Outcome: "Win"
Record: 9-0
Streak: 9

Summary: I think my all time high streak was around 14, or maybe it was 10, but anyway, I'm getting up there. Today I started healthy, worked with two hours and 15 minutes overtime to save up strategic flex-time for Friday to use on project x, worked on project x for 45 minutes, finished the grammer in lesson 4 of French and started doing the exercises, read Philly mag for 15 minutes, did some laundry, some bills, administrative stuff, right now I'm listening to a new cd with Gershwin and Ravel on it, and in a bit I'll help clean up from dinner and read.
One thing that was awesome today was that I rebounded from a potentially catastrophic state of mind. Because of the ridiculously warm weather today, I started freaking out about global warming, then I thought about N. Korea and nukes, then I basically imagined armageddon and the scenes from the opening of Terminator 2. What made it worse was that I was taping fucking boxes when I wanted to be building a shelter and hoarding great books. But then I managed to control my anxiety attack, and while I don't think that the problems I was considering are insignificant, but if there's anything that can be done, it won't get done in that state of mind. I managed to become rational again.
Here's a hugely successful strategy that I've probably already talked about but had the occasion to revisit today: at least for me, sometimes I do things because I'm more comfortable with a certain way, or because doing things that certain way way appeals to me aesthetically. Here's an example: I've arranged my schedule so that each day I have about an hour and half in the middle of the day to work on my projects, plus an hour to an hour and a half at the library after work. I like this schedule because it works. Then today I realized that another Friday completely off would be very strategic for me, but that if I continued at my current rate, I wouldn't work the hours for that (since I was following my normal schedule). I decided to be flexible and change my schedule just for this week because the objective result would be better--I'm allowing myself a minimal amount of project time prior to Friday so that I can work overtime and get off that day which allows me more project-completing power than I could have had in individual time chunks. There's intertia that I have against adjustments like that, but it's essentially emotional and/or aesthetic. Sometimes I feel like I want one system/schedule to comprehend every situation and then work as hard as I can to stick with that schedule. But it's important to keep thinking and focusing on the result and what will get the best result given the particular circumstances and project. I guess this is just basically being flexible, but to me it's super important yet very difficult to incorporate.

Outcome: "Win"
Record: 8-0
Streak: 8

Summary: Quick one, because I want to read: good wake up, healthy breakfast, biked, worked, worked on project x, worked on 2nd draft restructuring, biked, made dinner, cleaned, took care of paper work, now I'm going to perform my nightly toilette, read, and go to bed.

