Day #31: Lessons Learned From The Past 30 Days
I have vlogged and blogged for 30 days.
(To be clear, I may have missed a day or two, but I can say that over the course of a month or slightly longer, I have vlogged and blogging 30 times.)
There aren't too many new insights, but here are the important lessons:
I'm still not doing a great job of taking care of myself. I'm prioritizing professional writing and its associated communications over getting sleep. This is starting to have reoccurring medical consequences (not getting into detail here).
I'm lacking discipline in the gym, due to a lack of sleep. Nothing more to add here.
My preoccupation with my professional writing is getting in the way of keeping up with family, friends, and getting research done (journal papers from grad school I need to publish).
The focus on Forbes writing has distracted me from getting sleep and working on Founder to Founder, my Substack newsletter.
The newsletter is the foundation upon which I will build my future.
Things I'm doing to fix these issues:
Setting a hard bedtime of 9 pm after today*: No exceptions. If I don't get something finished today that is absolutely not critical, then I will postpone it till the next day. It is never ok staying up late to write anymore.
Keeping in touch with immediate and extended family and supporting them: I wish I was more proactive with checking in with extended family more often. I've done a pretty good job of this daily/every other day with my immediate family, but absolutely dropped the ball with my relatives. The coronavirus is making me refocus given that several of my extended family members are susceptible to the virus. I realize that I'm turning into a workaholic. I love my work, both engineering and writing, but these activities are not the most important things in life. Family is. My plan is to set a schedule in Excel or Google Calendar to reach out to extended family every so often, check-in and see how they are doing, and more importantly, work on ways to help them.
Writing twice daily in my personal notebook every day: I know myself to where if I don't write things down, they won't stay top of mind and I'll forget. I need to write daily to 1) stay organized, and more importantly 2), use my notebook as an emotional outlet. There are some thoughts I'd prefer to keep to myself, and also work through on my own.
Not everything is meant to be published.
Soda
* Just got a high priority story coming my way. Going to have to try and get it all started and finished tonight.