Missions — May 2018 — Complete
For the 6 months now I’ve been tackling a set of personal ‘missions’ each month, mostly focused around health, productivity & growth.
At the start of May I created this month’s set of ‘missions’ to complete every single day – no exceptions.
Here’s what happened.
The Missions
In May 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 80 push-ups. Done
Do a mobility & stretching routine for 15mins. 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
No iPhone, iPad or computer usage before 10am. Kinda, sorta...
Listen to a new podcast. Done
The Results
Overall, a pretty solid month but I had to make a slight adjustment on one of them after the first week. Here’s what happened in some more detail:
Wake up at 5:41am. Done. Every single day.
Go for a long walk after getting up. Done. Same route. Same time. No exceptions.
Do 80 push-ups. Done. Typically completed with sets of 15. I did notice my overall strength drop over the month though which wasn’t great. Almost certainly my diet has had something to do with it. Would like to be able to power through 20+ push-ups per set by now but not quite there yet.
Do a mobility & stretching routine for 15mins. At the start of the month I worked on a basic leg and hip stretching routine that I stuck with. I now feel that I’m less tight in my hips and calves which is progress I’m happy with.
Complete all 3 rings on my Apple Watch. Done.
Read a physical book for at least 30mins. Done. Another mixed bag but some good ones in this list. I really enjoy this daily habit.
Discipline Equals Freedom — Jocko Willink. (Read for the fifth time).
Traction – Gabriel Weinberg & Justin Mares.
The Longevity Diet – Dr Valter Longo.
The Complete Guide to Fasting – Dr Jason Fung.
The Success Principles – Jack Canfield.
Way of the Warrior Kid / Marc’s Mission – Jocko Willink.
My top two this month…Tribe and The Longevity Diet.
Write in a logbook about the previous day. Done. Like in April, this month I felt that my journaling was a little too much ‘going through the motions’. Still, I figured that something is better than nothing and I stuck with the structure I’ve been using for the past couple of months. Nice to look back at my weight dropping over recent months :)
No iPhone, iPad or computer usage before 10am. Kinda. I stuck to this rule for about the first 7 days and then just had to change it. It was pretty easy just to not pick up the phone or not turn on the computer but I quickly realised that I was losing at least an hour of productive work time. So I switched it up a little bit so that I just kept any time before 10am to work-related, non-email things only.
Listen to a new podcast. Done. This was an interesting little project that helped me uncover a few excellent podcasts that I will keep listening too. Discovering good new podcasts is getting harder and harder and I found myself just randomly browsing until I found something that might be interesting. Not a perfect science but it kind of worked. I enjoyed using Instagram Stories for the first time to share each new daily podcast and I can see why people like it (just not sure podcast sharing/reviewing is what its best suited for).
The Future
In June I’ll have another set of missions to knock off. A lot will still be the same but that’s kind of the point.
If there’s anything I’ve learnt these past few months it’s that consistency pays off.
Let’s go.
‘Missions is a special project I started in December 2017. Little daily challenges, completed every month.