Outcome: "Win"
Record: 7-0
Streak: 7

Summary: A win, like the Eagles. I'm glad finally to make it 7 straight days for the first time this year. Sunday's are for relaxing, but I also need to observe my principles of ethics, which has tripped me up before. Today I stayed strong: I woke up leisurely, cooked a nice breakfast for Eva and I, and then I went for a bike ride in the park. This is when things got crazy. I got a flat in basically the deepest part of the park, and I didn't have the gear to fix it. It was 3:30 at the time, and the Eagles were kicking off around 4:15. I basically dropped the bike and sprinted, Lito Sheppard style, about 5 miles back to downtown so I could watch the game. During the game I ate moderately, and afterward I was focused on the tasks I needed to accomplish in order to go to bed: I retrieved my bike, fixed the tire, cooked lunch for next week, cleaned up a bit, performed my dental hygiene, and now I'm writing this.
Summary for the Week: I worked a full week, made a budget for Eva and I by which we'll have a comfortable amount of saved ducats by the time of our Philly move, invested a ton of time into project x, wrote some, cleared my head and focused my goals, read about 50 pages in Hebrew Thought Compared With Greek, got half way through section 4 of my French program, performed all of my domestic tasks faithfully and with the proper respect, ate healthfully, was moderate in general, exhibited good hygiene, and rested myself well this weekend.
I should say that I'm nearly done with my weight loss goal. At the height of my fattness, I think I was around 210. Right now I'm 180 or 181. My original goal was to get to 180, but now I realize that it's not so much about a number but about getting a body form that looks healthy to me. I still need to loose some weight (I mean shit, I'm not that tall). I keep losing pounds every week, so I'll get there soon.
Things I need to work on: I still need to improve my control over my mental state and my impulses. I feel like the worst level is just being controlled by emotions and impulses. The middle level, where I am right now, is where your emotions and impulses are out of control, but you force yourself to obey your better judgment. I feel like the best situation, like Aristotle says, is to have a calm mind that is habituated to love virtuous things and be in harmony with your good judgment. That way you're not battling with yourself, and you can spend that energy kicking ass.
I need to work on maintaining a more clear conception of what I'm doing and what I'm striving towards. I've been pretty good on this, but I could do better.
In general, I'm happy with what I did this past week. I wasn't even trying to inflate my scores or bend my standards because I wanted a 7-0--I really fought hard this week to do things the right way, and it worked out.
Actually, I think I could read more-- that was deficient this week. Still, I've got less than 100 pages left on my book.
Next week I want to make significant progress on project x, if not complete it. I want to maintain a good mindset; I want to maximize my work time, and thoroughly turn off and enjoy my leisure time. I want to read more. I'd like to finish my restructuring for my second draft of the novel. I'd also like to break 180 pounds, get down into the 170s.

Result: Win
Record: 6-0
Streak: 6

Summary: Within the system that I'm currently using for myself, Saturday's are a day to accomplish domestic tasks during the first half and to read and relax during the second half. So far, and unless something crazy happens,mission accomplished. Eva and I planned the week's meals, went grocery shopping, I did dishes, cleaned, straightened up, and since about 4 I've been reading. I'll continue reading until Eva gets home.
I fuckin love reading. I can't even put it into words. No doubt that ducats have tremendous liberating value, as Derek points out. If I had enough ducats that I didn't have to work, my daily activity, aside from domestic things, would be reading and thinking. My task, from now until I die, would be to find truth. That might mean math, or physics, or cognative science, or linguistics, or literature, or whatever, but I would read and think all day, just for it's own sake. I guess I'd also seek out and admire beauty for its own sake as well. Damn--fine wine and Debussy, then inspiration from Emerson, and then contemplating the core of formal systems with Godel, picking up the latest physics journals, and then falling asleep reading some great literature. I can only imagine. Right now, back to Hebrew Thought Compared With Greek.

Outcome: Win
Record: 5-0
Streak: 5

Summary: Today was a big win. Like I said, I already put in most of my week's hours prior to today, so I basically didn't have work. Instead I advanced my projects. I put in a huge amount of time working on project x. For my novel, I did write some, but I spent more time looking into possible grants and publishing avenues. I also spent time organizing my personal stuff, including credit card, budget, and looking into getting a new printer. I was frugal by eating at home all day and utilizing leftovers. That saved 10$ right there.
Throughout my day I experienced a full cycle of emotions--excitment, nervousness, optimism, despair, intimidation, and confidence to name a few. What pleased me was that while I was experiencing the good emotions I still paced myself to avoid burning out, and while I was experiencing the bad emotions I reflected on philosophical principles to get me though it as well as making my will like iron, basically just doing it and saying fuck-me, I don't care about my bad feelings right now.
Today served to collect my thoughts and focus my goals. It was a good "overall picture" day. I'm coming out feeling good, when I know that last year this same day would have ended in me feeling like a piece of shit and buying cokes and gummy worms at the corner store.

