Welcome to the third accountability report of 2020. It’s been hectic, even though I’m only allotting one hour of writing time every day, but I’d rather make some progress than no progress. I’d be overjoyed to be in a position to start working through the improvement notes I’ve made now, but I am at least happy that I’ve actually made some progress.

So, without further ado, I’ll quickly subject myself to the interrogations I posted last week. Here goes!

1. Have I kept with my goal and completed notes up to the end of Chapter 8?

Yes, I’m happy to say I’ve made it to Chapter 9. I had to add in extra writing time on Saturday, but I made it.

So, go me!

2. Have I kept up with the introduced habits?

Success on this one too. The last few days there have been people around making noise, which is off-putting while meditating. On Saturday my phone decided to cut out the audio from the guided meditation it was playing, which was infuriating. But on the whole I’ve kept up with it as best I can.

I’ve been working with the Gratitude Journal too, on schedule, three times a week, so far without fail.

So, again, go me!

3. Have I successfully tracked the effort to be more active and what have I achieved so far?

My idea for this one was to return my FitBit to service again and see what my typical step counts are. It seems that I’ve ranged between 6,000 and 12,000 steps depending on what work I’m doing on any given day. For instance, if I’m working at the computer, I’m obviously not going to rack up a ton of steps, whereas if I’m working outside, such as later this week when I move the chickens and the electric fence set up closer to the house, I’ll rack up a lot more.

I’ll keep an eye on the number of steps over the upcoming week and try to devise a plan to ‘step up’ the count on the lighter days. After that, if I can see some slack in the system I’ll consider introducing something extra, but for right now, I’m content to collect data and get a good picture of how active I actually am.

4. How about that ‘Reward Plan’? Anything yet?

This one is a bit tougher. The biggest issue is that I have plans between 25 January and 5 February that are going to put everything on pause. After that, I plan on introducing some lifestyle changes as the rest of the year opens up.

I still like the idea of the jar with hundreds of folded pieces of paper in it that act as a lottery of rewards stemming from a simple ‘attaboy’ on up. The things I would consider rewards are things I’m planning on cutting out and at the moment I haven’t made time to sit down with a cup of tea and think of all the little, fairly cheap, things I can reward myself with, or to establish what deserves a reward:

Great job! You woke up this morning! Have a play at the Rewards Lottery! …and render it void of any real meaning!

Meanwhile…

Our other projects here this past week included meeting with an contractor who we hope will give us an estimate for doing the largest portion of the work for the NRCS Conservation Plan project, as well as whatever other ancillary jobs we can afford while he’s here.

We also rehomed the rabbits. The original plan had been to rehouse them in the Mini Barn, but things are always more complicated than they appear and we’re still in the process of figuring out a quick and cheap way to finish the grade work – it’s something that’s on our contractor wish list. So rather than just ‘keep‘ rabbits on our back porch, we’ve given them to someone who’s in a position to breed them. The plan is to get kits from them later on, once we’re actually ready for rabbits.

Up Next…

This upcoming week is going to be a little different, as are the two weeks which follow. I’m hoping to get finished with the revision notes by the end of this week, but I don’t expect to actually make that goal.

With that in mind, and the level of upheaval the next three weeks are going to mean to my writing effort, I’m going to take it easy on my future self with this weeks interrogations.

1. At the rate of three chapters a week, I should get done with the notes portion of the revision before my next accountability post. Did I make it to the end of Chapter 17?
2. So far I’ve kept up with the mindful meditation and gratitude journals. Exactly how much backsliding will I have done in the interim?
3. Where am I with regards to tracking the effort to get more active?
4. Have I gotten past procrastination and actually come up with something resembling a positive reinforcement rewards plan yet?

I won’t be able to write accountability posts for at least the next two weeks, so I’m going to schedule a couple of other posts to keep on track with my goal of posting something every week. It’ll still give some insight into the kind of things that go on around here, so hopefully it’ll help make me either more or less relatable, depending on whether I’m relatable at all.

In the meantime, at least for the next few days, we’re expecting some cold weather, so stay warm, stay safe, and have a great week!

Categories: Accountability, Administrative, Personal, Plans & Planning, Revision

Tags: 2020, 2020 Vision, Good Habits, Gratitude, Gratitude Journal, Meditation, Mindfulness, Mindfulness Meditation, New Year