Timeblock
| Time (PST) | Plan | Reality |
|---|---|---|
| 0000 | SLEEP | |
| 0030 | SLEEP | |
| 0100 | SLEEP | |
| 0130 | SLEEP | |
| 0200 | SLEEP | |
| 0230 | SLEEP | |
| 0300 | SLEEP | |
| 0330 | SLEEP | |
| 0400 | SLEEP | |
| 0430 | SLEEP | |
| 0500 | SLEEP | |
| 0530 | SLEEP | |
| 0600 | Buffer | Waking up |
| 0630 | Morning routine block | Meditation |
| 0700 | Reading: Book | Morning routine |
| 0730 | Planning | Music with wife |
| 0800 | Stretching | Planning |
| 0830 | Stretching | Thinking |
| 0900 | Stretching | |
| 0930 | Maintenance | Stretching |
| 1000 | Maintenance | |
| 1030 | Reading: The Mind Illuminated | Maintenance |
| 1100 | Reading: The Mind Illuminated | Maintenance |
| 1130 | Reading: The Mind Illuminated | |
| 1200 | Lunch | |
| 1230 | NAP | Lunch |
| 1300 | Buffer | TV: Youtube MTG Arena |
| 1330 | Reading: The Mind Illuminated | NAP |
| 1400 | Reading: The Mind Illuminated | Maintenance |
| 1430 | Reading: The Mind Illuminated | Maintenance |
| 1500 | Reading: The Mind Illuminated | Writing an email |
| 1530 | Buffer | Writing an email |
| 1600 | Reading: The Mind Illuminated | |
| 1630 | Reading: The Mind Illuminated | |
| 1700 | Hanging out | |
| 1730 | Hanging out | |
| 1800 | Hanging out | |
| 1830 | Hanging out | |
| 1900 | Hanging out | |
| 1930 | Hanging out | |
| 2000 | Hanging out | |
| 2030 | Winding down | |
| 2100 | SLEEP | |
| 2130 | SLEEP | |
| 2200 | SLEEP | |
| 2230 | SLEEP | |
| 2300 | SLEEP | |
| 2330 | SLEEP |
Thinking
Today is day 3 of my meditation practice. The high has worn off, maybe. Or rather, for some reason today was difficult. Could have been any number of things. I'm reducing my timer to 15 minutes, will increase it to 20 after a week, I think. My main Doubt here is that I may physically hurt myself staying still for too long. I have a history of overdoing things physically. Better to build the strength. I'm confident I can stay still for 15 minutes. I have done it twice already.
Another thing I had difficulty with, which came to me so easily yesterday, was to celebrate when I noticed I got lost and distracted before returning to the meditation object. Maybe I was trying to rush things today? I'll really lean into the realization and enjoy it.
Perhaps it'd be useful to carefully consider my prep here. The prep points are: motivations, goals, expectations, diligence, distractions, and posture.
Motivations
My motivation actually lines up with the purpose of stage 2: to train my brain to notice when it is distracted and return to what I intended to think about. This is something that will be of immense value to me. Tangential thinking is something that I constantly do. With ADHD medication, it has quieted significantly, to be sure, but there's definitely work I can do to be even better. Also, meditation may be a practice that removes the need for the medication, who knows?
Though, it may have been why I had so much trouble this morning, no medication in my system, as the half-life is quite short.
Goals
The goal is to fully celebrate everytime I notice that I've wandered from the meditiation object. Like, full on party-mode joy. I had a little bit of it yesterday, but didn't do enough of it this morning.
I would also like to stay still the entire 15-minute meditation. This is something I have already accomplished, and this, too, has its value outside of meditation as a skill. Like, standing still at my desk as I work would have value, for example.
I have experienced the discomfort, acknowledged it, let it be, and watched it go. It is amazing. Trying to move to fix discomfort is a temptation I often fail to resist, but I know that I can, and that it comes with a rewarding comfort.
Expectations
My expectations are reasonable. I'm not trying to force progress outside of my control. Simply going for regular practice with an intention to reward my mind for good behavior. No willpower or anything. Simply improvement through repetition and feedback.
