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.

The post Intentional Life [EXPERIMENT] – Week 1 first appeared on Marshall Jones Jr..

The post Intentional Life [EXPERIMENT] – Week 1 appeared first on Marshall Jones Jr..

It sounds bad, like I’m putting things off. But it’s not like that.

It’s about planning ahead.

Instead of starting with a blank day, make your to do list the day before.

I still add to my To Do list during the day if and when I find more I want to do.

But I love waking up with concrete items already in place for the day.

Plus, it does allow me to move items from today to the next day.

As I’m doing today’s To Do list, I might find that I’m not going to get some items done.

If they’re meaningful, I can slide them over to the next day instead of leaving them on an unfinished list or grinding to finish them today.

That means at the end of today, today’s list is completely checked off whether I finished everything or not. Each item is either checked off, moved to the next day, or deleted because the time passed for it to matter.

This isn’t some revolutionary new idea.

What’s new and—ahem—revolutionary is that I’m actually using it consistently.

The post To Do Tomorrow first appeared on Marshall Jones Jr..

The post To Do Tomorrow appeared first on Marshall Jones Jr..

And she’d always stick out her left leg first.

“How many times do we have to do this before she learns the right way with her right leg first?”

I remember thinking that exact thought.

It took two years to articulate that thought clear enough that it felt like I said it out loud in my brain.

Two years to build the momentum into that thought.

Before it was a thought, it was more a feeling like a mix-up. Then an annoyance. Then frustration.

Then finally, when I thought it through clearly enough, it hit me in that moment.

I could switch instead of her.

Two years is how long we had to do this before I learned the right way with her left pant leg first.

The post Right leg first first appeared on Marshall Jones Jr..

The post Right leg first appeared first on Marshall Jones Jr..

It’s not like a book. You write* the book and then publish it. And that’s it. You don’t change it.

With an app, it’s always getting updated.

It’s not like you make it and then it’s done. You’re constantly making it. More like life than a book.

So that’s really what I’m doing.

–

*The word “write” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

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The post Okay, technically, I’m making an app appeared first on Marshall Jones Jr..

The temperature was in the teens and still dropping.

“A woman found him walking down Shelbyville Road without any appropriate clothes for the weather. She got him a jacket and a hat. She spoke with the manager there to ask if he could stay there. But they close soon.”

I think I was about to start washing dishes after an early dinner.

It sounded like woman online was trying to organize for someone to take him downtown to Wayside Christian Mission to stay the night. He was a young man, she said, with scruffy hair.

Instead, of finishing the dishes, I decided to go pick him up.

When I found him, I walked up, asked if someone gave him the jacket earlier, and then asked what he was doing after Kroger closed, what he’s doing for the night.

“Do you want me to take you somewhere?” I asked.

He didn’t want to go to Wayside. Talking with him, it sounded like he’d been doing this a while, not the “22-year-old out on his own for a night,” young man we originally thought.

I drove him downtown. We talked for a bit. He kept talking about his “friends.”

I ended up dropping him off downtown kind of off 3rd Street at a friend’s house.

And it’ll end up being one of the more memorable interactions I’ll have all year.

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