I had "enough time", when I knew exactly what to do, etc. These are all things that are a spectrum, not binary, and I can act on many points within it, not just on the ends. I found as the month progressed, I spent 15-20 minutes in the morning doing some work. This bypassed that perfectionism. When I did that, I made better progress and I found I had less resistance to the work overall when conditions were better. It also helped remove the blocker of something that was "unknown" as I would spend time learning or researching to figure out the next steps.