In order to better manage my time, I have decided to schedule in the habits that I want to build daily in my Google calendar (can be seen at the bottom of the blog).
To better visualize the calendar in terms of my progress in the 5 different aspects of changes, I have decided to label each of them in the following colours:
Physical Well-being
Mental Well-being
Finance
Aspirations
Lifestyle
And for planned activities, or activities that I missed, it will be shown in the calendar, but will not be highlighted. So the more un-highlighted activities, the more I have procrastinated on doing them. haha.. Good reminder to tell me I'm not doing something that I'm supposed to. =p
In addition to exercise and Java learning, I have also scheduled in time for reading!
On a side note on my journey to learning Java, I realized that in the notes of the MIT sources materials and the book "Think Java" which the materials closely followed, there wasn't any instructions on how to execute the Java codes using the Java Development Kit or the Eclipse (or am I supposed to use something else?). So I have typed the codes inside the notepad++ (a code editor which I have downloaded earlier for learning Python, of which I have prematurely given up halfway previously), and now I have no idea how to run the codes. -_-" Guess I will go through some spoon-feeding over at the SoloLearn website.
Well, I have
failed to attain 4 hours of learning Java last week.
I thought I
would have more than enough time through the week and on the weekends to attain
that short 4 hours of sitting down, and looking at the learning materials.
But I
didn’t.
Why?!!
Alright. Let
me review through my last week schedule to determine the reason and improve
from here.
During the
weekdays, I thought I would rest at home after work, especially when I wasn’t
feeling well (my throat still hasn’t recover yet -_-“).
I thought I
could easily get down to that few hours of learning on the weekends.
Although on
the way to work, I did manage to look at some of the learning materials from a
mobile app called Learn Java (link here) from the company, SoloLearn.
It’s a company that seems to specialize in allowing daily commuters to learn
things like Java and other programming languages through short videos and short
test after every video.
The main
advantage of this learning approach is that I can learn it on the way to work;
very convenient!
And I also
found it more hand-holding than the MIT course materials, which is better for
me since I’m a beginner not only at Java, but also in programming as a whole.
But it ate
up around 500MB of mobile data within a day of travelling between office and
home, which means my mobile data limit of 3GB would burst after 6 days of using
the app.
I can’t
download the video beforehand too.
So, this app
is a NO-GO to use while I’m without wifi connection.
Then how
about the weekends?
Hmmm… I was
also busy with activities such as spending time with dearest, going to comedy
night, going to see grandma with mum and sis, picking up my Spartan race pack,
and spending time with my guys (playing mahjong).
All these
activities took up my entire Sat and Sun.
Wow.
If I don’t
do any planning, I guess my time would be taken up by other activities.
Dearest also
advised me to do deliberate planning for the activities that I want to fulfill.
Therefore,
for a start, I shall aim for at least 30 minutes of Java learning daily during
the weekdays, and 4 hours of Java learning during the weekends.
It’s not
easy to succeed in life.
But I’m not
gonna just live by and die.
*Just found out that the SoloLearn has a website on its own. So instead of learning it on the small screen of my Galaxy S4, I can watch the videos tutorials on my 23" monitor. Link HERE.
As I am still recovering from my cold, so I can't really exercise.
I decided to get started on another thing that I have been putting off.
For a while now, I have been generating ideas that could either be helpful to the society (or me), or they could be a secondary source of income. I logged down all these ideas in a private notebook and really hope to work on some of them one day. The main challenge is that these ideas require programming skills to materialize, and I have almost zero experience in it. I could hire a programmer to do the job for me, but how fun can that be? plus I don't really have a lot of money to hire them, especially knowing that it's not certain that these ideas would eventually have a ROI. So, I decided to just learn it myself, and this became a part of my aspiration.
The first step to being an app developer is to learn programming.
But what programming language should I learn?
This was something that bugged me when I started to toy with the idea of developing app.
However, a quick search on Google could easily solve the problem.
It feels like I would having a proper learning structure to form a strong foundation if I start from here.
I didn't have the time to start on any of the materials yet, but I will.
In case I start to procrastinate again... Let me set a target.
By the end of this week: At least 4 hours.
By the way, I have added a habit lists for daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly to the side of the blog, and also included a habit tracking Google calendar at the bottom of the blog.
Let's hope these will keep me on track.
Time to rest for the night and hope the cold will go away~
Alright, I am done with my procrastination for now.
Let's get this project rolling~!
I shall start on the issue that is most pressing on my mind - physical well-being.
There are different aspects of physical well-being.
But I shall focus on just one aspect first, which is fitness.
So why is it the most pressing issue in my life now?
There are mainly two reasons.
Reason #1
After I came back from Switzerland in mid-July, I was caught up in work until the start of October.
Almost every day I was working OT until late at night, and I even burned my weekends in order to deliver my report in time. I didn't have much time to do anything else. And so, my physique went downhill. Before I knew it, my weight has climbed from the usual 66 kg (a bit fatter than my old self) to 69 kg (a lot fatter, and above my healthy BMI range). This kind of "extreme OT" period has happened before, but my physique has never really gone awry. My guess is that my age is catching up and my basal metabolic rate is not as high as before, so I can't burn as much fats as I did when I was younger by just sitting in front of the computer doing finger exercises.
I'm also getting comments that I looked fatter than before. Apparently it's quite obvious from the shape of my face. My dearest has also given her most polite feedback on my belly, which is like an emerging muffin top now. I told her I would do something about it.
In short, I'm getting FAT.
Reason #2
Few months back, I thought it would be fun to sign up for the inaugural Spartan Race Singapore that would be happening in mid-Nov.
