Personal Change Log: January 2019

I’ve always been interested in self development and personal growth. I talk a lot about these topics. Though perhaps I do not act on them enough. Therefore, one of my focuses for this year is going to be changing that.

Improving Productivity & Reducing Stress

I am mainly concerned about my sense of time (or lack thereof) and the general balance in my life. I want to achieve more productive work results but within more reasonable working hours. It’s quite a lot of responsibility to be a good husband and a present father without the added pressure of starting a business. I want my family to be free of that stress, and I want to be free of it too (as much as possible – I realize with starting a business there is just going to be some level of stress, of course).

Building Better Routines

At the time of writing this I’m reading Manage Your Day-to-Day, a book filled with productivity practices. So far it hasn’t been mind-blowing (as a lot of its anecdotes were already apparent to me) but it does have some hidden gems in it. Plus, simply reading about the topic helps to push it to the front of my mind on a daily basis. Since I’m not done with it yet I won’t talk in detail about the methods I am learning to apply, however I will mention one thing: building a routine.

Starting with a Daily Workout

Having an artist background I am already deeply familiar with rituals or routines when it comes to setting an environment for good creation. However, there are some ways my current, daily routines can be improved. And one of them is exercise. Therefore, I went in search of something that I can do daily within a few minutes to keep in shape. As a bonus, I could include my wife in it as well. I stumbled upon this really nice article from Danny Forest and have been following it each day. It’s been really great, and not only is my wife working out with me but our nearly-17-month-old daughter watches and sort of mimics along. Very cool results so far; the only downside is that everything hurts!

Monthly Commitment to Changing & Reflecting

Even though this post was made a bit late in the month I’ll still try to do a reflection at the end of January to give some input on the book as well as how the daily workouts are going. And each month after I’ll try to start the month with a post about some new habits or routines I’m implementing and end the month with a reflection post.

What are Your Tips & Tricks?

Please feel free to share your own habits, routines, or productivity tips with me in the comments!