Monthly review: February 2015

Posted: - Modified: | monthly, review

Last month, I wrote that in February, I was looking forward to:

  • Preparing for some projects: Done!
  • Hosting another Emacs Hangout: Done!
  • Learning more about Helm (in Emacs): Customized!

What a month for cooking, drawing, writing, sewing, and tweaking Emacs. Somehow I managed to make more progress on personal projects and do lots of consulting.

Time

Category Last month (%) This month (%) Avg h per week Delta
Business – Earn 4.1 7.8 13 3.7
Unpaid work 8.5 9.9 17 1.4
Discretionary – Productive 11.9 12.6 21 0.7
Discretionary – Social 0.5 1.2 2 0.7
Discretionary – Family 4.4 5.1 9 0.7
Sleep 35.3 35.3 59 0.0
Personal 15.1 14.7 25 -0.4
Discretionary – Play 3.8 2.8 5 -1.0
Business – Connect 5.4 2.8 5 -2.6
Business – Build 11.1 7.8 13 -3.3

As an experiment, I tried treating consulting as a "dessert" task to encourage me to work on my personal projects. I also stayed late at the office when I happened to have evening get-togethers scheduled downtown. I made decent progress on my other projects, I got more consulting in, and my clients were happy for the help. Still, my personal projects and interests are starting to be more motivating for me, so I think I might be able to rely on their intrinsic motivation soon. =)

This month, I spent some time thinking about clothes, shopping, sewing, and how I can make this experience better. It was a little stressful trying to find clothes for a family event (I ended up going in my office clothes), so I've resolved to try:

  • shopping more frequently
  • giving myself permission to spend more money
  • investing in learning how to sew

So far, so good. I've found a simple pattern for tops and am working on filling my wardrobe with them. Some people like variety. I think I get a kick out of consistency.

I've been cooking a lot too, yay!

I expect next month to focus even more on personal projects. I'd like to:

  • finish a few more tops in this season's colours
  • bake a few pies for Pi Day
  • work on a few personal projects

Blog posts

Sketches

You can comment with Disqus or you can e-mail me at sacha@sachachua.com.