My Daily System for Q1
I don’t believe in New Year’s resolutions, but I do believe in building good habits and systems. Most of what I’ll be using are systems that I’ve had in place before, but occasionally drifted away from. The new year, or more importantly, the new quarter, has nudged me to get back to the grind. Let’s begin.
Three Targets
Q1 will be about three targets:
- Health
- Read
- Write
Daily Habits
The daily habits I’ll be focused on:
- Fill rings on Watch
- Read a book
- 500 words in Ulysses
Daily Health Goals
- Fitness+
- 2 mile run
- Log weight
This process requires the Apple Watch, Fitness+ and a scale. Any workout in Fitness+ will do, as long as I show up. Then go for a run. When I wake up, with the scale right next to the bed, log my weight. The scale is bluetooth, so it goes into Apple Health. Done.
Reading
Photo From the Guardian
The Kindle Oasis, and the iPhone app. My library of books. Continue reading. Continue highlighting. Continue learning. Continue getting into this mode. Reading slows my mind down. Helps me relax. Helps my anxiety. Helps with inspiration. I’m a better person when I continue reading.
Writing
- Field Notes
- Time Tracker
- Ulysses
- Things
Field Notes
Field Notes is my little pocket notebook that usually stays in my back pocket. I bought a leather cover on Etsy to protect them from getting bent up so much in pocket. This little notebooks are great for quick thoughts and processing something on your mind.
My plan is to get back to the basics. All the learning I’ve done over the last few years is great, but I want to focus in on building out things again, not just learning and thinking about them.
Time Tracker
Time Tracker is a shortcut I built (here’s a link to it). I’ve been using it the last few days and I’m loving it so far. I press the app icon I’ve built, or the button on my watch, and write out whatever it is I’m currently doing or thinking about. It then gets logged into Fantastical as an event with the specific time that I logged it. This will help me see where my time is going, and also help me refer back to for writing prompts.
Ulysses
Ulysses is my goto writing app, for so many reasons. The system that I used back in October that allowed me to create every day, I’ll be doing something similar for Q1. I had stricter rules during that month, rules that made certain amount of words go to three different areas. This time it’ll be simply 500 words in the Q1 folder, wherever they may end up.
Those 500 words will be a combination of writing in Ulysses, new thoughts, as well as inputing anything I wrote in Field Notes — and now, even my Time Tracker shortcut inputs will land in a folder inside of Ulysses. All of these will work towards that 500 word goal.
Things
Things is my task manager. I’ve written about it many times, most recently in October (Keeping Things Simple: managing all the different areas of my life). I’ll be leaning on this app more than ever during Q1. My goal is to build good habits and accomplish as much as possible during this time. Things will keep me on track.