Weekly journal: 2023-03-05

As part of my year of connection, I’m going to experiment with a weekly journal here to connect with myself. You’ll probably be bored if you read this.

(I didn’t post one last weekend so this is for the last two weeks.

Last week

Let’s start with a vowel check:

• A – Have I practiced abstinence this week? Doing pretty well on diet, and very well on time wasting websites.
• E – Have I exercised well this week? Yup, good week!
• I – What have I done for myself this week? Drove downtown for a long run on a gorgeous day.
• O – What have I done for others this week? Tried to be there for family during a health thing, including taking time off work.
• U – Do I have any unexpressed emotions? Can’t think of any right now. I’ve been working on expressing them.
• Y – The “yeah” factor; what brought me joy this week? Podcast conversation with Erik and Jace was a lot of fun.

Last week’s plans vs. reality:

• Weekly experiment: More speed runs, and never miss a run, even if it’s a 20 minute squeaker in between meetings. Running hard seems to be a silver bullet for stress. Stuck to it, including a weekend run while kids were busy, which is rare for me. Helped a lot with stress.
• Mistake of ambition: Still want to write a manifesto for focusing the entire team on one piece of work, and share it around my workplace. I wrote this but haven’t shared it with anyone at work. It’s a bit messy and I’m still tinkering on making it more streamlined.
• Looking forward to: Tomorrow’s a holiday and the weather should be gorgeous. Gotta find a park to go explore! Done! Had some good family time on Presidents’ Day.
• Stressing me out: Not understanding the source of my stress is itself stressful, and my company announcing layoffs-to-come isn’t helping! I’m not sure why but I’ve been feeling a bit less stressed. Box breathing, therapy, and harder runs may all be playing a part.

Takeaways from last week:

• Nothing much this time.

Next week

• What’s my next weekly experiment? Back to work-related podcasts! 🤞
• What is stressing me out? OKR planning for the next quarter, given the pending layoffs.
• What’s my next mistake of ambition? Talk to my boss about giving a company training on the stages of team focus.
• What am I looking forward to? Daylight saving time is a week away! Can’t wait for it to get dark later.