Posted: Sun 1 February, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Old(er), Health, Weigh Less, Weight Loss |
Oddly enough, while I was writing about the new Fitbit ChargeHR, I got an email from Fitbit about my activities of the last 12 months.
According to them (and who am I to argue?) in the last twelve months I’ve walked a total of 873 miles, through 1,763,045 steps. That’s not bad, for someone who didn’t/doesn’t get out as much as I should…
That adds up to an average of just under 2½ miles walked every day, just over 4,800 steps a day.
OK, it’s not the recommended 10,000 steps a day – but that wasn’t really my goal in the first year (or possibly even the second). However you look at it, 10,000 steps is a lot, coming in at around 6 miles a day. But it is better than I did the previous year (due to being more aware of it, and more determined to get out more) and I’m happy with where it’s at. I know plenty of others will say “Is that all?”, but that’s fine too – it gives me plenty of options.
So I’m happy – and it’s also good to know those details, rather than just thinking I’ve walked more etc. And this year’s target will be to comfortably beat those totals. Maybe 1,000 miles in a year? Who knows.
Posted: Sat 31 January, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Health, Technology, Thoughts, Weigh Less, Weight Loss |
Over the last year or so, I’ve been using the FitBit Flex wristband to keep track of my daily steps, sleep statistics and so on. I’ve been generally impressed with its ease of use and so on, as well as the integration/communication with the FitBit App.
As it worked out, the only thing I wasn’t too impressed with was the strap itself – in that year-ish, I got through two straps, and had just ordered a replacement for the second. That’s not ideal, and is something of a design flaw. (I’ve let them know about it, so we’ll see what happens)
At the time I got it, I was a bit annoyed by a perceived lack of functionality within the Flex, so I was interested to see that they’ve released some more wearable things with more functionality – the Charge, ChargeHR and Surge (which is almost a smart-watch in its own right) – and I ended up getting a new ChargeHR.
Because I’m exercising more and so on, I was wanting a device to track heart-rate and so on as well, and the ChargeHR does that. I don’t need the full functionality of the Surge (plus I didn’t want to be taking myself up to that price point) but this one does pretty much what I want, particularly in combination with the phone.
The strap on this is a bit more obtrusive than that of the Flex – I can feel it as I’m typing this, for example – but all told I’m so far impressed with the device. And it has some of the extra things I wrote about a year back – and the Surge has built-in GPS as well, which was another.
It’s interesting seeing how these devices improve over time. It’d still be nice to see more innovation, but at least they’re doing more, and still maintaining a decent battery life and so on.
I’ve only had it a couple of days so far, but will probably write more about the ChargeHR in a couple of months’ time, as I’m more used to it.
Posted: Thu 1 January, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2014/15, 2015/16, Business, Creativity, D4D™, Domestic, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Photography, Resolutions, Sociable, Thoughts, Travel, Weigh Less, Work-related, Write More, Writing |
As regular readers know, I don’t really do New Year’s Resolutions. It’s partly my knee-jerk response to the whole “Everyone else is doing it” ethos, which means I won’t. But also New Year is just an arbitrary day for making plans – and I tend to do it from birthday to birthday, for no better reason than that it’s an easy day to remember as a start/finish date.
Anyway, with that said I do have plans for 2015. Sometimes plans work better on a calendar year instead of birthday-to-birthday – although there’s also a couple of ideas and plans this time that would also work better to a fiscal year, April to March. But for the sake of argument I’ll stick (for now) to my usual resolution/plan structure, while also acknowledging the whole 2015 thing.
What I won’t do is go into reams of details – I know what I want to do, and I’ve got most of it written down in to-do lists and the like – but it can all be summed up in four key points, which can be summarised as:
- Create More – includes writing, photography, and web-based work/business plans
- Do More – includes activities, day trips, longer weekends, and perhaps even a holiday or two.
- Save More – working to rebuild finances, build up some backup savings, and restore the credit score.
- Weigh Less – the goal is to lose another two stone in 2015, which is what I also lost in 2014. So it’s feasible.
And that’s “it”. Obviously there’s details, sub-plans and sub-goals in there as well, but they’re the key points. They’ll do me for now.
I’m hoping that 2015 will continue in the positive direction that started in the last quarter of 2014. I’m quite sure there’ll be some hiccoughs and roadbumps along the way – that’s realism rather than cynicism, my life is never a truly smooth process – but with any luck at all it’ll be a positive year, and lots will get done.
And if not, if things go wrong, then I’ll just do what I can, and keep on in the same way as I had to with 2014.
But I do hope that 2015 is positive and constructive. That’s the intention, at least. But we’ll see.
Posted: Wed 5 November, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2013/14, 2014/15, 42-43, D4D™, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Health, Own Business, Project 42, Weight Loss, Work-related, Writing |
Today, I is forty-bloody-three. It doesn’t seem like a year ago I was forty-bloody-two, but there we go. Time flies when you’re having fun. (Or dashing around trying to avoid a shower of shit. Either way)
I’ve looked back to what I wrote this time last year, the usual ‘plans’ post and it’s not been too bad for once.
And in general it’s worked out for the most part. Goals in bold, explanations in normal text.
- Weigh Less – Successful. I’m now more than two stone lighter than I was a year ago. There’s still a considerable way to go, but it’s been significant progress throughout the year.
- Write More – Also successful, albeit not to the degree I’d have liked. I’ve got more ideas and more plans of what I want to write in the coming year, I’ve got two projects started and significant progress, and completed some shorter stuff, including submitting three pieces to competitions. None were successful, but it’s still progress.
