Goals

• Relationships: I got to catch up with family a couple times this fortnight. And I've been working on holding boundaries and vulnerability in my interpersonal relationships.
• Career: I've officially been promoted to SE2! I'm putting more effort into marketing the Lansing JVM User Group in order to ramp up for the fall. Next meetup's Thursday, August 8! And I exercised some Clojure skills by building a program to convert the JDK Enhancement Proposal index into an RSS feed.
• Health and Longevity: I've got a checkup scheduled for the 9th! I'm seeking a personal therapist as well, though only 1 in 10 has called me back so far.
• Financial Independence: We've made progress in our car hunt by establishing what the hell our budget is and a rubric for evaluating candidate cars. This has alleviated a lot of my anxiety.

Habits

Leave Work on Time

This has gone flawlessly since I last wrote. Seems too easy, to be honest.

I believe simplifying my cues was a good idea. I'm less sure whether rewarding myself with a snack for leaving before 5pm has been effective or is good overall, but there have been a couple afternoons where I left specifically to get the snack so I'm gonna keep it for now.

As for the fundamental model, I'm piecing together a role model for somebody who leaves the office before 5pm. It's been helpful to notice that a lot of the people I look up to at work are leaving between 4:30pm and 5:00pm as well.

Habit

• Cue: Computer and phone reminders and auto-close computer communication apps at 4:30pm, auto-logout at 5:00pm.
• Response: Stop current task. Log work for the day and set tomorrow's agenda. Pack up and walk out that damn door.
• Reward: If I've left on time, grab a snack from the snack bar on my way out. Bask in all that free time I've clawed back to enjoy life.

Bedtime Routine

I've been reading Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution and drinking mint iced tea. Switching to lighter reading material before bed was definitely helpful.

Habit

• Cue: Dinner's finished.
• Response: Pack for the next day. Brush my teeth. Grab a tasty beverage. Read in bed. Go to sleep.
• Reward: Read a fun book and drink a tasty beverage.

Financial Reviews

I'm spinning transaction fixing into a separate habit to make this easier and less punishing. To make this more rewarding I'm going to focus on positive impacts. I've got a goals fund account set up and I'm going to wrap up each session by looking at its increase.

• Cue: Personal Goals Review.
• Response: Log in to Mint. Review budgets and goals.
• Reward: Goal fund goes up and to the right.

Transaction Updating

I'm going to try updating my Mint transactions on a daily basis. If I do this frequently enough I'll be able to review my financial situations with ease while minimizing the pain of upkeep. If I do this in small batches I can manage my transactions from my phone, so I'm going to try doing this while I idly paw at my phone before I get up.

• Cue: Run out of content in my Twitter feed in the morning.
• Response: Open the Mint app. Rectify any transactions which have arrived since yesterday morning.
• Reward: Coffee.

Projects

Hardware BitClock

Still to movement because I still don't really want to do this any more. I'm gonna call it good enough, do a brief write-up, and try to move on.

Iris Mechanical Keyboards

I'm still trying to find the time to learn to desolder the microcontrollers with hot air. Until then this project's on hold.

Update Primary Care Physician

I've got an appointment scheduled! Now I've just got to show up.