Let's start with the goals I've had the longest: blogging, sleeping, and clarinet-playing. The biggest success of those was blogging by a long shot--I only missed one day. Clarinet playing was the next, though I admit, there were some days when I only practiced 45 minutes or an hour, which may sound like a lot to you guys, but I promise that I need at LEAST two hours to play at the level I need to hold myself to. Finally, sleep, which failed on several occasions due to various physical and moral failures, was generally a success, but could be improved.
I realize that I still have a week left for my month of German, but this has definitely been what I have the most O's in by a LOT. It seems to have been generally put on the back burner, and the reason appears to be that to do the lessons, I need internet, and if I have internet, I also have YouTube, Gmail, Twitter, Facebook, and Dailybooth... a lot of distractions. I am not exactly sure how I can remove this temptation except for understanding it, expecting it, and taking preemptive action against it. I'll try setting up a rewards program for myself, such as, "When I finish the first vocabulary-building section, I may check Twitter ONCE or watch ONE YouTube video." This way, I still get what I am tempted to do instead of the lesson, but keep the lesson my focus.
Reading seems to be falling into the same kind of category--namely because when I read, my mind is still creatively churning and I can't focus on the book. I'm not entirely sure how to counteract this one, but I still have most of the next 30 days to figure it out!
Exercising I have also only just started, but my body is already quite used to it, craving it even (I did end up doing the extra set of push-ups and curl-ups yesterday). The magical thing I'm finding about the exercise is that it really gets my blood pumping, which makes my body want to do things. It makes me so much more conscious, and my brain starts firing ideas at me. It's wonderful.
Finally, one major pastime to which I lose the bulk of my motivation is watching 30 Rock. That brilliant, wonderful show just sucks me in and continues to make me laugh so embarrassingly loud as very little else can. Today, I noticed, I had so much more time to do things, having NOT watched ANY 30 Rock. Therefore, I will self-impose a limit of two episodes a day, which must be decidedly not in rapid succession--the temptation would be too great to continue the streak, and it would also not quench my thirst later on when I want to see it.
And it seems like the general notion is that I pose no nuisance in continuing my blogging, and generally have readers who desire to catch up--though I did only hear from two people, I'm assuming anyone who wanted me to stop would just end up ignoring my posts anyway. So I'm going to be blogging for the next 30 days, at least (with the exception of next Thursday to Sunday, when I'll be at VidCon.) See you all tomorrow!
Sleep: X
Clarinet: X
German: X
Excercise: ABLF
Blogging: X
Hey Steve! Here's an idea to help with getting your German done without being distracted by the rest of the internet. It's an application called SelfControl, and it blocks certain websites for a certain amount of time, when you tell it to. So, you can have internet access, but not be allowed to go on youtube or twitter or facebook for 2 hours, or however long you decide. I don't know if they have it available for PC users yet, but it's something to look into.
ReplyDeletehttp://visitsteve.com/work/selfcontrol/
Yeah, I totally have the same issue. I did homeschooling this year (still not finished) through an online school and I have to force myself to do assignments. I just started following your blog but I really like hearing about you and your opinions, I would love to read another 3o days.
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