2021 - Year of Health

The Theme System

In case you have missed it in the past, I’ve decided to switch from the usual goals for a year to a theme. Sure there are some measurement or ideas on where I would like something to go. But this is more about making choices and having some momentum towards a certain change in my life that I’d like to make. If you would like more on setting a theme for a year or season, I suggest you check out The Theme System or watch this quick video from their page:

2021 - Year of Health

Sure, this may seem like everyone’s theme right? Its a new year, I’ve gotten fat from working at home or whatever your reason may be. Sure, I’m just like everyone else and I could certainly stand to lose a few pounds. But the main things that I’m hoping to get out of this are not related to weight loss. In fact, it would be a nice side affect of the theme.

What got me here?

A few months back, I was burning out. I didn’t see it coming like I should. I was getting short with people at home. I was getting short with people at work. The pandemic was getting to me. The election was getting to me. The stress of the work was getting to me. The amount of work that I was trying to get done was daunting and I never could seem to make the progress that I needed to make. I was working many late nights. More than normal. A lot more than normal. I’m a night owl and even for me, the hours were starting to get later and later. While I’ve never gotten a lot of sleep, I’m getting a LOT less than I normally get and if we look at the 8 hours a night people should get… HA! That’s laughable. I’m hours off of that mark. Even typing this part of this post, its closing in on 1AM.

Also what got me here was, I could see a LOT of my team starting to show stress. We were having some issues crop up here and there. I could see issues between people on my team and other sites. I could see people getting stir crazy in their houses. We were coming into winter and cabin fever is an issue on a good year…what will 2021 look like with a pandemic? Its going to be rough. Mental health for this winter AND the rest of the pandemic is going to be rough. Its been a long run so far, we still have a ways to go before enough of us have a vaccine to call this one good enough to be behind us.

What I would like to see…

Right now, I’m focusing this on two things. Sleep and mental health. On the sleep front, I’m average 6 to 6:20 a night. This has been not great on many levels. My productivity isn’t what I think it should be and even with that I’m pretty productive. So, trying to add a little extra discipline into the routine, get to bed at a decent time and seeing what we can do. I need less of these 1AM bedtimes that I have been doing.

Mental Health… I’m hoping I don’t go nuts this winter. I have some ideas on things to occupy myself this winter. Some hobbies have been funded for the most part its just a matter of losing myself in some of the fun.

What is the plan?

Get to bed earlier. Hone my skills in the wood lathe. Build some more cool stuff.

I’m still trying to figure out some ways to measure the improvement for the year other than just sleep tracking. I might develop a tool for tracking some of my happiness around certain activities. I’ve used Mecury App years ago but not sure its exactly what I need. I’ll let you know what I come up with along this front. It could fall into a messenger bot that I’ve been developing on the side over the past couple of years that may get some more light with you all.

Let’s do this!

Its 2021, there are 365 days to work on this. We’ll see where this takes me. Hopefully next year I’m not burning out, the family life is happy, the work life is happy and I’ll hopefully add some more skills to the resume.