Missions – Feb 2018 – Complete
Since December I’ve been tackling a set of personal ‘missions’ each month. They’re mostly focused around health, productivity & growth.
At the start of February I created this month’s set of ‘missions’ to complete every single day.
Here’s how I did.
The Missions
In February I set out to achieve these every single day:
- Wake up at 5:41am. Done
- Go for a long walk after getting up. Done
- Do 40 push-ups. Done
- Complete all 3 activity rings on my Apple Watch. Done
- Read a physical book for at least 30mins. Done
- No alcohol. Done
- Write in a logbook about the previous day. Done
- Don’t read any email or social media before 9am. Done
- Spend 15 minutes editing and organising photos. Done(ish)
The Results
In February I set out to achieve these 9 things every single day. This is what happened:
Wake up at 5:41am. Done. Never a question.
Go for a long walk after getting up. Done. Never deviated. Same walk, same time, every day.
Do 40 push-ups. Done. My form felt like it improved over the month and I got up to doing sets of 10 full push-ups by the end of the month. Being able to drop and do 10 solid push-ups whenever I want now is a good feeling.
Complete all 3 rings on my Apple Watch. Done.
Read a physical book for at least 30mins. Done. Like in January, I got through a bunch of good books. Shoe Dog was the surprise package and easily one of the best books I’ve ever read.
Discipline Equals Freedom – Jocko Willink. (Read for the second time).
So Good They Can’t Ignore You – Cal Newport.
The Sirt Food Diet – Aiden Goggins & Glen Matten.
Show Your Work! – Austin Kleon.
Shoe Dog – Phil Knight. (An incredible book).
Built to Sell – John Warrilow.
The Productivity Project – Chris Bailey. (Ugh, terrible)
Reset Your Child’s Brain — Victoria Dunckley, MD
My top two…Shoe Dog and The Sirt Food Diet.
No alcohol. Done. Again I found it relatively easy just to stop consuming but was definitely gagging for a drink at various points through the month. Not doing this again though because I’ve since discovered more about the health benefits of moderate red wine drinking. :)
Write in a logbook about the previous day. Done. This was the first month that I’ve written in any form of journal or diary. I think it was a really useful practice as I managed to spot a few interesting trends regarding my health (both physical and mental). I’m going to continue this daily practice each morning and I have some ideas on how to modify the structure of my entries to capture better data.
Don’t read any email or social media before 9am. Done. This was a little painful and frustrating at times. I think the 9am time had something to do with it because generally I’d find myself waiting until 9am to do these things before starting on any other ‘work’. So the whole morning routine felt a little off rather than super-effective. Switching this up next month.
Spend 15 minutes editing and organising photos. Done(ish). Yeah, I say ish because some days I might have only got in 10 minutes or so. I just found it really hard to find a strict routine around this one. Regardless, I managed to ‘catch up’ on all my editing for 2017 and I’m now ready to place a new order of my Collect prints to display on the wall in our kitchen. So I guess I achieved the result I wanted but struggled to find a great routine that worked every day.
The Future
Think I’m stopping right here?
Nope, just getting started.
I’m on a mission (pun intended) to make some significant changes to various parts of my life. As I wrote last month, I can feel these small daily challenges making a real difference. It all comes down to this…
Less thought. More action. Let’s go.
‘Missions is a special project I started in December 2017. Little daily challenges, completed every month.