- IAM – Didn’t do. Mainly because of the fluctuations of the year, the IAM thing just didn’t happen. It will do this coming year, though.
- Own company – Successful. Again it’s been knocked a bit by fluctuations and inconsistencies, as well as a couple of let-downs, but generally successful.
- Business Ideas – Kinda successful. I know more about the direction, but need to do the work.
- Rebuilding the finances – 50/50. It was successful – but then with those fluctuations, and the shower of shit, it’s back to square one at the moment. At the same time, it didn’t descend into “being in the shit”, although it was close. So, you know, little victories.
And for my 43rd year? Much the same, I think…
- Weigh Less (continued work)
- Write More
- IAM Test
- Own Business Ideas
- Build the Finances
There may be others, there may not. But if I can have the successes of this year without the downsides and letdowns, it should be pretty positive. That’d be nice.
Posted: Sun 26 October, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Depression, Domestic, Driving, Finances, Getting Old(er), Introspective, Stupidity, Thoughts, Weigh Less, Work-related |
Carrying on from the last couple of posts – Reasons and Repercussions – I’m hoping that I’m now on the road back. (If nothing else, the fact I’ve done these three posts should say that I’m on the way!)
This last few months has been tough, there’s no denying it. There’ve been a number of facets to that toughness, but I’m generally optimistic that they’re all on the way back to something approaching sanity.
Financially it’s definitely been tough, and I’m back to pretty much square one again. This month will (hopefully) be the last of that level of toughness, now I’m back to working on contract instead of permanent roles. The last few months have cost me dearly, going into what savings I had amassed, based on promises that salary deficits would be fixed and so on – which never happened.
Socially it’s been absolute piss. I’ve hardly seen anyone – some of that is related to the financial stuff, some of it down more to depressions, to not wanting to go out, as well as to feeling a bit trapped by a number of things.
Workwise – well, we covered that in other posts. Safe to say, it’s not been fun, and it’s affected me pretty negatively.
Creatively, it’s been a bit of a dead zone. The only positive is that the amount of time spent on the road while commuting gave me the opportunity to think a bit about some writing ideas, although I didn’t have the time or inclination to actually get them done. Still, with any luck that’ll be part of the next phase.
Really, the only real positive of the last few months has been health-wise – I’ve managed to lose two stone in weight, and been walking far more than I was. And again, that’s something I’ll continue making the effort on, I think, as well as (now I’ve got some more time to myself and my life) getting back to the gym a bit more.
This last few months have left me feeling pretty flat and wiped-out. I’m hoping that now it’s a bit more settled and sorted, things will head in a more positive direction for a while.
Posted: Sat 25 October, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Depression, Domestic, Driving, Getting Old(er), Stupidity, Thoughts, Work-related |
As I wrote yesterday, some of the stuff of the last few months has affected me in a number of ways, none of which I’m all that great at explaining at the time.
The work and jobs I’ve been doing this year haven’t left me in a good place, and I’ve found that (as on other occasions) it affects me more than I’m actually happy about.
I value myself to some degree by the work I do – and I like doing good work. Being part of a grinding factory of make-work bullshit isn’t my thing, and that was the kickstarter this time, a three-month contract with a company in Cambridge that was almost local-government in its use of people and make-work self-justifying crap that signifies the environs I really hate working in.
The work I did there was negligible – it wasn’t even relevant – which never helps. The next one was just bad, totally demoralised staff and an obsession with everything being “Agile” and a “Minimum Viable Product” (MVP), which appears to be techie-code for “Yeah fuck it, that’ll do”.
The idea of MVP is a good one in a startup business, or one that’s launching. It means that you do the basics, get it ready and get it out, then continue improving, adding functionality, listening to customer demands and the like. However, when you’re in a business whose product has been available for a while, MVP means basic “do what the customer requested”, but without any thought for knock-on effects, or even how that functionality affects or integrates with existing code and setup.
From there, the next role was more challenging, but owned by an asshat. Lots still ongoing on that one, but at least it’s over.
But when all’s said and done, it all affects me – and more than it should. More than I admit, probably even to myself. It leaves me demotivated, and not wanting to work on my own projects – whether web/tech-based, or just writing. You’d think – and logic would dictate – that when I’m down about my paid-work being shit, I’d want to rectify that with producing decent stuff outside of work. But it doesn’t work like that – if I’m not happy with what I’m doing, I don’t want to do more of it.
With the excessive work hours at the last place as well, I didn’t really have time. I felt like I was existing only to commute, work, and sleep. Never a good place to be.
About the only positives to come out of it all have been that I’ve learned ever more about things I really don’t want to do, more warning signs about working with/for douchebags, and some more writing ideas when I get back into the mood for it.
Posted: Sat 27 September, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Introspective, Thoughts |
In other news, it’s the time of year again where I renew (or not) the tenancy agreement on my current place. It’s hard to believe that I’ve been here two and a half years now, but that’s how long it’s been. Time flies when you’re having fun, and all that.
As always, I do some thinking when this comes round, deciding what I want to do, where I want to be, all that tat.
I know that at some point I will want to be moving on, going somewhere new, doing all that stuff again. But the time for that isn’t now. In some ways I really do want to move on, but the time isn’t right, and I don’t know where I want to be. So this’ll do for the time being.
I’m signing up for another year. By then, I’ll most likely have decided what’s next. Or I might stay another year. I don’t know. There’s lots can change in that time.
By the time of the next renewal, this will have been the longest I’ve been any one place in a very long time. And yet I don’t feel settled – and I don’t quite know why. I’m sure I’ll figure it out at some point.