My 2017 Life Experiments

In the last year I tried new experiments with exercise, meditation, diet, digital consumption, and minimalism, the last of which entailed not buying toilet paper a single time in 2017. More on that below. ;)

Ulysses was the original masochistic, self-experimenter (Ulysses and the Sirens)

For each experiment, I’ve laid out what I tried, what worked (and didn’t), and whether I recommend trying. Check out whichever ones interest you, and then I’d love to hear what new life experiments you’ve tried (and love!) in 2017.

Daily Goal Check-ins: In 2017 I started doing daily check-ins against my quarterly goals.

• What I tried: Every 3 months when Katherine and I have our “Life Board of Directors” meetings we set 3–4 goals we want to work on in the quarter ahead (both personal/professional). Then we have our amazing EA in the Philippines send us a daily check-in on those goals on WhatsApp. At the end of each week we get a summary of our stats for the week. (Screenshots: daily check-ins & stats summary.)
• What worked (or didn’t): Setting goals is trivial. Building new habits is hard! I’ve tried lots of ways to build new habits (competitions, prizes/punishments, etc) but the daily check-in has been the most effective by far for three reasons: (1) it was easy to record progress (<10 seconds/day) (2) the check-ins were daily and (3) there was relentless accountability (Katherine and I saw each others’ results each week).
• Recommendation: Highly recommend. I think of my ability to create new habits as raw infrastructure for anything else I want to do in life so this was definitely my most exciting experiment this year.

Meditation: I had never seriously meditated before 2017 but decided to commit to it for one year and see what I thought. I’m hooked.

• What I tried: In 2017, I meditated 296 times for more than 50 cumulative hours. For the first six months, I tried daily mindfulness meditation on the 10 minute Uber ride to work. For the second 6 months, I tried transcendental meditation for 20 minutes first thing in the morning and another 20 minutes in the afternoon. I used Insight Timer for timing the meditations.
• What worked (or didn’t): For me, transcendental meditation has been way more powerful. My exec coach gave me and Katherine a speed introduction to TM over the course of a ~week. I highly recommend having someone train you. It’s a small investment of time (only a few hours) but helps you overcome initial roadblocks, and the external accountability is helpful. I also tried a meditation retreat which really accelerates your progress. My take-away is that meditation is like exercise for your mind: it’s not going to change your life overnight, but the benefits are real and accrue with time.
• Recommendation: Highly recommend.

Exercise: I’ve always been an exercise junky but I traveled a lot in 2017 so going to the gym or on trail runs (my usual favorites) wasn’t always accessible. So I tried doing short, high intensity workouts.

• What I tried: I used the Seven app which gives you a series of 13 exercises for 30 seconds each. The standard workout is 7 minutes but I try to do 2–3 sets so the workouts are 14–21 minutes.
• What worked (or didn’t): This was awesome. These high intensity workouts made it possible for me to exercise 190 times in 2017 despite lots of travel. It’s easy to do the workout in a park or your hotel room and you basically never have an excuse not to workout for 7 minutes (or 14–21 if you have time). I was in good shape before this year but my fitness actually improved even though my total time exercising fell 50%+.
• Recommendation: Highly recommend.

Minimalism: In 2017, Katherine and I took our minimalism all the way.

• What I tried: Katherine and I eliminated everything but the clothes we could fit in a single carry-on bag, our laptops, and phones. No apartment, no car, no keys, no toilet paper. We lived in hotels and carried all our possessions with us. 1 pair of running shoes, 1 pair of regular shoes, 1 pair of pants, 1 sweatshirt, etc. That’s it. Don’t worry lots of underwear/socks/shirts. :)
• What worked (or didn’t): The simplicity has been amazing. You don’t realize the burden (both time + mental) that objects occupy in your life until you completely walk away. It was a new level of freedom. And living in hotels really simplified things; it was awesome to never make your bed, clean up dishes, or even think about buying toilet paper. And get this: living in hotels was significantly less expensive than our last apartment. (San Francisco: build some damn housing!) The biggest friction point has been laundry. Hotel laundry is crazy expensive and finding a dry cleaner is sometimes a hassle.
• Recommendation: I recommend trying if you’re in the right stage of life. Katherine and I are going to continue for all of 2018. My parent-friends like to taunt me that this won’t be possible when we have kids but I‘m living in denial for now.

Digital noise: I tested radically reducing my digital noise this year.

• What I tried: I deleted Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/Snapchat from my phone. And then I turned off all notifications for every app on the phone, except for phone calls and text messages. Katherine and I created a new rule: no phones in bed. I also attempted to read the news only a couple times/week.
• What worked (or didn’t): It took only 10 minutes to delete these apps and change notifications but the payout has been awesome. My phone now feels like a place of zen instead of a casino slot machine explosion of red dots and notifications. What was hardest by faaaaar was only checking the news a couple times a week. 2017 has made that, shall we say, rather hard. (If anyone has a good system/plugin for self-limiting certain websites like NYT/WSJ pls lmk.)
• Recommendation: Don’t even think about it. This was easily the highest ROI experiment.

Ketogenic diet: I’ve experimented with paleo, vegetarianism, pescaterian, and low carb but in the last couple months of 2017 I went more extreme and tried the ketogenic diet. Some people try keto to lose weight but I tested it because it supposedly also boosts mental clarity, energy levels, and reduces risk of cancer.

• What I tried: The keto diet is very low carb, adequate protein and high fat. Your calories should be 5–10% carbs, 20–25% protein, and 70–80% fat. If you get the ratio right, you will enter ketosis which means your body will switch from using glucose for energy to instead using ketones for energy. You can read this website or this book for details on the biological process behind ketosis and purported benefits.
• What worked (or didn’t): I’m admittedly pretty extreme about testing new things but this diet is hilariously hardcore. Reducing your carbs to 5–10% of calories requires eliminating all bread, pasta, rice, fruit (!), starchy vegetables, and more. There are carbs in so many things (breath mints!). What worked: (1) I tracked everything I ate using MyFitnessPal and (2) I measured my blood ketones frequently to track whether I was in ketosis using Precision Xtra blood monitor. With that process, after a few weeks, I found a rhythm of what I could and couldn’t eat. I haven’t noticed any differences in mental clarity (still pretty foggy up there) but the energy benefits are real. My energy is more stable than before and when you are in deep ketosis it also just feels good. What didn’t work: Meals get repetitive if you are mostly eating out (lots of eggs, avocado, cheese, burger-no-bun, etc). You have to be willing to sacrifice looots of stuff you love. For me, that was cocktails. :)
• Recommendation: I don’t recommend unless you are trying to lose weight or are masochistic, crazy life experimenter like me. What I do recommend is using MyFitnessPal to track everything you eat for a couple weeks. I learned a lot about nutrition and what foods do for me, and you can hire a nutritionist on Thumbtack to give you feedback (which I did and found helpful).

I’d love to hear what experiments you tried (and loved) in 2017. Please share.

Happy 2018!