Optimization.
My day so far...
As of today, I have lived 11,111 days. Average life expectancy of a human being living in the United States is 28,703. That gives me, barring any unfortunate circumstances, approximately 17,592 days to live. Given my fitness level, more or less healthy diet, family history, etc., I'll probably have a few more than that, but this is all for illustration purposes.
Yesterday I was surfing a news reader app called "DuckDuckGo" which pulls interesting stories from various news agencies, reddit, lifehacker, etc., which I love but really don't have the time to explore individually, and I stumbled upon (yes, I love that one too) an article from lifehacker touting the benefits of an iPhone app that basically invades your life and destroys your privacy. So of course I downloaded it.
I'm on day 1 of using "OptimizeMe", and the first thing I've noticed is that it makes me acutely aware of the passage of time. Today I slept from 12a to 9a, fed the cat, took a shower, and did some groggy grooming until 9:24a, cooked and ate breakfast (this exact one here, except with whole wheat toast instead of sourdough -- so freaking good) while watching an HBO documentary "The Out List" until 9:55a, continued watching the documentary intermittently while doing some laundry and cleaning up, brushing my teeth, etc., until 11:38a, at which time I sat down to start writing this post. I have now been working on it (including a break to continue the laundry) for 32 minutes and 36 seconds.
It kind of sounds like a nightmare, logging all of these activities, but the app makes it relatively simple. And the reason I'm doing all of this? I'm kind of terrible with my own personal time management. At work I'm on point and I get my stuff done, but after 9 hours of focus, another ±1.5 at the gym, I get home and things tend to fall apart. I've already failed that "3 hours a week of writing" goal that I set for myself earlier this month, so this is an attempt to reclaim that. The app breaks everything down into 4 categories: health, creativity, routine, and pleasure, with the goal of finding balance and optimizing behaviors to become more effective and improve your mood. It lets you set clear goals and gives you insights into how to improve. Basically: I'm excited. I'll let you know how it goes.