Weekly Planning using Email

This was the most surprising out of all that I've tried. I honestly enjoyed creating my weekly plans using email. Basically, I would write down the plan for Monday to Sunday, then email it to myself. I cannot explain it, but I get a kick out of doing that, sending myself my weekly plan. One other thing I liked about weekly planning using email, is that if I need to make a change, I need to send myself a new email by replying to my original email. It sorts of acts like a basic versioning system wherein you can actually see what the previous tasks were, versus what the new ones are going to be.

What I don't like about it is that I have to make sure I type in the right email address before hitting send. In other words, there is a chance that I will accidentally send someone else my weekly plan. And depending on the contents of my weekly plan, that could be a big privacy/security issue. There's also the fact that my weekly plan lives on an email server in the cloud, which means my email service provider can probably read what I have planned for the weekend. And if for some reason I lose all internet connectivity, then I probably won't be able to check my weekly plan. So, not ideal, but it was a fun way to do weekly plans.

Weekly Planning using Apple's Notes App

Weekly planning using the Notes app on my iPhone was okay. It was only okay because I hate typing up my weekly plan on my phone. I want to be able to do it with a full-sized keyboard. However, there are some major advantages to this approach.

• First, since I typed up my weekly plan on my phone, I don't even need internet connection to get to it.
• Second, since the weekly plan is stored locally on my phone, I don't need to be online to get to it. That means a decreased chance for third party online services to read the contents of my weekly plan.
• Third, because the weekly plan is stored locally on my phone, it loads up really fast. I don't need to sign-in into anything to get to it. I just open the Notes app and it is there.

The major drawback to this approach is something I already mentioned above, I hate typing up my weekly plan on my phone. So, for a second attempt at this, I borrowed my wife's, Coney's old MacBook and used the Notes app that comes with it. Now this, weekly planning using the Notes app with a full-sized keyboard to type up stuff, now this is ideal. It is just as easy as writing myself an email, but it doesn't have the security issue of accidentally sending the weekly plan to someone else. It will also automatically sync to my phone's Note app. So, while there is that cloud syncing thing going on, there's still no requirement for me to sign-in to anything to get to it. I can simply use my phone to check the weekly plan. The only drawback to this approach and this is me nitpicking, is that I don't get the unintentional versioning of the plans that I get with email. If I need to make a change to my weekly plan, I simply edit the weekly plan. Unless I try to leave the old task and mark it as invalid, I will have no idea that my plans changed midweek. Not a big deal, but just noting it down.

Weekly Planning using Microsoft's OneNote App

I also tried weekly planning using Microsoft's OneNote. This one is a pretty good experience as well. The OneNote app is available as an iOS app or a web app. So, I don't need to type up my weekly plans using my phone. Unlike with the Apple Notes app, I don't need to borrow Coney's old MacBook to create my weekly plans. Any computer with a browser would work. So, I can use their web app on a PC to create the weekly plan and then I can use my phone to check it. In this case, I used an old Windows PC at home to write up my weekly plans.

Another benefit of this tool is that I can create different notebooks in the OneNote app. I ended up creating a Bullet Journal notebook, which now serves as a digital backup for my own physical Bullet Journal notebook. This digital OneNote notebook has a Daily Log and Weekly Log sections, just like my Bullet Journal notebook. So, during those days where I can't write on my real journal, I pull up my phone or use my PC to type in some entries on my digital Bullet Journal notebook. It makes for a much more organized way of weekly planning and occasionally, logging daily entries in a pinch.

As to be expected with a web app, there are some drawbacks to this approach. Since it is a web app, I have to sign-in to a cloud service to write up my weekly plans. Same as with the email approach, this means my weekly plan lives on the cloud where third party services can read it if they so please. Another drawback is that it takes longer to get to my weekly plan using the OneNote app, especially the OneNote app on my phone. With the Apple Notes app, all I need to do is unlock my phone and open the Notes app and it will be there. With the OneNote app, I have to unlock my phone, open the OneNote app, pick the Bullet Journal notebook, pick the Weekly Log section and pick the current Weekly Plan page. That's extra steps that I could do away with, though I guess other people wouldn't consider it a big deal.

