Counting the days

Today is day 12.

Nearing the end of the first 14, and in many ways this self-challenge project has been very successful. The failures--days of missing scheduled times and missing elements altogether--are so slight that I'm not even going to dwell on them. While the key goals of each day are "rules", the times (3pm yoga, 6pm drawing, 12am posting) are more like guidelines (she says as noting that the timestamp on this post is exactly 12:00). :)

I want to do a review/rundown of the things I planned on day one of this self-challenge because I like reflecting on progress and what works/doesn't, but I'll leave that for a more "official" benchmark and spend posting time today on the practice of counting the days.

In the last five days I've lost count. Not to an extent I can't recover from, I've simply had to check previous blog posts and think about, "what day am I on now?" Maybe I'm getting lucky and the "habits" I'm trying to give myself are happening sooner than the 21 days rule of thumb I've always known. But during the day I never think to myself "this is day X", and somehow integrate that into my actions.

Day counting is something I like because it encourages quantifiablity. It's like adding jellybeans to a jar or pebbles to a pitcher or coins to a collection. By posting at the 'close' of a day, I'm notarizing it and adding it to a stack that grows, albeit slowly. I can look back and see changes from week to week or between scores of days. Day counting helps when I'm trying to gradually step-up my self accountability and give mini-deadlines to accomplish mini-goals.

It gives a distinct feeling of success to count days. I can look back and quantify the trend of challenging myself and doing specific, positive things everyday.

Another positive aspect of counting, closely relate to quantity, is that giving each day a sequential number that is significant to my life gives those days identity and importance. Each 24 hours is an individual link forged in a chain. This metaphorical chain is keeping me out of murky depths, and staying out of that abyss makes it important for me to make a link in the chain every day, even if it's flimsy and made out of string. In the metaphor I have no actual mass, so strength isn't as important as existence.

I'm not getting mystical and metaphysical to the point where I consciously and specifically honor each day and its gifts, and I'm not in straits so dire that missing one day entirely, with or without good reason, will send me it the lacuna, never to return. I simply believe it's easier to have the trend go from weaker to stronger than from nothing at all to something. I count the days. I name them. I do my best to make each one count.

Problems with counting the days.

My self-challenge is different from the kind of day-counting associated with, say, keeping sober. Well, I could choose for it to be the same as sobriety, or days a factory goes accident-free. Doing so might put heavier import on th process, and make me more familiar with saying "Okay... day one!" If slacking was drinking, and hitting all my goals every day was staying sober, I'd definitely have fallen off the wagon in the past 12 days. Right now, for example, I've not drawn a lick! (What has happened today to come later.) Instead, I've chosen to make half-assed days, partially complete days, still be valid in my experiences (see: chain metaphor).

I like recognizing the ups and downs in a continuous project. I also like that keeping a tamper-free running tally discourages me from giving up on a day midway through, or, after failing, taking a day off.

Another quibble with counting days, from a strict "productivist" point of view, is when I forget self-goal 'deadlines' and neither reflect on that goal nor create a new one. This has only happened once so far. After Day 3 (I'd link, but the post is long and the bits I'm calling out scattered within it) I declared Monday the 21st "Day 1 of 7", starting a new phase (in a larger goal of working towards invoking flow) in which I turned off the distractions of AIM for a few hours during the day. I intended to follow up after a week, which was two days ago. Didn't happen. Life got in the way. While the concept of secluding myself continued, both in my mind and in practice, the structure for the decision was lost.

That bit--getting lost in the structure--is the primary argument against a day-counting system (of any kind). A theme briefly touched on in West Wing was the press corps writing a process story or an issue story, from the standpoint that issue story = good/meaty, and process story = bad/distraction. Day counting is process, accomplishments are issues.

Even in the past couple weeks I've gotten into the Flow of achieving these small daily goals, and usually in a substantive way. Except for when I name them in my midnight posts (by looking it up), I'm often as ignorant of my self-challenge day as I am the date (and I'm usually ignorant about the date). While I'm in the thick of it, I deemphasize the Day and play up what I'm getting done on that day.

Despite wanting to grow my self-challenge and practices in an organic way, a timetable for new elements breaks that down. Amazingly enough, right now I'm in a place of accomplishment Flow that benchmarks (3 Days, 10 Days, 14 Days, 20 Days, etc.) seem irrelevant.

Oddly enough, one day after I neglected to account for a benchmark, a new way to challenge myself came about anyways, in the form of a new artistic medium. Proof (enough for my uses, anyway) that organic growth works! The brain knows when it needs a new challenge.

I dispense--for now--with mini-goals. It's on a post-it in my line of sight that I'm working towards a "ritual for invoking Flow". At the moment self-challenge is working for me in a flow-type way. I'm not going to argue. When the accomplishment-muse leaves me and each day is a struggle, I'll revisit the idea.

Thusly, I dispense with today's introspection.

Today I also dispensed with 671 blog posts over 6.5 hours and added 815 images to my reference library. I am pleased.

Yoga was good. I think I feel progress, and that makes me more enthusiastic to practice each day. I still want to pursue a teaching certificate at some point in the future.

Running was excellent. I definitely noticed progress. I ran farther today (without stopping) than I've yet managed in this round of Annie vs. the Road. I can't give you a total distance, as my laps measured 1.5 miles (running and walking), but there was much going back and forth along a particular leg as Reagan finished his 3 miles.

I've been too busy and scared to draw yet, but I will get on that, especially as I have nothing to post right now. A couple pages of pen-sketching, then the dreaded [creepy-spooky text]pencil[/creepy-spooky text].

Oh, and there was an earthquake this morning. I wondered (and hoped!) that Katie and Ryan (who were supposedly at Disneyland) felt it. Not everyone who visits CA gets to experience our natural disasters! Especially while at one of our top man-made attractions!

In summary:
+ Today is Day 12
+ Two week Self-Challenge update soon
+ Good things of day counting in a self-challenge context:
-- Encourages quantifiability
-- Each day is identified as an individual and given importance
+ "Bad" things of day counting in the context of my self-challenge:
-- Imperfect days around counted, too.
-- Counting the days can get in the way of living them
+ I'm in a Flow of accomplishment and lose track
+ I dispense with "official" benchmarks, and mini-goals/deadlines

+ Earthquake!
+ Yoga!
+ Running!
+ Drawing?
+ Writing post. @_@