Keeping up to date with my monthly reports, as usual, covering some highlights from the previous month - lessons learned, income, personal expenses, fitness, and other useful resources.
Why monthly reports?
I feel I really needed to start writing these reports a while ago. The good thing is that at least I have started now.
Monthly reports help to reflect better, feel responsibility, and keep myself in check every month.
Lifestyle optimization is impossible without tracking. By tracking your activities, habits, and time, you can most definitely become more aware and conscious about what are you doing, when, and most importantly - raise the question why.
I don't want to spend my time in a miserable way or in a way how society expects me to live it. Since design is what I do, I think the best way to live your life is by designing it yourself.
If you're not going to design life yourself, someone else will do it for you.
April was about finding my pace again. Mid-Spring treated us well with the weather, and new job is not that new anymore. Work-wise, everything is slowly setting up into places, I gained more clarity what I need to do and what others expect from me.
Health-wise, I caught a cold (classic...haha) and thought I may have an allergy. Took some time to figure it out but good news is - I'm not allergic.
Also, at the end of the months I started to work on other freelance design project - a popular app's re-design. Exciting!
Income
May was decent in terms of money. Having a stable income is good. As mentioned before:
security is okay but there's no need to be obsessed about it - there are so many ways to make a living, relax.
Stable salary from my job allows me to make a living, and extra freelance work helps me to improve my design skills. To be honest, this is exactly what I want right now - some more security and stability while establishing myself as a designer.
Most of my month's income came from job's salary.
Personal expenses
I didn't stay very lean on my finances in April. The expenses grew around 22% from the month of March.
However, I'm pretty happy I have followed my old dream to be more down with the music, so I bought a new Pioneer DDJ-400 controller. Obviously, this exploded my monthly expenses.
Besides that, I didn't spend too much fun money, but spend more than usual on gifts and dating, and fitness got rather expensive in April, too. A few health checks also added up, and it looks like an expensive month overall. Not too proud of myself here.
Fitness & Nutrition
I felt almost no pain on a regular basis during April. Of course, there were some good and bad days, but overall I think I got stronger and body starts to heal.
Dealing with a back injury (spinal hernia) is never easy, but 4 months of continuous work gives the results for sure. Cudos to my coach right here!
My fitness pattern stayed the same - I'm hitting the gym twice per week with my coach Kristina, and getting a massage once per month, too. Also, my every day starts with yoga & stretches for 30-40 mins.
Also, I think I'm starting to lose these psychosomatic pain in different parts of my body, so, I guess, general anxiety falls back too. That's a good sign.
Fasting. Obviously, there's no need to change what's working for you. That's why fasting is still my daily nutrition pattern. I'm keeping a usual 16:8 pattern, meaning that I don't consume any calories for at least 16 hours a day, and have my 'eating window' for remaining 8 hours.
Productivity
Same as March, April was diverse in terms of productivity. Had some really good weeks, and some less productive.
I stayed extremely focused on my routines and habits stayed, so can't complain too much. During the day, at the office, well... I'm still trying to get used to this 'office life.'
Since I have agreed to start working on a new freelance design project - a massive re-design on an app - I stopped doing "Daily UI" challenge. My main goal this year is to get way better at working with Sketch, Illustrator, and Axure, and freelance gigs requires a lot of time and thought working with Sketch, so it's enough time spent on these tools.
A few other things left the same - I'm still working by using Pomodoro Technique, focusing on deep work for 25 minutes, and then resting for 5 minutes.
This allows to remain concentrated for a span which is kinda normal for a human being. A short break allows to rest your body and mind a bit, and then you start another Pomodoro period of work.
Also, had a good month with my peak performance partner - we still make individual weekly plans, and share our results with each other. This helps to reflect deeper, and get an honest opinion from aside.
My peak performance partner and me really found our best time to call and chat over our achievements in previous week, and plans for the upcoming one. Really happy about this.
What I found out strange, is that nevertheless I continuously follow my habits, I still need quite a lot of willpower to stay consistent on some of these.
I lost my habits of not touching my phone while driving (you know - switching a song, or seeing a text). Must be more mindful on this.
Also, following my March resolution - I bought a simple alarm clock from IKEA, so now it's way easier not to touch my phone or any other screens in the morning. Totally recommend to do the same.
Books, articles & resources
I read 3 books in April (11 in 2019):
Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life by Martin E.P. Seligman
My review: I'd say a great read for anyone who's dealing with stress or anxiety. Anxiety is most often caused by our projections of the future - how things supposed to be. And, as you already know, things go south, and you feel at least disappointed.
"Learned Optimism" tackles this issue with actual techniques on how to react to things, and how to be mindful about it, how to catch yourself slipping into negative-destructive patterns.
I totally recommend honestly doing the test which allows you to see your current state of optimism/pessimism. It's a great start point.
The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday
My review: Read this book back in 2018, and re-read it in April 2019. Definitely a book to live by. Philosophy to a lot of people sounds boring or not really applicable to the current times, however, this is a big mistake.
The problems this books solves are essential, no matter whether you live in 200 AD, or in 2019. The fear of death, how to approach your thoughts, and other people's opinions, what is right and wrong, what are the real virtues.
And in "The Daily Stoic", R. Holiday actually adds the most important fragments of the original reads by Stoics, and interprets these himself, which helps to understand some of the original texts better. Definitely going to re-read this again at the end of the year.
The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less by Richard Koch
My review: In my opinion, this is an outstanding read. Like it or not, but the truth is that you usually get around 80% of the outcomes from around 20% of your work. The proportions may differ - from 70% to 99% - but the principle is the same.
The book dives deeper into this, the reasoning, and actual tips how you can get more of what you want with less effort. Or, actually, by shifting your time, energy and work these 20%, instead of wasting the majority of your time/work (around 80%) to get that additional 20% of the outcomes.
This works in SO MANY categories of life, you just need a good analysis. The book also empathizes mostly with the 80/20 thinking, not a formal analysis, which is more agile in the current world.
Goes well with "Essentialism" by Greg McKeown.
Articles worth reading
"Fuck YES!" by Mark Manson
A really old article by Mark Mason, however, I needed a reminder of the concept this month.
The Law of “Fuck Yes or No” states that when you want to get involved with someone new, in whatever capacity, they must inspire you to say “Fuck Yes” in order for you to proceed with them.
The Law of “Fuck Yes or No” also states that when you want to get involved with someone new, in whatever capacity, THEY must respond with a “Fuck Yes” in order for you to proceed with them.
Life is a bitch. Then you die. And that bitch happens in 4 stages:
Mimicry, Self-Discovery, Commitment, Legacy.
However, a lot of people are stuck in the 1st or 2nd stage, and are not mindful about it.This is called being in the middle, I'd say.
Developing through each subsequent stage of life grants us greater control over our happiness and well-being.
How much time do you spend consuming information that you have no intention of taking action on or that you don’t care deeply about?
It is becoming dangerously easy to consume low quality information and convince yourself that it’s normal and good, when it isn’t helping you live a better life at all. I don't follow news and low quality information sources for more than 1.5 years already, and would recommend you to do the same (if you can).
Music finds
Every month I put up a playlist from some new tracks I discovered and also some good oldies I remembered from way back. Enjoy:
A lot of old Nipsey's tracks since he got killed and got me thinking. Also, some oldies from Kaytranada and Wiz.
April flicks
Here's a new section - my fav flicks I took during the month. Enjoy.
Thanks for reading,
V.
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