Tag: habits

Checking In : Don’t Break the Streak

Well, since the don’t break the streak post, I have continued on my streak of hand release push ups. I’m currently on 40 days.

In order to move the chain up a bit, I’ve been adding one rep every 8 days or so. Today I did 3 x 16, and tomorrow should be a level up day.

It still takes about 5 minutes. The first two sets go fairly quickly.

One thing that keeps this one up is it’s time scale. 5 minutes, maybe a few more if I pad the rest session. Knowing ‘alright, it’s only 5 minutes’ makes it easy to quickly get through.

It’s certainly had some positive benefits as well. Push ups in WODs in CrossFit classes are SO MUCH EASIER right now.

The kids make a bit of a show out of it too. Nothing like being in the middle of a push up, and have a 120lb 12-year-old boy sit on your back and say “Keep going Dad!”

Don’t Break The Streak!

Here’s a quick accountability trick that I’ve been using to help me some of my fitness goals. It’s called ‘Don’t Break the Streak’, and it goes like this.

There’s something you want to improve. For me, it’s push-ups.

  1. Print off a calendar, and hang it someplace conspicuous.
  2. Do SOMETHING every day to get yourself better, and once you do it, check off of that calendar.
  3. Your goal is to make the streak of ‘checked days’ as long as possible.

This gives you a quick visual indicator of your improvement. A steady streak of Xs through days that you can count.

Your job is keep the streak alive, and make the snake as long as possible!

Just like the game.

My Long-Term Goal: Be able to do 50 real push-ups in less than a minute. Given where I am in my fitness, that’s a LONG-term goal.

My Daily Habit: 3 sets of 12 hand release push-ups with between 30 seconds and 60 seconds rest between them. The whole thing takes about 5 minutes to do.

My streak: 6 days (so far).

My Three Everyday “Must Dos”

If you wrote down everything you did, every day, what do you think it would tell you about your priorities? Would you be happy with how you spent your life?

The daily must-dos become the habits that help us get good at what we’re doing. I have mentioned my mechanism for getting things done in this blog before. Go check it out, if you haven’t read it already!

Here are the top three daily things that always end up in my “Must Do” column.

Check The Budget

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I did not grow up with an over-abundance of money. My family did not really talk about money all that much either, viewing it as a constant sort of stress. It has always been a weird point of pride and identity too, where someone “from money” was someone to look down your nose at.

After a life changing event in the mid-2010s, I decided to change that, focusing on taking the mystery away from money. Now, every day I go through my budget and make sure my dollars are going to where I prioritize them to go. I use a tool called You Need A Budget to do so.

There are plenty of YouTube videos are available out there about the YNAB product, but if you watch the ones from Nick True, you’ll get a good idea on how the product works.

Crossfit, or other workout

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Is Crossfit problematic right now? Yeah, very much so. They have some corporate housecleaning to do, because there is no room for racism and sexism in the gym. Taking care of yourself and your body is for everyone.

That said, there has never been anything I’d consider even remotely negative about my local box. When I was 320 pounds, they were kind, supportive, and helpful. They did not try to sell me a bucket of supplements. They challenged me, and made those challenges doable for someone in my shape and size.

They are people that are striving to be active, kind, and full of life. That is precisely the sort of person I want to be.

So despite how much I hate Burpees, I hit up my Crossfit WOD everyday. If you live in the Kenmore area, come visit us at Crossfit Kenmore.

Write for 45 Minutes

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I graduated with an English degree, so you’d think this would be something I could do easily, but like anything else, it has to be maintained. I use OneNote for my note-taking, falling in love with it when I used my old Windows Phone in 2009. I remembered being able to speak into my phone, even back then, and have it transcribe my language with an accuracy of about 90%.

I was amazed. I was also a nerd, so I started nearly every transcription with “Captains Log, stardate… “

Most recently, I have been taking up the task of blogging for 45 minutes every day. Fleshing out my thoughts onto a screen isn’t exactly the same as paper, but it does let me combine with other creative work. For example, my blog post about learning a new programming language is the basis for a talk I will be doing on soon to a new Python User’s Group.

Consider what these top three things tell you about my priorities. Everyday I prioritize writing, taking care of myself, and the family finances. These are not all of my priorities, of course, but they are the “must dos” every day. When you look at your day, what are your “must dos?”