Diligence
Morning meditations. Everyday. If I sleep through the time for it, I have backup times on weekdays and weekends. So, meditation everyday. No reason not to.
Distractions
The distractions that mainly cause me to lose my way are day dreams. A lot of them day dreams about talking about my meditation experience, ironically enough.
There are also two other distractions that don't get me lost, but do make focus difficult. One is just the noises in my environment. Which I don't think are a big deal. But the other is that I seem to feel like my lungs are not getting enough air the longer I focus on the breath.
This distraction would normally be something I could disregard, I think, but shortness of breath is a symptom of covid19, and so it creates some anxiety. I feel pretty intellectually certain that it is some strange thing with meditation that I should just grow comfortable with and it will go away. It is not a problem present at any other time. That will simply be my plan when encountering this again.
Posture
I may want to try standing meditation. Standing is something that comes more naturally to me than sitting. It'll also serve a dual purpose in practicing standing still.
I could also do some research into the various sitting poses, the stretches to do to be able to enter them comfortably, and cycle through them to find one that I like. The last three meditations, I sat on my knees, using my foam-roller as a cushion. It worked well enough, but I should probably experiment with this.
Some of Yesterday's Thoughts on Meditation
I wrote about my thoughts on meditation a bit yesterday, in a meditation slack channel. I will copy that writing here.
The Mind Illuminated has already helped me considerably, I think. As I read I'll share stuff here, but I think I'll go ahead and share what I've liked so far.
One thing I really liked was the formal distinction between "awareness" and "attention", and it's comparison to peripheral vision and vision. Meditation enhances awareness, trains attention, and strengthens their shared source of energy. Explicitly allocating resources to awareness helps me understand the idea of "being in the present", I think. Also, working on controlling the scope of attention. It's still a bit fuzzy, so I feel unsure about how accurate what I'm saying is, but I've taken a solid step from the "not getting" meditation, I think.
There's also the six-point meditation prep guide: motivations, goals, expectations, diligence, distractions, and posture. (I've added this to my spaced-repetition flashcard app for memorization)
Motivation: why are you meditating
Goals: what are you trying to achieve this session
Expectations: what do you expect of yourself, and are you being reasonable in those expectations? do not try to force progress
Diligence: practice everyday, practice for the time allotted
Distractions: what is likely to vie for your attention, prepare yourself to "let it come, let it be, let it go"
Posture: find a position where you can be comfortably still, but not so comfortable that you'd fall asleep
Note: my friend has told me that he has found that "failing meditation on purpose" is a great way to fall asleep. It will be interesting if I can replicate that ability.
And then there's"the four step transition to the meditation object" (also added to anki, the spaced-repetition flashcard app I use):
- Focus on the present
- Focus on body sensations
- Focus on bodily sensations related to the breath
- Focus on the sensations of breath at the nose
A session may need to return to step one, or go some steps back after returning from a distraction. This one I also think will be really interesting to construct for different meditation objects. Like, figuring out a good narrowing of focus.
And lastly, something that was really satisfying to cultivate (and should only grow more satisfying) is to feel a sense of achievement when you notice yourself daydreaming. Don't get frustrated that you got distracted, be happy you noticed. Want to reward yourself for noticing, as it trains you mind to flag it. Meditation is not about will power, it's building muscle-memory, basically. It's like throwing a ball. The conscious mind provides feedback, and then with enough practice you'll get better.
Right now I'm on the high of getting into it, but hopefully I'll stick with it.
Time-Tracking Review
So, the way Toggl works is that it wants to show you your tracked time split by project. So, instead of the description, which is what I used before, I made a whole bunch of projects.
- Cooking
- Doctor's Appointment
- Eating
- Entertainment
- Exercise
- Grocery shopping
- Hanging Out
- Maintenance
- Meditation
- Music with Wife
- Nap
- Reading
- Side Projects
- Sleep
- Stretching
- Talking
- Therapy
- Transition
- Unintended
- Work: Data Sensitivity
- Work: Demo
- Work: Maintenance
- Work: Meeting
- Work: Slack
- YouTube
Overall, this works pretty well, actually. But I think instead of "Data Sensitivity", it should've been the kind of work, like "coding" or "deploying" or "debugging" or "analysis". So, I'll probably do it differently next week there.
