Challenge accepted!
Writing is hard.
Or... rather... i'm bad at writing.
Or actually, maybe i'm okay at writing -- possibly even good! -- once i get started, but whoa is it ever hard to get started sometimes...
Some context may be warranted. (After all it's been like, what, nearly two years since i made a post here?) I like to give myself arbitrary challenges occasionally. Sometimes for extended periods of time -- but usually not too hard. If i set a low bar for each individual instance of the challenge, but require continual upkeep, i can accomplish some pretty exciting things sometimes.
For instance, last summer, between May and August, inspired by the Endomondo National Bike Challenge, i required myself to bike every day. Not like, a lot -- even just a quick spin around the block would count -- but definitely every day. (If you participated in the Bike Challenge, the inspiration should be clear: points awarded for participation came 20 per day you biked, plus 1 per mile you biked; biking every day was worth way more, proportional to the immediate effort, than biking far.) And some days i did just do a quick spin around the block (about a quarter mile), or maybe just to work in the morning and back (about two miles), but some days i'd go on an epic journey for like 15 or 20 miles -- among the longest contiguous trips i've ever done on a bike.
By the end of August, i'd managed to bike every single day during that four month period except for one: for my thirtieth birthday, i went with some of my closest friends to the French Laundry, the (/a) best restaurant in the world, and in the excitement of the event -- the waking up early, the dressing fancy, the driving out to Yountville, the 5-hour epic saga of a meal, the concomitant stroll around the grounds and bakeries, the driving back to the city, and the rush to see the latest Batman film -- i just forgot to bike that one day. But hey, every other day for four months -- it felt pretty good! I got better at biking due to the constant buzz surrounding the challenge, ever gaining experience out of necessity and learning to solve issues as they arose. Even with the cop-out days where i felt almost like i was ignoring the spirit of the challenge, having to bike every day really put it in a different perspective for me.
Partly in order to leverage this questionable facility i seem to possess for accomplishing easy things repeatedly for extended periods of time, i started doing semi-serious New Year's "resolutions" a couple years ago. ("Partly", i say, because the "resolutions" were in no small way responsible for my understanding the facility, along with some external observation from Chris, and "resolutions" because they really seem to have a flavor different from the traditional "get better about X", "stop doing Y" types of resolutions.) In 2011, i decided i wanted to get good at mixing cocktails, so i resolved to mix a new-to-me one every week and document my progress. With a little fudging -- allowing myself to frontload or make up a week every so often -- i succeeded at this goal and learned a life skill now pervasive in my day-to-day existence (though the documentation process was lamentably largely private). In 2012, i decided i wanted to dial back my dessert consumption, so i invented a silly points system -- one point per dessert, one point per week, basically -- and barring a few deviations -- i gave myself a freebie for my birthday, and i accidentally went negative one week towards the end -- i succeeded at curbing dessert consumption and learned a few things about my physiological responses to sugar.
For 2013, i decided to try something a little bit different. Since i seem to be good at doing easy things for extended periods of time, why not try doing a bunch of easy things, for some slightly less extended periods of time? After all, doing a thing for a whole year gets to be pretty tedious. I could sort of throw a bunch of ideas at the wall, as so much spaghetti, to see what stuck. So i dreamt up my 13-in-13 challenge: each month, come up with a new resolution in some area of desirable self-improvement, decide what success should mean, draft a plan, and carry it out. Managing the whole thing makes for one extra mega meta-resolution, for a total of 13 resolutions in 2013: 13-in-13.
January, i decided to focus on music theory and guitar, which meant practicing for at least 20 minutes a night at least 3 times a week. This one went well enough -- usually when i sat down to hammer out my 20 minutes, i'd wind up playing for an hour and a half, and i definitely managed more than thrice a week. Still, improvement felt slow, and by the end of the month, i was glad not to have to find the time anymore to fit in one more thing at the end of the day -- sometimes, i'd sacrifice sleep to get in my day's music.
February, i took an easier but more persistent challenge: eat breakfast, every day. Where breakfast means any meal the first bite of which i take at least an hour before lunch. (Sometimes, i nail down the specifics on the fly, resulting occasionally in somewhat dubious but nonetheless earnest rules.) The goal here was basically to dial back on the whole "scramble to work late in the morning, wait to eat until lunchtime" drill which felt like it was having detrimental effects on my mood and productivity. This one went so well, i'm still doing it! I've been converted -- i even started stocking breakfast foods for a while, enjoying a semi-regular morning ritual involving tasty food, fresh coffee, and a crossword. (I've recently fallen somewhat out of the habit on account of a spate of travel disrupting a couple of weekends and the loss of an hour disrupting my sleep schedule, but i do still give myself time to eat something at work at least an hour before lunch.)
March, i took on "writing". I wanted to try to write a SIGBOVIK paper, some blog posts, maybe catch up on blogging my cocktail adventures from a few years ago and present day. You can see how well it's been going -- this is the first thing i've written all month. My goal was to write "something" twice a week -- and i even gave myself a chance to be a week behind, as long as i caught up. Well, i guess i'm two weeks behind now, but maybe if i start hammering stuff out, i can still catch up by the end. I'm cautiously optimistic! After all, writing this post has only taken me about an hour, and that's less than i usually spent practicing the guitar in January.
So here's to more posts from me here and on barspoon, all about what i've been up to in life these last couple of years :)
Or... rather... i'm bad at writing.