Weekly Planning using Digital Calendars

I tried, I really tried, but I couldn't stick with it. I wasn't even halfway to coming up with my weekly plan for this week before I gave up. Weekly planning using a digital calendar is too rigid, too restrictive for how I want to plan my activities. For example, I usually plan a “Play Video Game” activity every day of the week. The problem is, with a digital calendar, it will force me to select a time for that activity. That leads me to my other problem, I don't have a set time at night for when I can play video games. It depends on whether Baby Caleb is sleeping, or if my wife is not too tired to watch him while I do something, etc... In other words, my schedule at night is just so unpredictable that selecting a fixed time to set an activity on is so unrealistic for me. On Monday I could be playing a video game at 6pm, but there's no guarantee that it will be the same for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, etc... So, no, weekly planning with digital calendars will just not work for me.

Conclusion

After trying out all those options, I think weekly planning using a Notes app like Apple's Notes app or Microsoft's OneNote app is the best option for me. Currently, with me being able to work from home, I am weekly planning using Microsoft's OneNote app. I use my old PC to write up my weekly plan and use the same PC in the morning to check the plan for the day. Since I don't have to use my phone to check the weekly plan, I am not bothered too much by the hassle of opening up the weekly plan on my phone's OneNote app. However, if I am asked to go back to the office for work, I think I will switch to weekly planning using Apple's Notes app, simply because it is so much faster to pull up the weekly plan on my phone's Notes app.

Tags: #ExperimentLog #ExperimentLogResults #WeeklyPlanning

Before that though, just a short description of how I did the weekly planning.

• I added Weekly Log pages to my Bullet Journal. I added the weekly log pages after the Monthly Log page. So, after I created the January 2020 monthly log pages, I used the 4 pages after that to create the weekly log pages. For an idea of what my weekly log/spread looks like, check here.
• I planned for the next week on Sundays, typically in the afternoon. I just plan the next week and wait until the next Sunday to plan the next week after that.
• Typically I included at least two leisure activities, playing video games and reading a book. If I think I will have more time at night on a specific day, I also threw in watching a TV show or documentary or even a movie.
• I included non-leisure related tasks in my weekly logs. Most of these tasks came from my Monthly Log page. So, it wasn't all just leisure activities in there.
• If I didn't finish a leisure activity task before the day ends, I typically just cross it out. I don't carry over leisure activity tasks to the next day. For example, if I didn't get to play a video game today, I won't migrate it to the next day, because I already have a task to play another video game for the next day. The non-leisure related tasks though get carried over depending on their importance.

Now on to the results

As far as planning my leisure activities goes, it has been a huge success! No longer do I have to wonder what game to play, or what book to read, or what TV show to watch. I just look at the current day's daily log entry on my bullet journal to find the next activity to engage in.

Unexpected Benefit #1

One unexpected benefit of planning my leisure activities this way, is the elimination of the guilt I often have for neglecting other video games, books, TV shows, etc...

For example, I bought Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order last year. I bought it at full price because I've been waiting for a single-player Star Wars video game for a very long time now. However, during Christmas last year, my wife surprised me with a gift of Civilization 6 for the Xbox One. Obviously Civ 6, is another game that I really wanted to play, however I can't help but feel guilty when choosing to play one video game over the other. Not to mention, I've never even finished another fave game of mine, Division 2.

Being able to plan which game to play on a certain day of a week eliminates this problem for me. Now I no longer feel guilty for not playing Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, because I know I will get around to playing it sometime later in the week.

The same thing applies to the books I'm reading. Currently, I have a rotation of 3 books: Simple Plan to Wealth, An Echo of Things to Come and A Little Book of Japanese Contentments.

Prior to this experiment, I would read a book depending on what I fancy reading at that time. That almost always came with a pang of guilt for neglecting the other books that I have not finished reading. With weekly planning, I am able to pick which book to read on a certain night. I make sure I don't read the same book twice in a row, just to spread the love.

To my surprise, I've made steady progress on my books with this approach. I'm almost done with the Simple Plan to Wealth, while I'm halfway through A Little Book of Japanese Contentments and I've made good progress on An Echo of Things to Come (which is a 700+ page fantasy novel).

I've even made progress on my TV shows as well. I've finished watching Inside Bill's Brain (only 3 episodes) and I'm almost done with season 1 of The Witcher.

Unexpected Benefit #2

During the first few days of this experiment, I did not migrate the tasks from the weekly log into my daily log. To those not familiar with Bullet Journals, what I mean by this is that I didn't copy over the tasks into my daily log. The reason being is that I thought it would be redundant to do so. I already had the tasks written down in my weekly log, why would I need to copy them over into my daily log? So, during the first few days, I had to look at my daily log and weekly log pages to figure out what task or activity to work on.