I think the actual project I'm working on should be a tag in Toggl. Also can be in the description, maybe.
I need to be better about distinguishing when I'm doing my own maintenance (often labeled as "Organization" in my timeblock, but "Maintenance" is a better word, I think), and when I'm doing "Work: Maintenance".
I also need to divy up my meetings between required and optional, I think.
It may also behoove me to split maintenance up into more projects that fall under it, as I devoted almost 12 hours last week to it. That's a significant chunk, and diving deeper may show some insight.
Sleep was the biggest single chunk, at 64 hours. So I spend about 9 hours per day on average sleeping (not counting naps). I think that's just reality? Possibly not worth trying to "fix". As long as I can fall asleep consistently.
YouTube was the next biggest chunk, at 18 hours.... Probably want to watch less YouTube.
Then maintanence, at 12 hours.
Then eating, at 9 hours.
I won't go on here. I'm going to want to export this data to Mixpanel to better visualize it, I think. And also share it better here in the log.
But today let's wordily go over the important bits to reflect on.
Work Breakdown
According to Toggl, I clocked in 17 hours of work last week. Which isn't a lot. Now, to be fair, during the weekdays my morning routine, which is tracked as "Maintenance", covers a lot of work. Still, though, I think I can do better. "Deep work", aka the work I get paid for, was at 7 hours. I put it all in the "Data Sensitivity" bucket, but will want it to be more explicitly the kind of work I'm doing next week.
Apparently, I spent 7.5 hours in meetings last week. About half of those, or maybe a third, were optional. Might want to cut some out. Next week there's just fewer meetings, though.
Goals for next week are:
- better breakdown of work
- tracking work maintenance as work
- put actual work projects, like "Data Sensitivity" in a tag, and use the kind of work as the Toggl project name
Personal Breakdown
Overall: less YouTube, more quality entertainment. Potentially, "YouTube" is too wide a net, and I can break that down further into the type of video (e.g. "Overwatch", "MTG Arena", "Edutainment", "ZFG", etc).
But also, any YouTube I watch by myself may be better replaced with reading, which I want to do more of. And potentially video games or side-projects.
And I'd like to think about how I may want to break "Maintenance" down further.
The Meditative Nap
So, yesterday and today I followed the 4-step transition to the meditative object while laying down to nap. Not sure if it's still novel enough or what, but it kept my mind active and I definitely didn't fall asleep for either nap. Though, this sort of thing would happen anyways, with meditation I came out of the nap feeling just as refreshed as when I nap. So, I think it's fine?
There's a strong likelihood that naps will actually happen during naptime, so I think I'll maintain the morning plan, but I am quite okay with it just being another meditation session. I think that's stronger than the strange sleepless dreams I wander through during some naps.
My brain does feel a lot quieter, as well. And there's this lingering bit of meta awareness. I notice when I start to pace. Or as I fidgit whilst standing here typing. There's this constant allure of daydreaming going on at all times.
I also have realized that I often turn my head to look out the window. How long have I had this habit? It is not something I really noticed myself doing until yesterday. I have the habit of keeping the blinds open.... Has it lasted as long as that? Is the little bit of nature outside the window a secret source of joy for me?
....
And just then, on that thought, I went for a pace to the bedroom and back. But very quickly into it: "Hey, you're pacing, just FYI" is the kinda sensation I got. And then I got a nice little jolt of joy (just going to stick with using the word joy), a reward for noticing the movement of distraction.
....
And then I did it again. Now there's an explicit smile on my face.
Is Meditation the Key to "Practicing Intentionality"?
There was a new thing I wanted to do: "practice intentionality". Basically, do what I set out to do. The idea was maybe to place activities in specific timeblocks, and not let them leak elsewhere. But perhaps this is hard to do without first cultivating directed attention and sustained attention.
Perhaps, to add another of my goals into this line of thinking, this cultivation is also necessary for the observation and recording of dreams, and the transition to lucid dreaming.
Hmmm... something to ruminate on.