Post: #1

Hi, my name is Grace! I'm so happy to find this forum. I've always been passionate about this kind of stuff. Previously, I would keep blogs to track my progress and to talk about my different techniques and plans to improve myself, but I'd always end up running out of steam and giving up on the blog. I feel like I never had a strong support system. These forums look like they might be the solution for me.

A little bit about myself: I'm 21 years old, female, recently single. I'm from Toronto, Canada and I'm currently a student studying engineering in my third year. The rest I guess you'll figure out from this journal (I tend to ramble a lot).

I'm really proud of my undergraduate program because it follows a unique study-internship system. Basically, I have a 4-month study term and then a 4-month internship term and it continues alternating until my final year where I have two 4-month study terms in a row. The program ends up being a 5 year long program with no summer holidays but the plus side is I graduate with 2 years of work experience. Enrolling for this program was literally the best decision of my life.

Anyway, the reason I bring that up is because it tells you a bit about my situation. My lifestyle is almost nomadic because every 4 months I am moving somewhere else. Because of my inconsistent life, I've been struggling to develop consistent habits.

This term, my internship is in California! I love it when a new term starts because it feels the same way New Years feels; like I have a new chance to start fresh and kick ass!

The subset of goals I want to concentrate on this term are (in no particular order):

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1. Prepare for job interviews for the next work term

1.1 Finish 2 online Coursera courses on computer science algorithms. I don't know if you guys have heard of Coursera before, but it's basically free online University-level courses offered but institutions like Stanford, Princeton, etc. You don't get any accreditation, but you learn a lot! I'm going to concentrate on one course at a time.

1.2 Practice job interview questions. Software development interviews tend to be extremely technical and there usually isn't any time to prepare for interviews during school so I need to bone up now.

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2. Save enough for tuition next term.
Because of the high costs of living in California (compared to Toronto), my budget is tighter than ever before. I think that this should be good though. It will force me to eat out less and be more healthy. I have already set out what I think is a pretty good budget and I plan on using mint.com to help me to keep up with it (One thing I've learned about myself is that I really like trying out cool new technology so using new cool technology helps motivate me to start tasks).

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3. Be healthier!

3.1 Sleep at regular times
I want to wake up at 7am. I need to make this non-negotiable. I'm going to use the "Don't Break the Chain" (DBTC) technique that Jerry Seinfeld uses where he tracks on a calendar everyday if he successfully writes a joke everyday. The aim is to try to have the longest chain as you can and to try to not break the chain. When I wanted to give up television for exams this worked really well for me.

3.2 A better diet in general and eating regularly

3.2.1 Logging all food I eat in this application called the Noom Weight-Loss Coach. I think that just being aware of what foods I'm eating on a regular basis and tracking it will improve the feedback cycle and I'll just subconsciously start moving towards a healthier diet.

3.2.2 Learn how to cook

3.2.3 Stop skipping breakfast (Use DBTC for this again)

3.3 Exercise
I know myself, and I know I can't handle going to the gym regularly yet. I'm not mentally strong enough and my will-power is pretty much non-existent when it comes to exercise. So for this I'm planning on...

3.3.1 Taking a lot more long walks (I actually LOVE walks)

3.3.2 Biking to and from work (15 minutes one way) (works out perfectly because the transit system is pretty sub-par in California).

3.3.3 Regularly weighing myself. Have you guy's heard of the Hacker's diet? It suggests that simply weighing yourself regularly will help you lose weight; it's a psychological thing. I am currently 122 lb. I have a goal weight of 115 lb, but I really don't care too much about this. It's just something to aim towards. I know I will start gaining muscle from biking a lot more so my weight might even go up even though I'm becoming more healthy.

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4. Take a picture everyday
I plan on taking a picture everyday for the term. Therefore I have to do something awesome and picture-worthy everyday.

