Continuing where we left off from How I started tracking my life, Part 1:
You can see that I started with a monthly perspective, initially keeping track of my gym habit and notable occasions. I specifically made it a point to keep it fun, simple and sustainable– it didn’t feel like a lot of effort, and took less than a couple of minutes every other day. The most interesting thing is- once I started making an effort to keep track of interesting things, more interesting things started happening. I unwittingly began to live my life with more focus and clarity, without even really trying.
Here’s Week 15:
I created (n_n)/ in this week, which would go on to become quite a big part of my life over the next 35 weeks. This was the first time I started keeping track of each day in greater detail- I started a new notebook, and allocated more space to each day. It’s a little bit messy. As usual, you can see… I’m not sleeping enough.
I still kept my monthly tracking, though, to get a sense of perspective of how each week measured up against the rest. Here’s weeks 15 to 19:
Hearts represented days that I met my girlfriend, bolded squares are days that I worked out. Crosses represented mistakes or failings that I ought to learn from and avoid repeating. Zzz represented days that were ruined by bad sleeping habits. Mind you, I didn’t have any formalized legend or anything with a list of what the symbols mean- I made stuff up along the way, and I’m looking at them now and figuring them out along the way. By the way, I believe I drew this without using rulers! Over time my handwriting and penmanship got noticably more stable and consistent- again, without my conscious effort.
Here’s Weeks 23 to 26: At first glance it might seem like a step backward- but it isn’t really. Remember, I’m keeping track of each individual week now, and it doesn’t make sense to have the same information repeated verbatim in two different places. So I focused on the details in my weekly analysis, and simplified my monthly analysis. By stripping it down to the bare minimum, I get a clearer big picture. I can refer to the specific weeks if I want to get the details. Although, to be honest, on hindsight I wish I had put in a little more detail here- but I was experimenting, trying to find a balance between making it as simple and easy as possible and making it useful to me.
Here’s Week 36:
This is still part of the same book as Week 15 earlier. You’ll notice I simplified “Mon, Tues” to “M, T”. I’m quite proud of little things like that- it’s less effort on my part, and more elegant to work with. I experimented with having missions or objectives, something that I think I ought to bring back. Oh, and I bought visakanv.com this week! 😀
Here’s Weeks 35 to 39:
I quite like how things are getting around this time. Notice how even after 30 weeks of tracking and attempted self-improvement, I still get dizzy and dehydrated, I still spend days at a time being incredibly unproductive, and my fitness routines are far from stable or consistent. Oh, and I obviously used a ruler here. Freehand is fun for practice sake, but doesn’t allow you to squeeze in as much information. In case you’re wondering, the colours don’t really mean anything, I just work with whatever pens I have available to me. Perhaps I should begin colour-coding things. That’s a thought. Hmm.
Here’s Week 49: (I’ve started a new book, having exhausted the last one!)
I really, really like how my handwriting has evolved: I can now write in a much more “tight” manner, squeezing in a lot more information in much less space. There’s a lot more rhythm. I feel like it’s a manifestation of something a bit more profound, a sort of deeper understanding of context and expression. Figuring out how to put it into words is a task for another day.
I also keep track of things at other levels- here’s a week-by-week summary!
Needless to say, I’m going to have a lot of fun analysing all this information at the end of The 90 Week Project. 😀
How I started tracking my life, Part 2
Continuing where we left off from How I started tracking my life, Part 1:
You can see that I started with a monthly perspective, initially keeping track of my gym habit and notable occasions. I specifically made it a point to keep it fun, simple and sustainable– it didn’t feel like a lot of effort, and took less than a couple of minutes every other day. The most interesting thing is- once I started making an effort to keep track of interesting things, more interesting things started happening. I unwittingly began to live my life with more focus and clarity, without even really trying.
Here’s Week 15:
I created (n_n)/ in this week, which would go on to become quite a big part of my life over the next 35 weeks. This was the first time I started keeping track of each day in greater detail- I started a new notebook, and allocated more space to each day. It’s a little bit messy. As usual, you can see… I’m not sleeping enough.
I still kept my monthly tracking, though, to get a sense of perspective of how each week measured up against the rest. Here’s weeks 15 to 19:
Hearts represented days that I met my girlfriend, bolded squares are days that I worked out. Crosses represented mistakes or failings that I ought to learn from and avoid repeating. Zzz represented days that were ruined by bad sleeping habits. Mind you, I didn’t have any formalized legend or anything with a list of what the symbols mean- I made stuff up along the way, and I’m looking at them now and figuring them out along the way. By the way, I believe I drew this without using rulers! Over time my handwriting and penmanship got noticably more stable and consistent- again, without my conscious effort.
Here’s Weeks 23 to 26: At first glance it might seem like a step backward- but it isn’t really. Remember, I’m keeping track of each individual week now, and it doesn’t make sense to have the same information repeated verbatim in two different places. So I focused on the details in my weekly analysis, and simplified my monthly analysis. By stripping it down to the bare minimum, I get a clearer big picture. I can refer to the specific weeks if I want to get the details. Although, to be honest, on hindsight I wish I had put in a little more detail here- but I was experimenting, trying to find a balance between making it as simple and easy as possible and making it useful to me.
Here’s Week 36:
This is still part of the same book as Week 15 earlier. You’ll notice I simplified “Mon, Tues” to “M, T”. I’m quite proud of little things like that- it’s less effort on my part, and more elegant to work with. I experimented with having missions or objectives, something that I think I ought to bring back. Oh, and I bought visakanv.com this week! 😀
Here’s Weeks 35 to 39:
I quite like how things are getting around this time. Notice how even after 30 weeks of tracking and attempted self-improvement, I still get dizzy and dehydrated, I still spend days at a time being incredibly unproductive, and my fitness routines are far from stable or consistent. Oh, and I obviously used a ruler here. Freehand is fun for practice sake, but doesn’t allow you to squeeze in as much information. In case you’re wondering, the colours don’t really mean anything, I just work with whatever pens I have available to me. Perhaps I should begin colour-coding things. That’s a thought. Hmm.
Here’s Week 49: (I’ve started a new book, having exhausted the last one!)
I really, really like how my handwriting has evolved: I can now write in a much more “tight” manner, squeezing in a lot more information in much less space. There’s a lot more rhythm. I feel like it’s a manifestation of something a bit more profound, a sort of deeper understanding of context and expression. Figuring out how to put it into words is a task for another day.
I also keep track of things at other levels- here’s a week-by-week summary!
Needless to say, I’m going to have a lot of fun analysing all this information at the end of The 90 Week Project. 😀