{"id":2321,"date":"2010-09-22T18:09:39","date_gmt":"2010-09-22T23:09:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/polarbear60.org\/randr\/?p=2321"},"modified":"2025-01-22T10:24:45","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T16:24:45","slug":"750words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/750words\/","title":{"rendered":"750words and Health Month"},"content":{"rendered":"

A little over 100 days ago, someone posted about 750words.com<\/a> on FM. My writing has been sporadic at best lately.\u00a0 I checked out the site.\u00a0 The site author compared it to morning pages, but he does oh so much more.\u00a0 He keeps stats and he offers badges for achieving various feats at the site.\u00a0 I figured, why not?<\/p>\n

So I logged in and began writing.\u00a0 Mostly, I’m using the site just like morning pages are intended — a way to brain dump whatever is in my head, so it usually is an enumeration of what I did that day, what I plan to do that day, what I plan to do tomorrow, some gripes, some things I like — just whatever I can dump out of my head.\u00a0 Sometimes it’s character ideas.\u00a0 Sometimes it may be related to writing or something else, but I do it every day.\u00a0 Today, I passed the 100 day streak point.\u00a0 I have written every single day since I started.\u00a0 I didn’t think I’d be able to do it while I was on vacation, but I found a way to keep the streak alive.\u00a0 Now that I have the MiFi and the Keyboard Dock, I have no excuse for not writing while on vacation next month or any other month.\u00a0 I have, sometimes written offline and copied and pasted to the website when I’ve been able to get on line.\u00a0 That messes up the stats a little, but it all counts.<\/p>\n

It’s been pretty easy to write every day.\u00a0 But it would be just as easy not to write.\u00a0 And that brings me to my next step.\u00a0 At the end of August, Buster (the site developer) posted an experiment he’s running called Health Month. It’s a game, and I’m pretty sure it’s more than experiment — he plans to support his family with it.\u00a0 It has Do Rules and Don’t Rules.\u00a0 You pick the rules you want to follow that month and log them.\u00a0 You either earn points or lose points based upon how well you follow your rules.\u00a0 Other game players can help you, and you can help other players.\u00a0 The idea is if it’s fun, you’ll do it, and you might establish some healthier habits.\u00a0 If you have three or fewer rules, the game is free.\u00a0 If you have more than three rules or join a team, it costs $5 per month (or $50 per year).<\/p>\n

For now, I’m playing the free version of the game.\u00a0 I started at 750words.com for free and eventually decided to support the effort with patronage.\u00a0 I may or may not decide to do so with Health Month.<\/p>\n

What’s the correlation between the two?\u00a0 I have had success with weight loss and other health initiatives in the past (distant past), and when it was going well, it seemed easy — just as easy at writing 750 words a day.\u00a0 But when it was hard, it was impossible — just like not writing 750 words a day.\u00a0 But the challenge with health initiatives is, they can seem overwhelming.\u00a0 People always say you didn’t get overweight overnight, so don’t expect to lose weight overnight.\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 I get that.\u00a0 But it seems like too much, so I wonder why I bother.\u00a0 But, really, if you don’t bother, will you be in a better situation in six months?\u00a0 A year?\u00a0 No.<\/p>\n

But what if you do one thing.\u00a0 Do it regularly enough that it isn’t a problem anymore.\u00a0 Yeah, you could quit doing it, but why?\u00a0 It’s become an ingrained habit.\u00a0 It’s easier just to do the thing.\u00a0 Then you add one more thing.\u00a0 Eventually, you’re doing all the things you’re supposed to be doing, and before you know it, you’ve accomplished your goal.\u00a0 It may take two or three or five years — maybe even more than that, but if you didn’t do the one thing, would you ever accomplish the goal?\u00a0 Probably not.\u00a0 In fact, I’m certain not.<\/p>\n

So, I’ve added three rules in Health Month for the month of October.\u00a0 They aren’t difficult rules.\u00a0 In fact, I’ve done them before or I could do them easily if I just made sure I did them.\u00a0 Since I’ve gotten my mouthguard, brushing my teeth every day became a no-brainer.\u00a0 It’s always been something I should do, but I had a tendency to let it slide.\u00a0 For some reason, I didn’t want to put a clean mouthguard into a dirty mouth before bed, so I immediately began brushing every night.\u00a0 Just like that.\u00a0 Easy as can be.\u00a0 Then my dentist got back onto me about flossing.<\/p>\n

I floss, but, if I’m honest, I don’t floss nearly as often as I should.\u00a0 But how easy if flossing?\u00a0 Easy as can be, isn’t it?\u00a0 So it’s just a matter of triggering the reminder to do it.\u00a0 That’s one goal for next month.\u00a0 Floss every day.\u00a0 Easy as can be, right?\u00a0 Just do it.<\/p>\n

The second rule is Track Your Meals Everyday.\u00a0 I’ve done this before, but I’ve slacked off.\u00a0 I have an iPad app that makes this fairly easy.\u00a0 Actually, I have three iPad apps for doing this, but only one works offline.\u00a0 Just need to do it.\u00a0 I’m re-establishing the habit this month.\u00a0 It’s a foundation thing.\u00a0 I’ll build upon it.<\/p>\n

The third rule is Read for Thirty Minutes Each Day.\u00a0 I enjoy reading.\u00a0 I’d been doing it, then I got caught up in other iPad activities and let it slide.\u00a0 I’m looking forward to getting back into reading each day during next month.<\/p>\n

I’ve refined rules all month — I began with different rules (except for flossing — I wanted to get that one down, but I started with six days a week, and I decided it was important to do it every day).\u00a0 The rules I started with were good rules, but I’ll be traveling for half the month, and I was setting myself up for failure.\u00a0 No reason to do that.<\/p>\n

I’ll do these rules until, like 750words.com (write 750 words per day is one rule option), they get too easy or I’m motivated to do them for other reasons than the game.\u00a0 Then I’ll add more rules designed to BabyStep my way to better health.\u00a0 See?\u00a0 Health Month fits right into FlyLady<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A little over 100 days ago, someone posted about 750words.com on FM. My writing has been sporadic at best lately.\u00a0 I checked out the site.\u00a0 The site author compared it to morning pages, but he does oh so much more.\u00a0 He keeps stats and he offers badges for achieving various …<\/span> Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-writing"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2321"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16095,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2321\/revisions\/16095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeanschara.com\/pmtoo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}