Everyday Systems

Reinhard,

I wonder if you'd be willing to add another color or two to the Habitcal. I keep track of Shovelglove, but I also strive to do physical therapy exercises for my back twice a week, and on those days, I usually don't do SG. Plus sometimes I work out on an elliptical, and I can't distinguish between that and SG or the exercises. I'm already tracking No-S and S-day sanity, so I don't want to overburden myself with too many calendars. If we just had another color or two, it would make Habitcal use easier (for me, at least).

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

Lisa

Hi Lisa,

I'm very loath to add extra colors because I think it would add massively to confusion...

Probably what I'd suggest is just tracking "exercise" instead and giving yourself full green credit whichever form of exercise (shovelglove, elliptical, whatever) you wind up doing -- and red if you don't do any.

Reinhard

Lisa,

What I do is combine the HabitCal with the Daily Check In thread. I give myself green on exercise if I do ANYTHING, but spell out what I did in the Check In.

I tried separate HabitCals for different things, and it just made me nuts.

The reason I wanted another color is that it's hard to remember whether I did the back exercises or not, and I want to do them at least twice a week. But, OK, I'll deal!

Maybe you could use the "blank" color too?

PT: Yellow
Eliptical: Green
Shovelglove: blank
failure: red

??

I was thinking the same thing...I keep thinking that I forgot to fill in that day, instead of realizing that the blank has a meaning. I'll have to work on it!

Franxious,

another way to go at it is to assign each workout to a day of the week. Additionally I prioritize the workouts. Here is an example:

Hight priority workout (shoulder rehab) Mon/Thu
Medium priority workout (abs and back) Tue/Fri
Low priority workout (shovelglove) Wed
Optional workout on Sat: either a high priority workout if I missed one during the past week, or something fun (shovelglove, dancing, swimming pool, ...)

I never move the workouts from one day to another. When I wake up in the morning I only have to remember what day it is and either do it, or not do it.

I almost always manage to do the high priority workouts. If I feel lazy, I remind myself that I can be lazy the next day, but not today. It helps to schedule the high priority workouts the day after a rest day (or a low priority workout day which can become a rest day) and/or on days you are unlikely to have to skip the workout.

If I unexpectedly need to go to work earlier than usual and I really have to skip my workout, that's not a big deal, because I can catch up on high priority workouts on saturday, and if I fail to do all my medium or low priority this week, I'll just try do do better next week and not worry too much about it.
Usually I do about 4 or 5 morning workouts a week, exceptionally 6.

...................

How about a green for vigorous exercise for 30 min. (or whatever you can do now), yellow for moderate exercise and red for no exercise.

that's a great suggestion,

Blueskighs