2010 by the Numbers

One of the best things I dis­cov­ered in 2009 was Nike+. The abil­ity of this tool to track and then present data about my run­ning thor­oughly cap­ti­vates me.   It actu­ally makes run­ning inter­est­ing. How far? How fast? How often? How can I do bet­ter?  Every time I run, Nike+ is adding insight to all if these ques­tions and more. So in 2010 not only will I be using Nike+ to help me train for my first full marathon; I am also going to copy the idea and start gath­er­ing data about other parts of my life as well.

Exer­cise:
I want to con­tinue to exer­cise more in 2010.  2009 was a good start, but in 2010 I am going to push much harder.  There are 3 numer­i­cal goals that I am going to attempt to reach with regard to phys­i­cal exer­cise.  They are doing 50,000 push-ups, 50,000 sit-ups, and run­ning 1,000 miles.  That amounts to about 137 push-ups and sit-ups per day and about 2.8 miles per day.  I know that there will be days that I don’t exer­cise at all.  To com­pen­sate for this, my approach will be to do at least 200 push ups and sit ups daily, and run­ning a min­i­mum of 3 miles — allow­ing for the occa­sional off day.

I am going to track all of this activ­ity by cre­at­ing a form using Google docs.  I will put a link to the form in my gmail inbox using the quick links fea­ture, and then com­plete it daily with all of my activ­ity.  This infor­ma­tion will then feed auto­mat­i­cally into a spread­sheet where my results can be measured.

Can I do it?  As of right now, I have 49,800 push ups and sit ups to go, as well as 996.8 miles to run.  I also hope to do more yoga, weight train­ing, bike rid­ing, and just being more phys­i­cally active overall.

I am not just going to track my exer­cise, there are other things I want to track as well.

Diet:
If I am going to take time to log infor­ma­tion into a form, I might as well make it worth my while.  One of the things I want to track is what I eat and drink every day.  I am going to track what I eat for break­fast, lunch, and din­ner, the num­ber of  beers, sodas, cof­fees, and waters I drink, as well as any snacks that I much on through­out the day.  I am not look­ing to track every­thing pre­cisely.  I am not con­cerned with cap­tur­ing every­thing exactly.   What I want is to get a gen­eral idea  of what I am putting into my body, and gauge it against my over­all health.  Per­haps I will find that I need to eat more fruit, drink less soda, or drink more beer.  It will be inter­est­ing to find out.

Sleep:
Sleep is impor­tant to health.  Every­one knows it.  I have never tracked exactly how much sleep I get every day, but I know it is not enough.  In 2010 I plan to roughly track when I go to sleep, when I wake up, and how soundly I was able to sleep.  If I stick with the exer­cise pro­gram, I have a bunch that sleep will not be a prob­lem. My hope is to get at least 8 hours a day — hope­fully this is more than a dream.

Tele­vi­sion:
I watched less tele­vi­sion in 2009 than in 2008, but still watched more than I needed to.  I am going to watch less tele­vi­sion, espe­cially mind­less tele­vi­sion in 2010.  I have no prob­lem with tv, but sit­com re-runs and TMZ are doing noth­ing to enrich my life.  I like watch­ing sports, and will con­tinue to do so within rea­son.  Not hav­ing cable tele­vi­sion helps to limit my choices.  I will also will con­tinue to watch a lot of PBS, as it brings so much enter­tain­ment and edu­ca­tion to my life.  I will also watch other select pro­grams that I enjoy.  Still, I am going to be much more quick to hit the off but­ton and find some­thing else to do.  I don’t want my life story to be about me sit­ting around in a cata­tonic state star­ing off into the abyss.  I would rather do things.   I plan to track how many hours of tele­vi­sion I watch, and plan to be stunned with how much of my life is still being wasted.

Read­ing:
One of the activ­i­ties that add tremen­dous value to my life is read­ing.  I know it.  Still, as Goethe said “to know and not to do is not to know.”  Thus my goal is to spend over 5,000 min­utes read­ing books in 2010.  If I  spend only 15 min­utes a day read­ing, I will beat this goal by almost 500 min­utes.  Hope­fully I will be able to beat it by even more.  I know that I want to read at least 25 books on Cre­ativ­ity, and Seth Godin, Garr Reynolds, and Dan Pink all have new books either out or on the way.  To get all these books read is going to take effort.  I am cer­tain that I am up to the task.

Writ­ing:
In 2010 I want to write 150 blog posts.  That amounts to about 3 posts per week.  These posts will force me to write and will also include more pod­casts, videos, and pho­tos too.  I look for­ward to apply­ing my cre­ativ­ity and cre­at­ing some inter­est­ing con­tent for those of you who are kind enough to spend time vis­it­ing my site.

2010 is going to be a great year.  I have a lot to accom­plish, and a lot to track.  I will keep you posted on my progress.  Wish me luck.  Happy New Year!