My friend sent me an update (he’s about a week ahead of me), so I wanted to share how the Intentional Life Experiment has gone so far for me.
Getting rid of junk
For me, this was the easiest lever to pull. I didn’t think these things were taking that much time, and they probably weren’t. But they were compulsive habits. I didn’t realize that.
It’s not like I saved a bunch of time staying off Threads. I was checking for two minutes while waiting for gas to pump or whatever. I’m not saving that time and doing something else with it, but it seems like it could free up my mind to not have that habituated behavior in my life.
Also, cutting out YouTube is hopefully going to open a window at the end of the day to read physical books.
Fitness/Diet
I’ve slimmed down a bit but still getting stronger. I’ve developed some pain in my elbow, so I might adjust some of my strength training to give that a break.
Eating the same meals most days during the day has been great. It makes it easy to stay consistent without having to track calories or macros for individual meals.
The biggest thing I’ve been missing lately in this category is consistent cardio. I did cardio once this first week, but I was trying to do it two of three times. Separately, though, I’ve been playing football with Lachlan, which isn’t as intense as a normal cardio session, but it’s closer to the functional stuff I’d want to be able to do later in life anyway.
To Do List and To Do Tomorrow List
I started this at the beginning of the year, and it’s been one of the biggest positive changes for me in the year so far. Not just in getting stuff done, but more from the mental aspect. I feel happier when I feel progress and can consciously decide to stop at the end of the day because I’ve done enough.
Bedtime and wake time
I’ve been trying to get up between 5am-6pm for a while. Sometimes, I’ll get consistent with it. Sometimes, I won’t.
The part I haven’t locked in even when I am consistently getting up on time is going to sleep on time. I’ve realized it’s easier for me to stay up a little later to get something done than wake up a little earlier the next morning to get that same thing done.
Also, for various tasks or projects over the past year especially, I’ve given myself leeway to stay up to get whatever done that I need to get done. I think over the course of a few months, though, it’ll make a big difference to lock in on going to sleep at the right time. I’ve already felt that over the past couple weeks easing into this.
My mission
I’m building and releasing an app on the App Store and Google Play. I want to get 10 people to subscribe for $70/yr. by June 1.
I’ve done the classic blunder of building it and then hoping they will come instead of starting with distribution, but I’m okay with that. My first goal with it was to learn the process of building an app. I wasn’t even wanting to make it public.
But I think there’s a lot to learn from the cycle of making it public and trying to get users (and trying to improve the app based on the activity and feedback from users other than me). We’ll see.
Building it has been one of the funnest things I’ve done in the past year.
The other step, other than publishing it, is to test some vibe marketing, which will be a huge learning curve on its own. I’m considering testing TikTok too, which I’ve never done. The sensible approach is to probably just start with Threads since I’m already familiar with that and more a text native.
Where to improve
The three areas where I’ve missed the mark the most on this experiment so far:
- Produce something and publish it online: This has been the least consistent for me so far. Have I published anything in week 1 yet? One blog post maybe? I’m trying to add this update so I can count it as publishing online. If I update about this consistently, that’ll give me a couple extra posts to write. Beyond that, the website for the app, which I’ve already technically published but isn’t really ready, and then content for the app will make up most of the rest of publishing online piece.
- Drink a gallon of water a day: This wasn’t on the list in the Intentional Life book, but it was something I did a while back that I hoped made a meaningful difference in my health overall. I’ve only hit this once over the past week, but I’ve gotten closer five of the other days. Realistically, the bar might be too high. That was why I ended up stopping before. I felt like I was constantly going to the bathroom because I was drinking almost too much water. It might fit my lifestyle more to do three quarts instead, so I’m going to try that for the next week instead of a gallon.
- Reading before bed: Looking back, the reasons this doesn’t happen is because I’m not preparing for it enough in advance. If I’m going to read before bed and still go to sleep at 9:45, I really need to be winding down for bed at 9pm. I think I’m still adjusting to consistently going to bed earlier, so hopefully this will improve just realizing when I need to start winding down.