Result: Win
Record: 4-0
Streak: 4

Summary: Woke up well, biked, put in an honest effort at work, read Philly mag for 15 minutes, went through the chapter 4 French dialogue once with the audio, broke ground on a new project that shall remain unnamed and undescribed until it is completed (spent 3 hours total on that), biked home, cleaned, made dinner, and now I'm going to read and go to bed.
I have come to believe that if a person is happy and lives an ethical life, that counts for a lot. That counts for almost everything. Our webring of blogs here seems to encourage improvement and ambition, which are good and exciting, but they're garbage if lacking either ethics or happiness. Well, the happiness thing is more complex, I believe. That depends on how you're looking at the question. I'll save that for another time. But mainly I'm trying to say that looking at a person who is happy and ethical is looking at a person who is doing all right.

Result: Win
Record: 3-0
Streak: 3
Summary: I'm storing up a bank of time this week at work. Even if I don't work overtime tomorrow, I'll still be leaving at 9:30 on Friday. That basically leaves me with a whole day to accomplish stuff. SO in a way, my wins are contingent on how I spend the extra time. I'm confident though, and I'm not going to withhold giving myself the win because of that. Other than working a ton, I had a good wake up, healthy food, exercise, read Philadelphia magazine for 15 minutes, finished studying the dialogue in section 4 of the French, worked on my budget, and now I'm going to help with dinner, clean, and possibly read.

Outcome: Win
Record: 2-0
Streak: 2

Day in Review: First of all, hell yeah Dan for getting back in, and hell yeah Eagles for getting theit shit together and playing like they should be playing. I had a crisp start to my day, even though I went to bed late because of the game, I worked my full day at worked, biked, wrote one letter and one e-mail, worked through the beginning of lesson 4 in my Advanced French course, read Philadelphia magazine for 15 minutes, backed up data in preparation for a full factory restore on my computer, took out the trash, cleaned, and logged an hour and a half overtime at work, which taken together with yesterday's hour and a half, means I basically get half a day off to accomplish shit on Friday.

I'm going to adopt a slightly different scheme. First, I'm going to do daily, weekly, monthly, and perhaps yearly summaries; second, I'm going to do something analogous to a win-loss statistic--each day I excel and live virtuously at the level of, say, a 4 or a 5 under the old system, I'll give myself a "win", if not I get a "loss"; finally, I'm going to keep streak counts, similar to the "day count", which just keeps track of how many solid days, or "wins", I've had in a row.

Today: Win
Daily Summary: I was able to be flexible enough to take care of some unusual stuff and still to be able to finish what I had to take care of. I worked an hour and a half overtime at work, so that's an hour and a half I'll use for writing or pursuing other things. I ate healthfully today, biked to and from work, and when I get home I'm going to cook dinner for the house. After dinner it's Eagles o'clock.
Record: 1-0
Streak: 1
(I just barely didn't achieve a "4" yesterday. I don't have time to get into it--it was kind of shameful, nothing major. I was tempted to count it as a day lived well, but I didn't want to because I want to maintain high standards for myself).

Day 6

I like the look of that 6. I've been killing it so far this weekend. Obviously, that 6 is contingent on me not fucking up for the rest of the day. But so far I have been mainly writing, but aside from that I maintained a pleasant comportment and healthy eating. I'd say since yesterday afternoon I've logged about 15 hours of writing time. Yeah, that means I was up until 6 this morning and then got up around 11 to continue. I'm feeling good, and later I'm planning to get my grocery shopping done, clean up, and get everything set so I can be super chill tomorrow.

Day 5

Big last minute crunch on the essay. I'm happy with the way it's turning out. I'd be really psyched if I turn out an awesome essay and I don't fall apart this weekend like I did in previous weekends.

Day 4

Day 3

Today and yesterday were great. I finished a 98% polished draft of my essay. Things are just falling into place.

Day 1

Back to working. I did well today. Nothing unusual. Writing, put in my time at work, cooked dinner. I'm going to write again for an hour later tonight.

