# Goals Goals big and small. Unordered list. - [x] Post 20 public notes - 2025-01-17: Well, that was fast. I'm definitely enjoying the low friction and low pressure publishing of my notes. - [ ] Post 40 public notes (https://notes.iansinnott.com/) - this is about building a habit of sharing in public - [ ] Post 20 medium posts - [ ] post 100 YouTube videos - This is of course about finding my people, but also about the skill and habit formation associated with making videos. - Ideation, titles, thumbs, scripting, filming, editing, publishing - [ ] 15% body fat, as defined by visible abs at rest in good lighting - Which is further to say I'm not planning to get too precise with this, but visible abs is the metric. - I don't actually care so much about the abs per se, it's having low-ish body fat that i want and abs provide a vague-yet-tangible metric - [ ] Consistent with gym and nutrition - This means I hit my mesoscales and continue to plan them throughout the year. - Eat enough protein (180g) - Tracking monthly to get interim progress updates - [x] Jan - [x] Feb - [x] Mar - [[2025-03-29]]: March update. I have been consistent, and have seen some gains too. I'm thicker in the upper body. I've been consistently gaining weight, which has been the goal. Unfortunately the belly is also back. It has not been a lean gain. I think a month on a calorie reduction diet would get me back to a good spot though. - [x] Apr - [x] May - [[2025-05-20]]: Started a cut phase. Let's get rid of that belly. Gym routine is unchanged, although i'll probably end up lifting less due to caloric restriction. The goal here is to get to that v-shape upper body, which 100% requires less fat. - [x] Jun - [x] Jul - At long last, I am feeling it. I actually feel thicker. I feel like I can see the difference when I look in the mirror. It has taken a while, but that consistency is paying off - [x] Aug - [ ] Sep - [ ] Oct - [ ] Nov - [ ] Dec - [ ] V-shape upper body. The test here is just a mirror test. All that consistency is aiming towards this. Will also depend on weight loss, but the muscle gain will be the harder part. - March 2025: definite progress here. Nothing too obvious, but if my body fat was down to the point where I didn't have a bello I would be quite happy with my physique. Of course I want to be more muscular, but the lats have definitely improved. - [[2025-06-15]] this goal feels like it's at risk, because I've had a hard time restricting calories. I find myself much more inclined to want to eat more and lift more. - [ ] Sleep is sacred - Basically only emergencies, like taking rams to the hospital, trump sleep. Get the sleep. - Update 2025-01-17: This seems subpar as a goal, since there's nothing to measure. If nothing else though it keeps my mind on the topic of sleep quality. - [ ] Try everything in [[Fixing Sleep]] that you haven't tried yet to get to more efficient sleep - I seem to be able to operate well on about 6 hours of sleep according to whoop. If I could be in bed for 6 hours (vs current 7-9) that would be amazing - Note, I'm getting up naturally without an alarm every day and looking at the amount of sleep, also the amount of time in bed. If whoop can be trusted* - I think I should see the sleep doctor about mouth breathing. Have yet to try that and still have issues staying asleep. - [x] Track your time use for 30 days - [ ] Analyze time use for the previous day, for 30 days - this is absolutely key. i've done some tracking but have yet to review it as I write this ([[2024-12-29]]) - [ ] Better time use - less than 30m faff per day - this may be very tough depending on how strict i am with what counts as faff - Even that seems like a lot but would be a big improvement - Utilize time in the cracks - Don't be precious about your workflow - [[Someday is Today]] - [ ] Communication Chinese - Hire a tutor to help me express myself better in Chinese. Help Emma understand my ideas about things and stuff. - [[2025-03-16]] I have yet to make any progress on this. However, I'm not sure a tutor is the answer. I think I need to write and monologue in Chinese, get feedback, then iterate. - A tutor could help with the feedback part, but it's not the bottleneck. I can get feedback from Emma on non-technical topics, and give AI a try at providing rapid iterative feedback on everything. I need to get the essay / monologue reps though. Longer paragraphs or essays espousing a viewpoint. - [[2025-04-18]] Potential progress lately. I've been using a combination of ChatGPT and DeepSeek (official) for translation help - ChatGPT has the advantage of being able to create custom "GPTs", which just encapsulate some custom instructions such as "act as my translator" or "correct my chinese". I've created exactly those two GPTs and have been using them quite a bit - key point: low friction. I don't need to preface with anything, I don't need to ask for a translation, i just drop in whatever i want translated or corrected and it works - DeepSeek has the advantage, as far as I can tell, at being better at Chinese. The ChatGPT translations, while grammatically correct, are sometimes a bit awkward (I'm told by my wife) - on the other hand, deepseek translation _feel_ more Chinese. they feel less like english. - since it's not my native language its not a given that my sense is accurate - however, having tried practicing Chinese by reading online western publications (BBC and NYT both have Chinese versions) deepseek doesn't feel as western. it just feels more natural. - the downside is that i have to re-prompt it every time. it doesn't have the concept of stored prompts, so I don't use it every time. but i've been using it more often lately and importantly have been reading through its _thought process_ (which is in Chinese if you prompt it in Chinese) - [x] migrate blog to obsidian, use if for regular no-audience posts (I'll call these public notes ) - [x] Stop paying for old blog platform # Themes for 2025 - **Private victory[^1]** - Physical health and fitness - Better time use - Discipline - getting the reps [^1]: This phrase comes from the [[7 habits of highly effective people]], and is embodied by the first 3 habits. Paraphrasing: believe you can achieve, visualize what you want, go out and get it. # Quarterly Check In - March 2025: [[Progress Report - March - 3 months]]