August was another challenging month with long work hours, poor balance, and the stress of an upcoming move.
💰 Financial Wellbeing
Save, Save, Save Savings on track this month!
Spend Less Specifically in the categories
Restaurants and
Mindless Online Purchases. The delivery bill was a bit high this month, around $300, but a good chunk of that was from a big sushi dinner for my “quaranteam” (husband, cousin, her husband). I also bought some clothes online for a wicked good deal, but nothing mindless and I didn’t even treat myself to anything this month!
🧠📚 Personal Development
Read Every Day & Finish 44 Books in 2020 & Read More Diverse Voices I completed three books, bringing my total to 32.
- Endymion by Dan Simmons
- The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaimon
- The Waste Lands by Stephen King
Explore New Ideas This was a bit of a fail this month.
Improve Photography Skills Chipping away at the Photography Masterclass: A Complete Guide to Photography on Udemy.
Complete Predictive Analytics Certificate Program by EOY ‘20 My current course focuses on data understanding and visualization using KNIME and ggplot2. I prevously took a course in R Programming, but the experience using ggplot2 has stuck a lot better in my mind.
🧘🌲 Fitness & Outdoor Activity
Spend 1 hr/Week in Nature This month I went on a long hike and spent some time by the apartment pool. Not as much actual “nature” as I would like, but anything outside these walls is better than than nothing.
Do Yoga 15x/Month I did yoga 7 times in August. Still working towards a consistent practice.
Home Exercise Routine I worked out 0 times in August beyond the hike and yoga. Aiming to get back on track after the move.
5,000 Steps/Day August average: 3,717 (+16 month on month). I was pretty sedentary again this month and spent way too many hours in front of my computer. How do people actually do 10,000 steps?! I do notice that days I run errands it is much easier to get to 5k.
💻🤳 Digital Life
Reduce Social Media Use My Facebook stayed deactivated through August, and I don’t see any reason to turn it back on. I did end up re-activating Instagram with (1) a seriously trimmed following list and (2) a renewed commitment to meaninfully engage with my friends beyond just likes and (3) most stories muted. The result is that I can easily get through my whole feed each day in around 20 minutes and see only friends’ posts. This makes me feel in control of my experience instead of being force fed what is algorithmically most engaging.