March Progress Report

March Progress Report
Photo by Kelly Sikkema / Unsplash

Welcome to yet another progress report! It's time to reflect on March and see where things went wrong and what has to change.

Personally I am quite disappointed in myself for everything that has happened this month. I didn't publish the investment post yet although I did open a brokerage account for that purpose and deposited the money and entered a position holding FSLR. The post is definitely coming out soon so stay tuned!

But the real disappointment was my lack of consistency when it came to my coursework. Spring break happened to fall on the second week of the month and although I didn't get to travel anywhere far, I did meet some old friends from high school and spent much of the week hanging out with them. This was a nice little break from doing anything too productive which I allowed myself as a reward.

The real problems came the week after as I never picked back up and continued with my work habits. Instead I allowed myself to falter and never entered that rhythm again. I ended up maintaining the skewed sleep schedule from the break and missing a few classes throughout each week. At first I thought it would be fine as it was just a couple of classes but then the next week and the week after that the same thing happened.

What a shame.. But now that the new month is approaching I am ready to rebuild and stand up against this weakness. It is anxiety inducing to return to class and find out what kind of work I have been missing but the best time to put a stop to the spiral is now. I am committing myself to not missing any more classes for the remainder of the semester. It's just as important to finish strong as it is to get a solid start.

In other news, I have sustained a slight shoulder injury that put a dampener on my exercise routines. Instead of being able to continue with the push ups, I've folded to simply doing crunches and jumping jacks instead. Nothing that I haven't been able to work through however.

Going into April my plans are clear. My brother gifted me a new hard drive and I finally installed it earlier today. My old Windows installation lasted a whole decade and in that time it's gotten cluttered and slowed down considerably. The last day of navigating the spotless desktop has been eye-opening. This got me thinking about my life some more and the importance of maintaining a clean and workable environment.

My plans are to continue clearing more clutter from my life to ensure that I can utilize my full attention and focus my efforts on what really matters to me most. No more dawdling over dumb videos and aimlessly scrolling Reddit or Instagram. I will dedicate my time to actually building out all those little projects that I've always thought about building but never managed to start due to the chronic procrastination.

The idea for the reading tablet has all but disappeared. I never even think about this tablet anymore and it just contributes to the clutter on my desk unfortunately. But at the very least now I know that I'm truly not interested in reading no matter the ease.

As for LeetCode, I haven't opened the website in weeks. Video games have definitely taken back their chunk of time in my life but I'm learning to enjoy the precious time spent with friends as it won't last forever. We're all growing and gaining more responsibilities and these may be some of the last times that we'll get to sit down for hours gaming each night.

There is certainly a lot lacking from this report that I spoke up last month. I recognize my failures and have no real excuse but I realize that I fell off the rails after the break. The lesson learned here: no more breaks. I can certainly spend time enjoying life but we must remember to remain vigilant with our endeavors.

April will be a month spent regrowing these lost habits and reinforcing the positive ones. Hopefully I will find the will to begin some new projects given the plethora of ideas that have recently found their way to my desk. I will see you all again soon and please remember to stay the course!