Or actually, maybe i'm okay at writing -- possibly even good! -- once i get started, but whoa is it ever hard to get started sometimes...
Some context may be warranted. (After all it's been like, what, nearly two years since i made a post here?) I like to give myself arbitrary challenges occasionally. Sometimes for extended periods of time -- but usually not too hard. If i set a low bar for each individual instance of the challenge, but require continual upkeep, i can accomplish some pretty exciting things sometimes.
For instance, last summer, between May and August, inspired by the Endomondo National Bike Challenge, i required myself to bike every day. Not like, a lot -- even just a quick spin around the block would count -- but definitely every day. (If you participated in the Bike Challenge, the inspiration should be clear: points awarded for participation came 20 per day you biked, plus 1 per mile you biked; biking every day was worth way more, proportional to the immediate effort, than biking far.) And some days i did just do a quick spin around the block (about a quarter mile), or maybe just to work in the morning and back (about two miles), but some days i'd go on an epic journey for like 15 or 20 miles -- among the longest contiguous trips i've ever done on a bike.
By the end of August, i'd managed to bike every single day during that four month period except for one: for my thirtieth birthday, i went with some of my closest friends to the French Laundry, the (/a) best restaurant in the world, and in the excitement of the event -- the waking up early, the dressing fancy, the driving out to Yountville, the 5-hour epic saga of a meal, the concomitant stroll around the grounds and bakeries, the driving back to the city, and the rush to see the latest Batman film -- i just forgot to bike that one day. But hey, every other day for four months -- it felt pretty good! I got better at biking due to the constant buzz surrounding the challenge, ever gaining experience out of necessity and learning to solve issues as they arose. Even with the cop-out days where i felt almost like i was ignoring the spirit of the challenge, having to bike every day really put it in a different perspective for me.
Partly in order to leverage this questionable facility i seem to possess for accomplishing easy things repeatedly for extended periods of time, i started doing semi-serious New Year's "resolutions" a couple years ago. ("Partly", i say, because the "resolutions" were in no small way responsible for my understanding the facility, along with some external observation from Chris, and "resolutions" because they really seem to have a flavor different from the traditional "get better about X", "stop doing Y" types of resolutions.) In 2011, i decided i wanted to get good at mixing cocktails, so i resolved to mix a new-to-me one every week and document my progress. With a little fudging -- allowing myself to frontload or make up a week every so often -- i succeeded at this goal and learned a life skill now pervasive in my day-to-day existence (though the documentation process was lamentably largely private). In 2012, i decided i wanted to dial back my dessert consumption, so i invented a silly points system -- one point per dessert, one point per week, basically -- and barring a few deviations -- i gave myself a freebie for my birthday, and i accidentally went negative one week towards the end -- i succeeded at curbing dessert consumption and learned a few things about my physiological responses to sugar.
For 2013, i decided to try something a little bit different. Since i seem to be good at doing easy things for extended periods of time, why not try doing a bunch of easy things, for some slightly less extended periods of time? After all, doing a thing for a whole year gets to be pretty tedious. I could sort of throw a bunch of ideas at the wall, as so much spaghetti, to see what stuck. So i dreamt up my 13-in-13 challenge: each month, come up with a new resolution in some area of desirable self-improvement, decide what success should mean, draft a plan, and carry it out. Managing the whole thing makes for one extra mega meta-resolution, for a total of 13 resolutions in 2013: 13-in-13.
January, i decided to focus on music theory and guitar, which meant practicing for at least 20 minutes a night at least 3 times a week. This one went well enough -- usually when i sat down to hammer out my 20 minutes, i'd wind up playing for an hour and a half, and i definitely managed more than thrice a week. Still, improvement felt slow, and by the end of the month, i was glad not to have to find the time anymore to fit in one more thing at the end of the day -- sometimes, i'd sacrifice sleep to get in my day's music.
February, i took an easier but more persistent challenge: eat breakfast, every day. Where breakfast means any meal the first bite of which i take at least an hour before lunch. (Sometimes, i nail down the specifics on the fly, resulting occasionally in somewhat dubious but nonetheless earnest rules.) The goal here was basically to dial back on the whole "scramble to work late in the morning, wait to eat until lunchtime" drill which felt like it was having detrimental effects on my mood and productivity. This one went so well, i'm still doing it! I've been converted -- i even started stocking breakfast foods for a while, enjoying a semi-regular morning ritual involving tasty food, fresh coffee, and a crossword. (I've recently fallen somewhat out of the habit on account of a spate of travel disrupting a couple of weekends and the loss of an hour disrupting my sleep schedule, but i do still give myself time to eat something at work at least an hour before lunch.)
March, i took on "writing". I wanted to try to write a SIGBOVIK paper, some blog posts, maybe catch up on blogging my cocktail adventures from a few years ago and present day. You can see how well it's been going -- this is the first thing i've written all month. My goal was to write "something" twice a week -- and i even gave myself a chance to be a week behind, as long as i caught up. Well, i guess i'm two weeks behind now, but maybe if i start hammering stuff out, i can still catch up by the end. I'm cautiously optimistic! After all, writing this post has only taken me about an hour, and that's less than i usually spent practicing the guitar in January.
So here's to more posts from me here and on barspoon, all about what i've been up to in life these last couple of years :)