I soon got tired of doing that. It is just so much easier to have just one page to look at. So, even if I felt it was a bit redundant, I migrated/copied over the tasks from my weekly log into my daily log. Doing so revealed an unexpected benefit; another chance to re-evaluate how important a task is to me. If I think the task was worth doing, I would copy it over, otherwise it gets left out.

Setbacks

I did run into some setbacks along the way. Namely, the past 2 weekends have been so busy for me, that it was a struggle to religiously follow all the tasks I've listed on my weekly plan.

• One weekend was spent assembling furniture the wife needed for the coming of our second child. On that one Saturday, I didn't get to play or do any reading, unless you consider going though IKEA Assembly Instructions, reading. I didn't even get to write on my journal until the next day.
• This last weekend was a slightly less busy one, however I was also sick and so I didn't follow every task listed on the weekly plan.
• Overall it was still a success though, because the weekly plan allowed me to see what the most important task was for that day. So even if I couldn't complete all of them, I at least knew the most important ones that needed to be done.

So what now?

I've decided to continue doing weekly plans for the foreseeable future. I don't think there's any drawback to doing them, other than losing maybe 1-2 hours on a Sunday coming up with a plan for the next week. However, I think you eventually gain back that time considering how you have a well planned week ahead of you.

One thing I'm going to start doing more, is fleshing out my exercise/workout tasks in my weekly plans. I do include them in my weekly plan, but only as a generic “Exercise” task. I don't specifically list what kind of exercise or workout to do. Obviously this is something that fitness enthusiasts have been doing for awhile now, but one that I've only thought of doing the past few days. Still, better late than never.

Tags: #ExperimentLog #ExperimentLogResults #WeeklyPlanning

Initially I felt like I was missing something without my Fitbit on my wrist. After a day or so, this feeling went away and was replaced by a feeling of liberation.

• I no longer needed to worry about whether I forgot my Fitbit or not.
• My business casual outfits no longer looked out of sorts. I could wear an elegant looking traditional wrist watch on my left wrist and there won't be a fitness tracker on my other wrist to spoil the look.
• It was easier to put on jackets without the cuffs catching on my Fitbit.
• I no longer needed to remember to charge it every week.
• I no longer had to worry about the occasional itch/rash that would manifest because of wearing a Fitbit.

It wasn't all good results though.

• For one, I noticed that I became a lot more sedentary at the office. Without my Fitbit to prod me to take more steps, I would barely get up from my chair. The first week that I didn't have it, I didn't even take a walk at all. I usually take afternoon walks to increase my step count. I eventually realized this towards the end of the second week and started reminding myself to take walks, but still that proves that a fitness tracker like my Charge 2 actually influenced me to live a more active lifestyle.
• Second, there were a few instances where I felt slightly dizzy or had shortness of breath and was concerned that I couldn't check my heart rate, because I didn't have my Fitbit with me. I mean eventually it turned out fine, but I did miss having the ability to check my heart rate on demand.
• Third, since I try not to have my phone with me, especially at work, I miss the call/text notifications that I would get on my Fitbit. I could leave my phone inside my bag or in a drawer and still get notified that the wife texted or called me.

So what now?

As of last night, I started wearing my Charge 2 again before I went to bed. I wore it to the office today and I'll most likely keep wearing it until I find a better alternative for my new use case.

Specifically, when I'm at the office, I want to be able to use it to track my steps, but not have to wear it on my wrist. When I'm not at the office, I'm okay with wearing it on my wrist. I also still want it to be able to track my sleep and workouts, so I cannot replace it with a basic pedometer. I still want an activity tracker like a Fitbit that has a decent mobile app.

As of right now, the only possible solution to the scenario I gave above, is to buy a Fitbit Inspire and use it with the clip-on accessory when I'm at the office. Then when I get home, or if I'm out of the office, I can wear my Charge 2. I think that will work but I'll have to try it out first.

Lastly, you might remember me ranting about the news that Google bought Fitbit and that I don't want them to get my health data. I think I have a workaround for that. I can backup my existing health data and ask Fitbit to delete my account. Then I can create a new account using a pseudonym and use that with my Fitbit devices. Whether or not it will get to that, I still don't know, but I think it might be a good workaround nonetheless.

