Tracking Daily Habits: January 2023
At the beginning of January, I created a spreadsheet in Google Sheets to track my daily habits.
I’m so glad I did this – and have kept up with it the entire month! Really looking forward to keeping this up throughout the year. It will be a powerful tool to notice trends in motivation, tiredness, laziness, and progress.
Here are the things I am tracking:
Most of these I am tracking with a “Yes” or “No.” Some of them I record the duration of the activity.
- Wake up time
- Duration of writing
- Stretch
- Meditation
- Prayer
- Bible reading
- Workout
- Cold plunge 🥶
- Food (breakfast)
- What did I work on?
- What I created
- What I published
- Nap duration
- Walk duration
- Journal
- Prayer
- Bedtime
- How I’m feeling
I’ve never thought of myself as a super analytical guy, but this has been a fun project without much effort. I do think it has helped keep me accountable.
It’s also super fun to be able to see all this data with one easy check. I can quickly notice trends in going to bed too late or waking up too late. Or if I’ve missed reading my Bible, missed working out, or eaten poorly.
Here are some stats from the month:
Sleep
The earliest I woke up was 5:45am. The latest I woke up was 8:45am, haha.
The earliest I was in bed was 9:30pm. The latest I went to bed was 11:30pm.
I napped for a total of 6 hours, 35 minutes. This seems like a lot, but I’ve been prioritizing rest and highly recommend it. Wild to think all that time napping still doesn’t add up to even one night’s sleep!
Health
I worked out 17 days out of 31, with no more than a 2-day rest between work outs.
I walked 20 days for a total of 548 minutes! Longest was 53 minutes, shortest was 10 minutes. Most of these were going to be “quick 10 minute walks” that turned into much longer walks. Funny how that works.
I found that getting outside with my walking shoes was the most difficult part. Once I was out there I could hardly stop. Love this time outside. It has been a tremendous help when I’m feeling stuck in my head or struggling with a certain problem.
Began meditating & using breath work for the first time this month. Felt like this made a big difference in my ability to deal with stress and slow down at the beginning or end of the day.
Bible
I read through the first two books of the Old Testament (Genesis & Exodus). Getting a great head start on reading the entire Bible this year!
A group of a few guys decided to read the Bible this year, and keep each other accountable. I’ve tried to do this multiple times before without success. It’s important to have a group sticking with it, and a process to make it happen.
It’s amazing seeing the parallels between the Old Testament and the “coming” Christ!
Writing
I wrote every day for a total of 934 minutes, for an average of 31 minutes per day. Shortest session was ~5 minutes, longest was 63 minutes. Super stoked about this progress.
My new goal is to hit 1,000 minutes of writing each month for the rest of the year. It’s wild to look back and see how much I’ve learned since beginning this journey of writing. Excited to continue!
I journaled every day in my pocket notebook. 22 days at night, 9 days the following morning.
Content creation
I shared 16 pieces of content on my Instagram, averaging out to about every other day – which is surprising to me! I was aiming to publish content 3 days/week. The fact that I overachieved that is a good thing!
Excited to pivot what I’m sharing a bit, and focus more on long-form content that will be broken up with less effort.
I tweeted 27 times on Twitter. I was shooting for every day, but missed a few. Still trying to figure out which platform to focus on. I am learning that focusing on 1-2 platforms is best in the beginning. It’s “easier” to expand from there.
Currently I am putting the most energy towards Instagram. But I am hoping to focus more on YouTube and the podcast for February and March.
Newsletter
I sent out my first 3 weeks of my newsletter, The Stoke Seminar! I’m very “stoked” to keep this going and continue to learn from it. It’s been a humbling, yet rewarding experience so far.
It was a great first month of the year. I’m very excited for what’s to come. I continue to learn how important making small daily steps is to reach a certain destination.
Moving forward
I think about my 11-hour walk often. It was the ultimate lesson of putting one foot in front of the other to get where you want to go. Grateful the Lord is directing these steps and showing me how to be used for His glory.
I enjoyed reviewing and sharing these details – so I’ll plan to do this each month for the year!
Each day is such a blessing as I am excited about the work I do each day. Much better than spend it building someone else’s vision.
Onto February. Let’s make it happen!
–Eric P
Any questions? Feel free to drop them below in the comments, or shoot me a DM on Instagram or Twitter.
Thanks for reading!
