Last year, from summer to winter, I tried an experiment. It was to record everything I did aside from sensitive work and intimate times. Meaning I put on social media (Snapchat and Instagram) everything I did; routines, chores, activities, and events. It was mostly during the weekdays and it never involved hanging out with women I was dating or work activities that shouldn’t be shown. It was rewarding, exhilarating, and taxing, but ultimately a great learning experience.

Forgive me. I’ve been training a company all week in Muncie Indiana and just went to an open mic blues night at a bar for some beers and pizza. It is time to write 🙂

Benefits:

It was not something I started to boast about or to show off. That being said, I got a lot of feedback about how inspiring it was. This seemed to drive me to keep it up. So, obviously, there was an element of ego to it. What it did was help drive home a sense of responsibility – accountability. If I didn’t stick to my routines (disciplines) I felt incredibly bad about it; not setting a good example. This never happened because of that fact.

Because of that fact, my sleep got significantly fucked up. I would hang out on weekdays way longer than usual and still wake up at 4:15 to work out and GET AFTER IT. After months of this, the lack of sleep caught up with me and I started to lose it – even though the disciplines were helping to keep spirits high and motivation strong (along with cognitive and physical power), my decision-making clarity slipped. That’s ok. Live and learn.

Negatives:

Though I was “feeling” like I was getting a lot done, I wasn’t really being productive. At least in terms of goals and mission. Essentially spinning of the wheels. Though feeling like I was functioning at the highest level I could, really I was just staying busy. Frustrating, after the fact.

Lessons:

It seems that doing something like this could be beneficial for starting habits (disciplines) if someone has a hard time doing that already. The sense of accountability is real and comes about really quickly. That being said, be careful about where you set your importance on the issue – to me, and a lot of research out there, it shows that proper sleep outweighs the benefits of improperly getting after it.

I still get up before 4:30am and start my morning routine of working out, shaving, pampering, taking a cold shower with breathing exercises (and keeping the mantra “calm and thankful” running through my head), reading, and journaling before heading to work with one caveat: I keep the discipline of going to bed early enough to make sure that happens. Otherwise, guess what? I’m getting up later and keeping the same routine because that’s what keeps me at my best…no matter what.

If you have a similar story or have feedback, I’d appreciate hearing about it. Please reach out.

With love,

Jason