Tags: #ExperimentLog #ExperimentLogResults #Fitbit

As a related update to the results from Experiment Log – 001, I found that the number of readers did not increase in the 2nd half of that experiment. It stayed low when my posts were not being listed in the Read.Write.As feed. As I stated in the results for that experiment though, I no longer care about that.

I no longer care about that, because some of the people who are meant to read this online journal, can't even read yet. I'm talking about my 3 year old son, and the second one that is coming next year.

Some people have mentioned that blogging these days sometimes feels like writing into the void. I can tell you that is not true. The fact that I know people have mentioned it, means that I read their posts. There's not much interaction with posts, because there's no comments system yet. But people are reading your posts, especially if your posts show up on the Read.Write.As feed. That I think is one of the benefits of this “writing” platform.

So what now?

After I publish this post, I'm disabling the ability to view my site's stats again. In my case, it does more harm than good, so I'll keep it disabled. As a compromise, if I really want to, I'll allow myself to enable it maybe just once or twice a year.

Have a good evening everyone!

Tags: #ExperimentLog #ExperimentLogResults #Writing #Blogging

I want to see if not publishing to the Read Write.As feed will decrease the number of people reading my posts.

So this was interesting because during the start of this experiment, I still had access to my site's stats. However, a little over a week after starting this experiment, I started Experiment Log – 003, which basically hid my site's stats.

So during the start of this experiment, while I could check my site's stats, I did notice that the number of readers did drop. It was somewhat offset by another blogger referencing my posts, but overall the number of readers/hits did drop noticeably. This points to how helpful the Read.Write.As feed was to getting eyeballs on my posts. It also indicates that other readers are perfectly fine with following my posts via email subscriptions or through their feed readers.

Since I currently have the link to my site's stats disabled, I cannot check to see if the number of readers increased or decreased during the 2nd half of this experiment. I'll give an update on that once I conclude Experiment Log – 003 later in the month.

And if so, does it bother me? Do I even care? Should I even care?

Did it bother me that the number of readers dropped? – During the first week of the experiment, yes, it did bother me. Interestingly, once I disabled the link to my site's stats for another experiment, it started to bother me less and less.

At the moment, it no longer bothers me, especially since I do not know if the number of readers increased or decreased during the experiment. It looks like the ability to check my site's stats directly influences whether or not I am affected by the number of readers I get.

Honestly, I am a little scared about checking my site's stats in the future because I fear it might bother me again.

Do I even care? – I no longer care.

Should I even care? – No.

I want to see if it changes how I write my posts, knowing that my posts will no longer show up on a feed.

It did change how I wrote my posts. Knowing that my posts wouldn't show up on the feed anymore was honestly, liberating. It was like a huge burden was lifted off my shoulders. I no longer needed to please people with my writing. I could just write for myself.

The decreased exposure also made for a peaceful environment for writing, knowing that less people could get offended with what I wrote. Not that I aim to offend people with my writing.

Another thing I learned is that it is almost impossible to separate writing for myself and writing to an audience when posting on a public website. It is just something that I will have to learn how to deal with.

Specifically I want to see if I'm writing to an audience, or if I'm purely writing for myself.

I was writing to an audience. More specifically, it was like I was writing to please other people versus just writing for myself. It's one of the best things that this experiment has shown me.

So what now?

With everything I've learned from this experiment, I have decided to allow my posts to show up on the Read.Write.As feed once again. The reason is simple, it is possible that I will write something that is exactly what somebody else needed to read at that point in their lives. Having my posts show up on a feed increases the chance that my post could be helpful to somebody else.

I liken it to the way that I found this post that helped me battle my smartphone addiction. If the author never bothered to share it to a community of readers, I most likely will never have found it. And I most likely would still be addicted to my smartphone.

Another reason is that if I ever hope to replace my social media with this online journal of mine, then it would be helpful to be able to post to a feed. Also, if I am to have any chance of convincing other people to do the same, then they need to see that it can be done. Or at least, be able to see what it looks like when someone is attempting it.

So after publishing this post, I'm turning my site's publicity to public once again. The challenge for me then is to stay focused on writing for myself, even when my posts now show up on a feed once again.

Tags: #ExperimentLog #ExperimentLogResults #Writing #Blogging

Now if I could find a way to disable or hide the link to view my site's stats, that will be the next experiment.

Tags: #ExperimentLog #ExperimentLogResults