I have always maintained that people who keep meticulous records of their daily habits are serial killers or psychopaths à la Patrick Bateman. At the beginning of this year, I decided I wanted to keep an eye on my goals for the year in a more quantitative manner, and it was surprisingly easier than I thought it would be. I’ll let you decide if I’m a murderer or not.
Let’s start with what my goals for the year were, and then see how I did.
- I wanted to read at least a book a week i.e. 52 books a year
- I wanted to exercise at least 4 times per week i.e. 208 days a year
- I wanted to watch my spending and not make frivolous purchases
Reading
Status: We are in Week 28 of the year and I’ve read 39 books so far. Not bad.
My taste in books is like my taste in everything else – I don’t have strong loyalties to a particular genre and I try to do everything in moderation. I also love to re-read books every now and then. My favorites in each category below are in bold.
Purely for the joy of words (11)
All We Know of Pleasure: Poetic Erotica by Women – Enid Shomer
The Golden Gate – Vikram Seth
The Only Story – Julian Barnes
The Road – Cormac McCarthy
The Stranger – Albert Camus
The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, #1) – Brandon Sanderson
Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2) – Brandon Sanderson
Oathbringer (The Stormlight Archive, #3) – Brandon Sanderson
The Year of the Runaways – Sunjeev Sahota
Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
Everything Under – Daisy Johnson
For an education (6)
All the Devils are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis – Bethany McLean
An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India – Shashi Tharoor
Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley – Emily Chang
Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process – John McPhee
The Argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity – Amartya Sen
The Intelligent Investor – Benjamin Graham
Comics and graphic novels, for an illustration class I took at the California College of the Arts (5)
Black Hole – Charles Burns
Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic – Alison Bechdel
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood (Persepolis, #1) – Marjane Satrapi
Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return (Persepolis, #2) – Marjane Satrapi
The Love Bunglers – Jaime Hernandez
Thrillers (10)
Blood on the Tracks (Sydney Rose Parnell, #1) – Barbara Nickless
Broken Promise (Promise Falls, #1) – Linwood Barclay
Caught – Harlan Coben
Run Away – Harlan Coben
Discretion (Anna Curtis, #2) – Allison Leotta
Livia Lone (Livia Lone, #1) – Barry Eisler
The Night Trade (Livia Lone, #2) – Barry Eisler
Most Dangerous Place (Jack Swyteck, #13) – James Grippando
I Am Watching You – Teresa Driscoll
Everything You Want Me to Be – Mindy Mejia
Romance (7)
Almost Single – Advaita Kala
Sloppy Firsts (Jessica Darling, #1) – Megan McCafferty
Second Helpings (Jessica Darling, #2) – Megan McCafferty
Charmed Thirds (Jessica Darling, #3) – Megan McCafferty
Fourth Comings (Jessica Darling, #4) -Megan McCafferty
Perfect Fifths (Jessica Darling, #5) – Megan McCafferty
The Boy Next Door (Boy, #1) – Meg Cabot
Exercise
Status: To keep up with my goal of exercising 4 times per week, I should have exercised for 112 days total this year. But I’ve managed to do 105 days which is close, but not as good as I would like. In terms of streaks, I exercised at least 4 times a week for 16 weeks. The other 12 weeks, not so much. Detailed splits below.
Overall, I’m proud of the progress I’ve made fitness wise this year. I feel stronger and healthier than I have in a long time. I’ve picked up boxing as a hobby and it’s a form of exercise I’ve discovered I love.
Spending
Status: I discovered a newfound love for workout clothes, which I guess is a not-so positive side effect of exercising a lot more. Overall, I have definitely cut down on how much money I drop compared to previous years.
This category isn’t terribly interesting for obvious reasons. I don’t mind spending money on travel and food, but I found myself buying unnecessary crap I didn’t need just because I got an email from a brand about a sale. So I decided to start tracking how often I made these “impulse” buys and took some steps to control it.
In order to stop finding out about these damn sales in the first place
- I unsubscribed from emails from all the brands I particularly like
- I got rid of all the shopping apps on my phone
- I unfollowed or reported ads that kept popping up in my social media feeds
That however didn’t stop me from shopping, obviously.
To track all of this, I used Goodreads for the books, and Momentum for my exercise and spending habits. Tracking all of this each day takes very little effort, just some mindfulness. And being the anal retentive person I am, I sometimes go exercise for the satisfaction of marking another day as complete in the app. Pavlovian response for the win. In any case, tracking my goals has not only helped me be more accountable, but it has also helped in creating these habits in the first place.
I’m healthier, wealthier, and more well-read for it. What’s not to like?