Missions — Mar 2018 — Complete
For the last 4 months I’ve been tackling a set of personal ‘missions’ each month. They’re mostly focused around health, productivity & growth.
At the start of March I created this month’s set of ‘missions’ to complete every single day.
Here’s how I did.
The Missions
In March I set out to achieve these 9 things every single day:
- Wake up at 5:41am. Done
- Go for a long walk after getting up. Done
- Do 50 push-ups. Done
- Do 30 squats. Done
- Complete all 3 activity rings on my Apple Watch. Done
- Read a physical book for at least 30mins. Done
- Write in a logbook about the previous day. Done
- Don’t read any email or social media before 10am. Done
- Share a ‘Good Thing’ post on Instagram & Twitter. Done
The Results
Nailed them all. Here’s what happened:
Wake up at 5:41am. Done. Never in doubt.
Go for a long walk after getting up. Done. Same time, every day. At least 4.6km (2.86mi) on the same route (except the 31st as we are away travelling but still did a walk).
Do 50 push-ups. Done. Completed with 5 sets of 10, normally before midday.
Do 30 squats. Done. I just added these when doing some of the push-up sets. Realised I have a ‘clicky’ right knee and discovered I need to do a lot more strengthening work around my knees and thighs.
Complete all 3 rings on my Apple Watch. Done.
Read a physical book for at least 30mins. Done. Like in January and February, I got through a bunch of really good books but also bumped into a couple of real stinkers.
Discipline Equals Freedom — Jocko Willink. (Read for the third time).
The Magic of Thinking Big — David Schwartz.
Organize Tomorrow Today — Dr Jason Selk & Tom Barlow.
Extreme Ownership — Jocko Willink & Leif Babin
Cradle to Cradle — William McDonough & Michael Braungart.
The Sirt Food Diet Recipe Book — Aidan Goggins & Glen Matten.
The Greatest Story Ever Told So Far — Lawrence Krauss. (Only read half).
How to Think —Alan Jacobs. (Only read half).
My top two this month…Extreme Ownership and The Alchemist.
Write in a logbook about the previous day. Done. I refined the structure of what I was writing each day and found it to be much better. There is definitely something to the whole ‘journaling’ practice and I can tell that it builds over time. Might find some more ways to fine-tune for next month though after I’ve reviewed this month’s set of entries.
Don’t read any email or social media before 10am. Done. After trialing 9am last month I decided to move it back to 10am so I actually had a period of work before letting myself check Twitter etc. Restricting this on weekends was a bit frustrating at times but not a big deal. Will probably continue with this practice for next month.
Share a ‘Good Thing’ post on Instagram & Twitter. Done. I thought it would a be fun and useful exercise to share more of myself on social media but it did become a bit of an effort towards the end. Still, it was a ‘good thing’ to do and the result was pretty cool — a small record of things I think are good. Take a look:
The Future
In April I’ll be queuing up another set of missions to get stuck into. This whole project has been really rewarding in a lot of unexpected ways.
It feels good. Let’s go.
‘Missions is a special project I started in December 2017. Little daily challenges, completed every month.