Here's an introduction of the race that I have signed myself up for.
When I first told dearest that I signed up for this, I think her first thought was why would anyone put themselves up for such torture? haha.. but she understood why I took an interest in this. I remembered the days when I did my Standard Obstacles Course (SOC) in army, I really enjoyed doing the obstacles (but not the running). So to me, this Spartan Race would be like a giant playground. The government should build something like this in the neighbourhood. haha..
But the difficulty in completing the race can't be ignored.
The word "Spartan" in the name of the race is not there for show.
The 5 km run would be tough, and the obstacles would be tougher.
I know that I would be smiling at the end of it all because I have achieved something.
But I do not want myself to be thinking "why the hell did I pay $100+ for this???" when I'm in the middle of it, struggling towards the finishing line.
So, I better get prepared for what's coming in less than a month's time.
And after this, I shall call myself, a SPARTAN.
THE PLAN
I have came up with two approaches in the hope that I can lose weight (and my muffin top), and prep myself well before the anticipated tough race.
Approach #1
In view of the horrible haze that has engulfed the country since September, running outdoors seems to be more harmful to my health. There are some good days though, but most of the time it's not advisable to go out panting like a mad man. Therefore, I needed to find some exercises to do at home.
I have tried static exercises previously, but I'm always stuck with the few standard ones such as push-ups, sit-ups, plank, squats, etc. I searched around Google Play store and discovered this App called, Sworkit Lite - Workout Trainer.
At the start, I get to choose what kind of workout I want to do. After that, I get to select the duration of my workout. I like this app because it has a variety of exercises which are randomized each time I do my workout, and the app shows a demonstration of the exercise. So I'm not really stuck with the few exercises that I know.
My usual routine now goes like this
1. 5 min of Stretching (warm-up)
2. 5 min of Strength
3. 5 min of Cardio (starts to sweat a lot)
4. 5 min of Strength
5. 5 min of Cardio (feels like dying)
6. 5 min of Stretching (cool-down)
Total time: 30 minutes
Why 30 minutes?
Because I get a Gold medal in the app for doing 30 minutes or more in a single day. haha..
I like doing a variety of exercises in the comfort of my own room, without having the need to always plan specifically what kinds of exercises I need to do. There's still the custom workout option in the app next time if I want to develop my own routine, but right now I prefer the randomized function. There's also the paid version with more customization available, but I'm not willing to part with my $5.50 for this app. In fact, I'm so frugal (or stingy), I have not paid to use a single app in my whole life yet.
For anyone who happens to come across this post and is interested in the app, here's the link.
Approach #2
On good days when the climate is more forgiving, I go for a run at the stadium. I haven't done much running, because the climate is really shitty nowadays. But here's what I am planning to do.
1. Slow jog to the stadium and stretching (warm-up)
2. Interval training for 6 rounds around the track (run 1 round, rest. repeat)
3. Slow jog back home, and stretch (cool-down)
I probably can complete a round in 1m50s continuously, and still be able to last 6 rounds.
Any faster than that, I would probably be clocking more than 2m for the next round.
Running would really be important for me to get accustomed to the pace at the Spartan race. But news just came in yesterday that the haze may last till early next year because Indonesia has failed to extinguish the forest fire, and the hot spots are still growing in numbers. Hopefully the wind can help in getting some good days for me to run. And I wonder if the race would be cancelled if it gets too hazy that day.
Today seems like a fine evening to go for a run!
Unfortunately, I caught a cold since yesterday and is still recovering from it. =(
But, as part of my habit-building for my physical well-being, I shall strive to exercise every single day after I have recovered.
The thought of starting this blog has been
floating in my mind for a while now. It wasn’t until my mum fell prey to a
sudden attack of appendicitis, that I had some time away from work (and from
play) to stop procrastinating, and actually execute this thought of mine. So, yup. Here it is.
The intention of starting this blog is to get me
motivated to “live my life”. Hence, the title of the blog. As I entered adulthood, there are several changes that I want to implement in my life. But I never seem to be able to make a permanent change. I felt like I am just living everyday as they pass by me like clouds in the sky, thinking that there will be time, in future. But the hard truth is, I have limited time to do what I want in this lifetime. And if I just keep storing these thoughts in my mind instead of putting them into actions, they are not gonna happen. I don't want to live to an old age, filling my life with regrets as time-travel slowly to my death. I want to die knowing that I have done as much as I could, as many things as I wanted to; I want to feel that this journey of living (or to death, depending on how you see things) is a meaningful one.
The start of this huge and massive project as been an ambivalent decision. As much as I like the idea of starting a blog to organize all the ideas of change, I'm not 100% sure that creating this avenue is gonna help make them happen. My dearest had also reminded me that starting this blog is like putting another to-do item on my already long list. I would have to spend extra effort to maintain this blog, which could have been directed towards doing the tasks. That was certainly true, but the fact remains that I have tried diving into things, but they never really materialized to the extent I hope that I could achieve. Perhaps I wasn't trying hard enough, perhaps I wasn't that determined. In any case, the conclusion is, it didn't work. Therefore I'm exploring this avenue. Because, if I never try, I will never know.
With that said, there are several matters that I want to address at this moment, and possibly the items on the list will add on in future. Some of them are about building habits, some of them are about filling the information gaps for me to make certain big or long-term decisions. After maybe 5 min of reorganizing these matters in my mind, I have broadly grouped them in the following 5 categories:
Physical well-being
Mental well-being
Finance
Aspirations
Lifestyle
There could be more in the future, and maybe changes. But I shall stick with this one first.
Now, let me procrastinate on writing my next post while I take a short break.