YO YO YO,
so I see Dan isn't posting these days--what's up with that? I kind of fucked up this weekend, although there were some triumphs mixed in. I triumphed in being able to remind myself of my priorities in my personal life and doing a good job attending to them. I fucked up by slacking on my health/domestic stuff. I ate a bunch of garbage starting last night and into today. I wanted to clean, but I haven't yet. I wanted to write, but I probably won't until tomorrow. Partially this is understandable. With Eva's cousin coming, and the holiday, my schedule was thrown off this week. Also, my triumph cost a huge amount of psychic energy, which drained me and hampered my ability to follow through on the smaller stuff. I did get a lot of reading done. Read some Emerson, which is so good I'm considering requiring myself to read it everyday again as I did last year for a time, and I also read Hebrew Thought Compared With Greek, an academic book that Eva's uncle sent me. It's good, but it's slow going and difficult for me to form an opinion on regarding its truth.
Heading into next week, here's my plan: there is some what and some how that needs refocusing. The what is my scheduling and executing, which has been pretty good lately. I have a wierd schedule at work right now that gives me an hour and a half off in the middle of the day, and I've been using that as flexible utility time. Sometimes I write, sometimes I take care of administrative stuff. It's good because I can't be interrupted there, and I can't leave, and both of these things help. I need to do better being conscious of my goals and my progress on them and assigning time accordingly. For example, the essay deadline is coming up, so I need to push that to the top of the list of priorities. I wanted to create something that would organize my bill payments and chores into an easy reference list, but this can wait until after the essay is completed. Basically, I need to have a constant awareness of what my projects are, what state they are in, what I need to do to advance them, and then assign time to work on them using all the tricks that I've been learning. Going to the library for a few hours before coming home has been huge. I'll continue that as well.
Once I get home, I'm finding that it doesn't work as well to rigidly divide my time. Eva doesn't go for it, and when the tasks require two people, it doesn't seem right to ask the other person to work on your rigid schedule. I need to treat home time as a more relaxed flex time. I need to cook, and clean, and schedule, and pay bills, and recharge. I need to juggle a bunch of stuff. The balance, and this is key, is , on the one hand, to avoid being overwhelmed and feeling like I'm working the whole time when I get home, resulting in burnout, and on the other hand, to get so relaxed and casual that I don't get anything done. I just see this as something that will have to be practiced and finessed. But it will be a huge help that in other portions of my day, I will have set myself up gloriously. By this I mean that I will have gotten enough sleep the night before, eaten two healthy, energy rich meals already, finished with annyoing necessary work, written for at least an hour and a half, and perhaps done some administrative work. So basically, once I get home, there's nothing to stress about too much, because I've already done a lot.
The "how" I talked about is like this: two things, one is that I did better, but not as well as I could have about not wasting energy on anxiety. It's just as simple as being rational about my situation, eating well, sleeping, exercising, etc. I just have to breathe, drink water, and not waste energy on anxiety. The second thing is being in my working mode less. Eva mistakes my working mode for me hating her. WHen I'm in working mode I'm serious, not joking around, not affectionate, just focused and trying to do stuff. I can't be this way around her. This is partially what's behind all the before/after coming home talk from above. I'll be in working mode before coming home, and in relaxed mode once I get home.
Another big key issue: the weekend. My momentum has gotten wrecked every single weekend so far this weekend. It's true that every single weekend, literally, there has been some huge personal thing that has happened that has taken a lot of my energy. But still, I fuck up. I have ideas about how to handle this, but I think I'm done writing for now.

Day 5

Roshashana today (I'm sure I spelled that wrong). I'll probably take tomorrow off instead of Sunday in honor of the holiday. I think I'll also be going to temple with Eva.
The writing is going well. I only have a week and half left before the deadline, but that will be plenty of time.

Day 4

Breathe deeply and drink lots of water.

