An end to this blog

As can be seen by the lack of posts I've given up on this idea. I've not stopped thinking that there are areas in my life where I need to improve myself, but I've got some new thoughts on how that might best be done etc. More on that in the first post on my upcoming blog (with a new name/website address, and will most likely contain some general ramblings and other stuff as well), I'll post about it here to let the few people who are reading this know where to find it. I've been thinking I'll use this blog address for something else, but more on that later as well.

Do I accept failure?

No, and yes. No, I don't intend to give up on this, but yes, I've got to realize that for the past couple of weeks I have been failing. I originally let it slip when I was having a cold and used that as a reason not to be disciplined, but the last weeks I've had no excuses. Last week I accepted that I had failed, and decided to not even try that week, but rather get some other things done (like creating a new version of and old image: http://feneur.blogspot.com/2010/03/updated-experiment-blue-elements.html , and finishing creating a theme for a website I'm working on, that's still in progress though, so wait a couple of days and you'll know more...) so I could leave them behind and start over in a better position than last time.

So, this week I'm trying to start again :P Not so successful overall, but if nothing else my apartment is actually cleaner now than it has been for the last couple of months, so it's a start. I do intend to do a couple of things in a different way this time, to start with I'm only going to write about it on this blog once a week or so (I'm thinking of letting this be my personal blog though, so other posts might appear from time to time). That way I won't be as tempted to move on just to have something to write here. Just a pile of successes, while the truth is that I had to interpret things quite liberally to be able to call it a success. That leads on to the next thing, this time I intend to be sure things are correct before moving on. If my intention is to be at bed at a certain time or to write a certain number of words one day I will have to do exactly that to call it a success, not a minute or word or whatever later/less/etc.

So, like last time, sleep is the first issue I'll have to tackle. And like last time it's going to be hard to find the discipline and self-control to actually do things right. One step at a time though, and I think it's possible. If it takes more failures, then that's what it takes. For now my goal will have to be 24:00 by the end of this week.

Back in the loop

Following a cold last week, which made me postpone this project, it's taken some days to get back on track. I have started some new rules, but it's not really until today I've started to get back to all the old ones. And while that's sad, and a testament to my lacking self discipline, it also points towards one of the good things with this system: it's supposed to be a help rather than something that's supposed to let me down.

The new rules so far:

• On Monday I turned my eyes to the spiritual realm and started reading a bit in the Bible and pray a bit every day.
• On Tuesday it was house-keeping that got my attention as I mopped the floor.
• And today it was writing that got upgraded to at least 200 words per day as the goal.

And I do still have a quarter of an hour left before I'm supposed to sleep =)

EDIT: Obviously I was a bit tired or something last night since I originally posted this to my experiments blog :P Now it's here in its right place though.

Long time no see

For the first time in many months I baked my own bread today.

That's all I need to say :-) While it's but a small step, and but a part, and definitely doesn't mean that I'll be baking next week without being determined to do so, it's definitely something good. And good things should be acknowledged as such. Even small steps forward are more important than a bigger setback as they show it's possible.

A quick post before going to work

A good day today. Got up at eight, and have studied a bit and cooked food so that I'll have something to eat when I go to work soon. I've also written 468 words, so I think I've passed that rule as well :-) (Some of them old, some new, but the main thing is that I continue writing so I'll get it finished some day.) As I knew that I'd be working today I chose a fairly simple rule for today: to not eat in front of the computer. So far so good =) And I hope it won't be too hard to continue with either, it will be nice not to have to worry about my keyboard getting all messed up or something.

One small step for a man

Moving forward seems to work ok so far. Took a 30 minutes walk yesterday and today, so that part works fine so far, and I got to bed some minutes past midnight last night and up at eight this morning so that's good as well. That brings us to the "rule of the day", which today is: Write at least a hundred words per day. On it's own that doesn't seem like much, but I intend to increase it later on, and it's not just any writing. You see, I happen to be writing what I hope will be a book (or actually several, but that's a later story if I manage to get this one finished). And while it's starting to come together there's still a lot of work to do. Sometimes I've been writing relatively much for a while, but then there's been weeks, and even months, without any writing at all. Thus, some regularity can only be good. And since it's mostly editing (which at the moment consists of taking the text I have and change a few things, but keep quite a lot) getting those 100+ words a day shouldn't be too hard, though it's still important. And it can be a bit boring to edit at times, so some extra motivation to get moving can't be bad ;-)

(If anyone's interested one of the changes I do is actually quite major: changing from telling it in first person to third person. I like the result so far, but there are a whole bunch of chapters to rewrite so I have some work left to do. And I have some thoughts about adding a chapter here or there. Usually editing consists of cutting a lot, but I guess I'm kinda conservative in adding content in the first place so I can afford to add a bit. I do keep an eye out for things to remove though, don't want to leave anything boring.)

Reconsidering...

Again, not whether or not to do this at all ;-) I have however reconsidered the times. And decided to let 24:00 and 8:00 be the times for now. It's far better than the weeks leading up to this experiment, and since I don't have to be up at a certain time to get to work or so (the classes I take are done over the internet so I can do them anytime) why waste a lot of time now to try and get up earlier than I feel like? I do believe it's worth a lot to get some routines though (why would I try to do something like this in the first place otherwise?), so I will not want to let the hours slip more than that.

Now I'll have to stop writing or today's rule will be a failure... Today I've decided to take on exercise and go for a walk for about 30 mins. Which means I need to leave now if I want to be back at 24:00.