November 2017

This is my November´s monthly report about my progress with using latticework of mental models in my life. I basically started monitoring with more precision in january this year. There is no way of doing real conclusions about how things are really working, yet. I have some goals for arranging my life and I am still pretty far away from optimal. All the monthly reports are basically divided into two parts, mental and physical efforts and results.

I had an accident with my laptop in november. I broke it with lots of liquid on it. I had some back up copies about files, but not for all of them. What really happened is that I could not read any Kindle books, or write any notes from the books I read. I had to read paper books instead and stop writing any notes about them. It took about ten days to get a new laptop to start doing my things again with it. Otherwise, I had no real change in November. All in all, I was less active with my mental and physical efforts in November than in other months this autumn. I will probably continue posting to my blog next tuesday on 12^th of December.

Mental efforts and results in November

Most of my mental efforts go to using a laptop, watching TV and reading real books. The latter things are separate, because I also use my laptop for reading Kindle-books. For monitoring laptop usage, I have RescueTime program which shows how much time I use for using OpenOffice, reading Kindle books and flying through different websites, emails, etc. I do not measure my time watching TV, at least not yet. But I am timing how much I read physical non-fiction books. Here are some results of using laptop and reading physical books from November (October)

• Time I used my laptop/day on average: 149 (264) minutes/day
• The efficiency on average with laptop 52% (52%) 135 min (135min)
• Using OpenOffice/day 29 (52) min/day on average
• Using Kindle 41 (66) min/day on average
• Refereeing portals on 7 (10min)/day on average
• Online newspapers 6 min (15min/day) on average
• keskustelu.kauppalehti.fi (Finnish financial news portal) 9 min (16 min/day) on avg
• skysports.com 5min (2 min)/day on average
• Facebook 3min (13 min/day) on average
• Others: about 50 (90 min)/day on average
• Reading physical books about 103min (90 min/day) on average

We can see that mental efforts TV excluded took a lot of my time, basically now it was about 4 hours/day. I used my laptop about 4 and half hours per day. The efficiency should be better than my 56% in october. Normal efficiency should be around 60% on average. There is two ways to improve: less crappy action and more efficient action like reading Kindle books more and using OpenOffice more. In october I read non-fiction about 156 minutes/day. I can probably read a little more, but I should be more focused than I am right now after a certain amount of reading. The quality of the non-fiction books I have read could be better. Many books that I have read do not offer enough added value.

Physical efforts

My division for physical efforts are sleeping, eating, drinking, walking and exercising. I did not sleep that well in November. I cannot really think any obvious reasons. I have no data to prove it. I have too much weight. I measured it in 30^th of November and it was 102kg, which is one kilogram less than in the end of October. I am aiming weight under 100kg in the end of this year. It may not happen, but close to it is better than nothing. This will definitely not happen, because christmas is coming, which probably means less exercise and eating more unhealthy food. My nutrition is not good enough. I eat too much crap. November was a better month than September. I ate crap in six days. (7 in September) The definition for crap is too much fat or sugar, or some foods with white flour. I am aiming to eat crap once a week. I like it and I don´t think it is too much.

I did not drink any alcohol in November. I am trying to have a whole alcohol free year, which started after my birthday celebrations in the end of august. It is a challenge. I have sometimes been without alcohol for two or three months. I have managed to survive without it, at least for now. I will probably have more difficulties during the pre-christmas parties.

Exercising can be divided into two things: refereeing and walking. Refereeing should be my preferred way, but I am trying to have a short walk every day, if I have only one game. If I have more in one day, I may not go for a walk. September was a pretty good month. On average, I was on the move almost for 70 minutes per day. 90 minutes is my goal. Exercise was refereeing for two thirds of the time and walking one third of the time. I should exercise little more every month timewise. Exercise could be lot harder. I don´t believe in any tricks. Hopefully, I can manage all the changes gradually without major setbacks. I am not perfect and I must to expect bad progress at some point of time.

Have a good month!

-TT