Q1 look back – self-care

One of my two themes for this year was building a good self-care system. I broke this down into 5 specific areas in order of priority:

(1) Sleep: At least 7 hours every weekday.

(2) Exercise: Close my Apple Watch rings (400 move calories, 30 mins of exercise) every weekday and aim for at least 10 minutes of strength training

(3) Voice: 2 minutes of vocal exercises (inspired by this post)

(4) Food: Aim for fruits every day (in addition to intermittent fasting + diversity of plants)

(5) Books: Do more reading by surrounding myself with books and being more intentional about checking my phone.

I think I emerged from the first quarter of the year with a B+ overall. I had a hit-rate of between 80-90% on sleep, between 90-95% on exercise, ~100% on vocal exercise, ~70% on food, and ~50% on books.

3 reflections –

(a) Apple Fitness Plus was definitely a game changer in helping me exercise better. Getting strength training consistently in has made me feel significantly better. I remain a huge fan of the Apple Watch in general in its ability to transform the act of exercising.

(2) Adding books in areas where I’d normally check my phone has helped me become more intentional about reading.

(3) Performances that were below expectations were a direct effect of days where I didn’t plan my work and schedule well.

Hoping to build on this and do better in Q2.