2022
Happy New Year!
Another year has gone by without me making any regular posts. That was one of my goals for 2022 that fell by the way side. Thankfully, I made solid progress on my other goals. While I hope to return to regular posting at some point down the line, that likely won't be for a few years. Still, I will be posting these yearly reflections to catalog growth on my habits and show some signs of life on the site.
Highlights of the year include:
Working in Chicago where I recently graduated from a management training program to be a supervisor managing a team of 5 very talented individuals. It's been great working with and learning from them and everyone else at the company so far.
Completing a Senior Product Management Certificate with Product School (link). While I have very mixed feelings about the rigor and value of this program, I did learn some useful things to bring my product management skills to the next level and made a few new friends along the way.
Started hosting 2-Hour Cocktail Parties after helping proofread and test Nick Gray's excellent book. Nick was kind enough to coach me through the first one before the book was published and wrote a great feature about hosting in a small space (link here). Even though I went to college in Chicago, I felt quite socially disconnected when I moved back at the start of the year and most of my college friends had moved away. This book helped me feel more connected and socially supported than ever before in the city.
Travelled to Cuba, Mexico, and Scotland for the first time, as well as getting back to Germany where I swam with a swan.
Revamping a linen closet in my apartment into a tea closet complete with new liners and motion activated LED lights for each shelf.
Sharing a meal with my family at a top restaurant which I toured as part of a college class my freshman year.
Talking salsa classes with my girlfriend
Amongst all of those, I kept tracking a few key habits across all 365 days of 2022. The idea was to create a quantitative record of things I value as being important to compare with my own qualitative perceptions and priorities. They are listed below alongside the percentage of days where I completed the habit. Note that swimming counted for both swim and workout.
8+ hours sleep (55%, up from 40%)
Brief sun salutations (81%, down from 97%)
Mindful breathing exercises (88%, down from 100%)
averaged 10 minutes/day
Tea (79%, down from 82%)
Workout (68%, up from 64%)
Swim (21%)
Although the swimming number seems low, I was averaging 46% for the first 4 months of the year before I injured my shoulder. After that, I kept swimming now and again but cut back significantly to allow it to heal. I had taken a heightened interest in swimming as a way to stay active while preventing injuries which are likely in my future from all the running. This ended up being counterproductive, since I got injured after only a few months of swimming while having had no serious running injuries after 12 years. Moving forward, I plan to incorporate some mix of biking and swimming but focus more on running as well as exploring yoga more.
Looking back on this year, tracking habits still supported the idea of what gets measured gets done. Although the year was busy, I didn't have a good reason to not meet my goal of getting 8 hours of sleep 70% of nights but still failed to do so. However, my percentage of 55% is much higher than 2021's rate of 40%, so I am counting that as a win. This year, I am aiming for 80% with the intention that even if I fall short again, I will still keep improving my relationship with sleep.
In 2023, my focus will be to keep the increased depth of habits that I saw in 2022 while aiming for a bit more consistency in the core habits which slipped by 10-20% this year. In the long run, completion rates in the 90s seems like the optimal balance between consistency and allowing myself to live a bit more flexibly.
Do you have any New Year's Resolutions/goals for 2023? I'd love to hear about them! Shoot me a text, email, or comment below. If you'd like, we could even help hold each other accountable.
While new habits are not any easier to form this time of year, and are perhaps even harder to start than usual, I always find something refreshing about the holidays and a new calendar year providing natural space for reflection on times past and what we want to prioritize going forward. Whether you do it now or anytime later this year, I hope you can take the time out to reflect on your life and how you can bring it closer to your goals.
###
Photo is of my friend Andrew and I enjoying sunrise after hiking up the Viñales Valley UNESCO site in Cuba
