I wished I had achieved more this month, I really do. But waking up multiple times every night to baby cries is no joke. It’s hard to do my best work when most of the time, my brain is just mush and my energy and motivation is an all-time low. But I try, anyway.

New writing platform for goals

So I’d been working on my own writing platform this month, tentatively called Lifelog. It’s for writing your way towards your goals, pretty much like the monthly goals and wrap-ups I do here, except that it’s writing daily. I believe that spending some time every day trying to figure out how to get to your goals and writing it down is one of the best ways to achieve those goals. So far, I got the backend mostly working on Strapi, and working on my frontend now using Nuxt. The basic features for the MVP will be writing posts, commenting and streaks. I’m taking my time with it, trying to enjoy the learning process and not rush for the sake of rushing to meet the shutdown of 200wad. 

Hesitation on 2 new projects

Complete fail on launching my social impact patronage and custom Carrd co. The longer I procrastinate, the more likely I won’t do it. I’m not sure why I’m hesitant. I ‘blame’ the sleep deprivation and the attention and time needed for Lifelog. Oh well. It’s still on my to-do list for sure. Maybe when I get enough sleep, the motivation will return?

Sleep

Lack of sleep is a killer this month. Combined with a sedentary, WFH lifestyle, energy levels are just plunging. What I learned is that I got to accept that this will be a regular feature of my life right now, and work around it, instead of charging ahead with work anyway, using coffee and willpower. That’s a sure recipe for burnout and exhaustion, not to mention poor health. If tired, sleep. If zombified, do tasks with low cognitive effort. Reserve small windows of alertness (like when just woke in the morning or after coffee) for short sprints of productive, focused work. After that leave things to fate and adapt around the disturbances that will follow. Do stuff while moving around, or just move around more (since I can’t do much these days anyway). Sleep early. 

It’s crazy to think that this will be my last monthly wrap-up here. But I’ll transit wrap-ups on the new writing platform in 31 Dec and 1 Jan. Sounds like a good way to transit, on the start of a fresh year. And just before that, perhaps a Deep December of rest and reflection is in order. There’s so much in 2020 to introspect through.