Day 3

Yesterday was another day lived well, but I didn't have time to post. Eva's cousin came to visit from Israel, and we picked her up and went out to eat. I still managed to write for 1 hour and 45 minutes yesterday, despite all the excitement. Plus I didn't even feel stressed about it. Today will be another day lived well provided I write from 4-6 and just observe my basic principles throughout the rest of the day.
The importance of good diet, exercise, and sleep continue to rise in my estimation of important things. They are so key, I can't emphasize it enough. I'm starting to be able to feel the effects of individual meals. For example, I eat pretty much the same things on Mon-Fri, but this week I changed something. Before this week, I ate a hoagie for lunch. It consisted of an Amoroso roll, the necessary cheeses, LTO, light mayo, oil, salt, oregano, and sweet pepper. Although it was delicious, it's barely provided any useful calories. Starting this week I switched to falafel sandwiches. I'm making them with whole wheat pitas, falafel, a bit of feta, and a mixed vegetable salad consisting of cucumbers, tomatoes, scallions, bell peppers, and capers. This lunch actually provides me with energy, in addition to the fact that it's delicious. Since making my change, I can tangibly feel the difference in my ability to live virtuously.
I've also been resisting the pastries and calorie-bomb drinks at work. Instead I have one simple cup of coffee or cappucino in the morning, and then I drink tons of water for the rest of the day. I can feel the benefits from that as well.
I've been sleeping a minumum of 8 hours a night, if not 8 1/2 to 9. This has also been huge. I work out at work by lifting heavy stuff for 8 hours, plus I ride my bike everywhere. In general I feel energized, and when I sit down to work on something, I encounter less mental resistance. This stuff is so key.

Day 1

Hell yeah on the Philly trip Dan;
I fell off on the weekend. I fucked up. I just got a bunch of candy and screwed around on the internet. I need to eat healthy and do things that are actually worthwhile, like reading. Today I rebounded nicely though. Rode my bike to and from work, worked hard at work, wrote a letter, paid some bills, took care of paperwork, put in an hour and a half on my essay before coming home, made dinner, listened to this cd with Ravel's Sheherazade, Le Tombeau de Couperin, and Pavane Pour Une Infante Defunte, plus some Debussy tracks that I'd already heard on the second half, ate a lovely dinner with Eva, cleaned the shit out of the kitchen, cleaned the bathroom a little, attended to some minor administrative tasks, and now I'm going to read until bed time.
Yo, the Eagle's lost was gut wrenching, but I think there's more good than bad in that loss. Granted, they shot themselves in the foot, which is inexcusable, but other than the statistically unlikely number of errors that they committed at the end, they outplayed the Giants by a longshot. They were dominant on 1st string vs 1st string in the preseason, they dominated the Texans, and they dominated the Giants. I don't take all losses as equal. If they can beat the Giants, I think they can beat Dallas and Washington. Sucks about Kearse though, he was one of my favorites. I just hope they don't lose it psychologically. As a side note, I committed myself to just watching the game, quickly checking scores, and checking injury news. Anything else is forbidden. ESPN power rankings, analysis, and shit like that are like crack. It's good for nothing except wasting your life. No matter how many predictions people make, or how the Eagles are ranked, they are going to win or lose on Sunday based on their own skills, independent of the analysts.

Day 4

Planning is good--scheduling, assigning goals, etc. are all valuable practices. However, once a plan is conceived, it seems wise to put on the blinders, so to speak, to everything past, future, and tangential in the present. Don't allow these things to enter your mind. Allow your anxiety to be placated by the rational fact that the time for everything WILL come, and you will meet that moment as well prepared as you can be, so you can allow time to move at its own rate (which it will do whether you "allow" it to or not). If you suddenly remember something, or have an inspiration for something outside of your immediate task, jot it down, but soon return to the present. Stressing about time passing also falls into the category that I'm talking about. This mainly happens at work. Don't check the clock, don't worry about stuff, just relax and do what's in front of you. I think this is a good policy in general, primarily because it conserves energy and directs it usefully.
Hmm..I'm not satisfied with my attempt to articulate my thought. Oh well, I'm only willing to spend a very limited amount of time blogging now.