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5. Beauty
5.1 Taking care of myself/my physical appearance. Regularly doing my eyebrows, following a skin care regimen, waxing/shaving regularly, etc. Basically the bare necessities that I should already do but I usually neglect when school gets crazy; during exams personal hygiene goes down the drain.

5.2 Go window shopping more. I don't shop enough. I don't know what I look good in and what I don't look good in. I don't know what stores I like. I don't even know what good prices are for things. I need to go shopping more to become more aware of these things. I can incorporate this into my taking long walks goal.

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6. Worldliness
6.1 Learning about religions. I know so little about religions of the world. I took one world religions course in my high school that I didn't pay attention to. Since university I now have Muslim, Hindu, Christian, Athiest, etc friends and I feel like I need to become more aware of what they really are all about. I'm going to dedicate time to learning more about religions on my own. This is a less concrete goal than I'm used to. I will probably formulate more actionable tasks later.

6.2 Learning about politics. I also know very little about political systems. I've been engrossed in math and science all my life and I've completely neglected politics and religion. It'll be cool because I will be in the US during their election so I'm sure a lot of my peers will be talking a lot about politics during my stay there. Also not a very concrete goal; need to formulate more actionable tasks.

6.3 Start reading the news on some type of regular basis. I was a big fan of ignorance is bliss in my teen years. I hated reading about war, genocide, murder, racism, injustice and all that stuff. I basically subconsciously avoided all news in general because of this. I'm older now and I've hid from that stuff long enough.

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Those are my main goals. But I also think it's important to list out my other responsibilities that aren't necessarily my personal goals, just to see everything listed out in one place. It helps to see everything to decide if my goals are actually reasonably achieveable.

- My internship
- Socializing with my co-workers
- Volunteering
- Socializing with my friends and making new friends
- Exploring California
- As part of my internship I have to write a report on something technical and relevant to my field
- Also as part of my internship, I have to take an online course related to professionalism
- Cleaning, laundry, errands
- Down-time (watching tv, reading)

Hm, it looks like a lot to do in one term. We'll see how this pans out.

I'm moving to California on September 1st. I'll probably start taking steps towards acheiving my goals around September 2nd-3rd.

Woo! Go go go! Love life!

Post: #2

Hi Grace

Welcome to the forums Sounds like a lot of great plans you have there!

I notice you say you are practising for software development job interviews. If you would like any advice on preparing for these do let me know if I can help, as I have interviewed a lot of/hired a few people for such positions, so it may be I can offer some insight as to what employers are looking for

Good luck with your goals!

Post: #3

(08-30-2012 05:03 AM)zingfairy Wrote:  I notice you say you are practising for software development job interviews. If you would like any advice on preparing for these do let me know if I can help, as I have interviewed a lot of/hired a few people for such positions, so it may be I can offer some insight as to what employers are looking for

That would be awesome!! I will PM you .

Post: #4

Welcome, Grace! You have quite a list there, all are awesome goals so good luck with them! Keep us posted about how everything goes

"You were born an original, don't die a copy." ~ John Mason | You can check my blog here

Post: #5

Welcome aboard Grace
Wow that seems like quite a big list . Well i find it difficult to focus on finishing ONE thing completely - hope you have better luck.
All the best - I'm rooting for you

Post: #6

Welcome to the forums Grace.
Great goals. Wish you full sucess with your list.

Post: #7

I admit! I was a bit... let's call it "over enthusiastic" with my list. Here are brief updates:

1.1 & 1.2 Programming-oriented/Career-oriented goals
I am programming at work so I am learning without having to explicitly put my own effort into this. So this has been neglected. I can't take too much programming a day.

3.1 Waking up:
I've been waking up earlier but not 7am. I'm still working towards that though. I question the value of this in the long run since I will have a time-zone shift when I go back to school. I think I will continue anyway, just because I'm enjoying it right now.

3.2.1 I haven't been tracking what I've been eating. May need to revisit this later. The point of this goal was to increase my awareness of what I'm eating. Might be an easier way to do this.

