Monthly Review: June 2016

This review is a bit late! I did it right at the start of July, but forgot to post it here until now.

If you need to catch up, see last month's review and the entire monthly reviews category.

What did I complete that I am proud of this month?

• ✔️ Finished a bunch of small improvements to Exist for iOS to bring it in line with the Android and web apps.

What goals did I attempt this month?

Fails all round this month, as I was sick (again) with a nasty cold. I also did a bad job of keeping an eye on what my monthly goals were, so I forgot to do some of these.

• ✔️ Send update of Exist to App Store with bug fixes. WIN Just barely got this into the end of the month!
• ✔️ Write two posts for the Hello Code blog. WIN 2/2, though I wrote them for the Exist blog instead.
• ✖️ Set up Larder in TestFlight. FAIL. Totally forgot about this one. I'm not working on Larder for iOS at the moment, anyway. We decided I should focus on Exist.
• ✖️ Publish Field Trip French article. FAIL. Didn't even finish the French learning I was going to write about, because of my cold.
• ✔️ Publish two BBC articles. WIN 3/2: Experimenting with the Midori Traveler's Notebook, How I built a habit of learning French that lasted 132 days, and How I journal

What 1 habit did I focus on for this month? (How did that go?)

Flossing and using tooth mousse (a fluoride treatment my dentist is making me do every night). 22/30

I did okay with this habit, but let it go when I was really sick with a cold. Most nights I'm getting used to doing it, but if I stay up too late and get really tired, it's hard to be bothered since it takes so long and I have to stand in the cold bathroom to do it. I really need to do it when I first go to bed, so I don't have time to read and get sleepy first.

What experiments did I try?

• Stopped seeing my counsellor, as I felt she wasn't helping me improve my work situation, and regular appointments were draining my bank account.
• Set up a private GitHub account to track commits and encourage me to do programming work more often. (You can track commits in Exist now, so I'm looking forward to seeing how my other data correlates to doing more programming.)
• Longer daily to do lists. I find having a lot of tasks of different kinds to choose from helps me get more done throughout the day than when I run out of tasks to do and waste time wondering what to work on.

Time spent coding

10h 37m, 13 commits

This really dropped off while I was sick, and afterwards. I didn't feel like coding when I had so much other work to catch up on, and I was worrying about finding enough freelance work to pay the bills.

Most played music

• Vance Joy
• Joshua Radin
• Lenka

Books read

• My life as an experiment, A.J. Jacobs 3/5
• Ghost boy, Martin Pistorius 3/5
• Good People, David Lindsay Abaire (play) 3/5
• Red, John Shanley (play) 3/5

Theatre

• Singin in the Rain, Her Majesty's Theatre, Melbourne

Having seen this show twice in London, I was really looking forward to it, and it didn't disappoint. We didn't get to see Adam Garcia as Don Lockwood, but his understudy was good and I really enjoyed the music and tap dancing. Make 'em Laugh wasn't quite as impressive as I remember, but the actual dancing in the rain was really cool.

Money spent

$2,838.91

Not quite under my $2,500 budget, but getting closer.

Biggest expenses: $1293 for rent, $284 for a quarterly health insurance payment, $250 for birthday presents.

Goals for July

I want to complete:

• Complete changes to Exist for iOS Timeline tab to match Android app.
• Keep my total expenses under $2,500
• Write 2 posts for my blog (not including monthly reviews or link posts)
• Publish my next Field Trip article

I want to focus on this 1 habit:

Gymnastics. I miss gymnastics, and want to get back to it. I'm going to try to do something for gymnastics (strength workout, stretching, handstand practice) every day, with the aim of going back to class next month.

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