3.2.2 Learning how to cook:
I've been doing this and it's been fun! I've cooked pasta and steak so far. Neither have been 100% successes for various reasons, but I'm learning a lot every time I do it.

3.2.3 Breakfast:
I've been doing this consistently. Not the healthiest breakfast (cinniman toast crunch, but still better than nothing. At least I'm building up the habit)

3.3.3 Hacker's Diet (Regularly weighing myself)
I have been doing this, but not tracking myself

4. Adventuring
Going to give up on trying to take a picture everyday for now. I just keep forgetting to. I made that goal so that it would force me to do something fun everyday. I ended up just taking pictures of random things that didn't really align with doing something fun/cool everyday. So I'm going to change this goal to doing something fun every weekend.

5.1 Basic Physical Appearance
I've been taking care of myself to some degree. My hair is definitely in better condition than it has been in years. So silky . I really need to continue making an effort here

5.2 Window shopping -- will happen soon. I want to rework this goal to just being more aware of fashion trends.

6. Worldliness
No progress here

Removed!
2. Tuition
I'm not being too strict with this since I have a lot saved up.
In fact, I don't think I will even include it in the list anymore since I'm pretty frugal and it doesn't require active task-doing... Plus it's making me go crazy thinking about money all the time. It's doing more bad than good, me thinks.

3.3.1 Taking a lot more walks
I don't walk anymore now that I can bike!

3.3.2 Biking to work. Since this is a necessity, and I can't actually get to work any other way, I don't think I should include this in my list.

The bolded ones are the ones I want to focus on for now

Post: #8

(09-12-2012 04:09 PM)grace Wrote:  Plus it's making me go crazy thinking about money all the time. It's doing more bad than good, me thinks.

I totally understand that. Lately, I've been thinking a lot about how to make money using my current skills (like languages and graphite drawing) since these are the only things I can exploit at the moment (I'm living with my parents and I'm in my first year of college). And although at first it seemed a great idea and I felt really enthusiastic about it, it soon made me really anxious and irritated when it came to money; I was kind of turning into a female version of Scrooge, lol. So I just stopped focusing so much on it. I'll just leave it for now and look sometime later for a part time job to go with my schooling hours.

"You were born an original, don't die a copy." ~ John Mason | You can check my blog here

Post: #9

Going to try to jog every morning. I used to exercise more, and I feel like my brain would work better throughout the day and I'd just feel better about myself. I really prefer swimming over jogging but jogging is so much more convenient. Going to try Couch to 5K. Wish me luck!

Post: #10

Hi Grace, nice to meet you

I love your list. It sounds like you have some really great goals.

I looked up Coursera after reading your post and it sounds like such a good idea! I've enrolled on a couple of courses myself. I'm not sure when they're going to start but I'm really looking forward to them.

I agree with you on reading the news - I never used to read it, for much the same reasons as you. I thought, 'why would I depress myself with all the horrible stuff that's going on in the world when I can't do anything about it?' There's still a part of me that thinks that, but at least I can form my own opinions on things, know what the political parties are doing so I can vote wisely, that kind of thing.

As for running, I loved the Couch to 5K programme! I did it (not very regularly) over a few months and ran my first 5k race at the beginning of this year. I've got my first half-marathon next month It's a fantastic way to get into running and go at your own pace, but you'll really, really see the progress. I use an app/game called Zombies, Run! which is just utterly fantastic as well, but it would be difficult to use that while you're listening to the Couch to 5K podcasts as well. If you're into that kind of thing though, it could be a good incentive to finish the programme

Just remember to take rest days, especially if you're just getting back into regular exercise. The Couch to 5K programme is meant to be done 2-3 days a week, if I remember correctly - you could always go for a gentle swim on the other days if you really wanted to. Trying to do too much too soon puts you at risk of injury.

Good luck with your goals! Keep us updated