How I’m Crushing 2022 and How You Can Too

Welcome to this post, “How I’m Crushing 2022 and How You Can Too”!

At that time of me writing this, it’s currently 11:34pm on Thursday, January 27th, 2022. Why am I up so late working on a blog post? Don’t ask questions. Just kidding…it’s a long story, but basically I’m wrapping up my work for the weekend before heading out of town. One thing I wanted to do before I left was reflect on the month so far and any changes I want to make going forward before I get back next week.

This post will be a little different than other posts I’ve written before. I’m going to take excerpts from other posts, journal entries, and things I’ve wrote the last few weeks. I’m going to go all over the place and it may or may not make any cohesive sense. That said, my goal is to tell a story, leave you with a few inspiring ideas, and share with you how I’m crushing 2022 and you can too!

Time to dive in!

Highs and Lows of January

Let me start by saying the month of January was incredible. There’s way too much to unpack in one post, and I don’t want to repeat what I said in our monthly review newsletter (you should subscribe to our email list if you’re interested). However, here’s the gist:

• Kicked off my New Year’s Resolutions
• Went on first ever out-of-state solo travel trip
• Started school and extracurriculars up again
• Regained momentum with my businesses
• Had many highs and just as many lows

Here’s an excerpt from one of my favorite days of the month, January 14th:

“The one word I would use to describe today is disciple. I didn’t want to wake up at 8:00 for the 6th day in a row, but I did. I didn’t want to do the work I had to do today, but I did. I didn’t want to go to the gym today, but I did. Looking back now, I’m so glad I stuck with everything because it made for a perfect day.”

Here’s an excerpt from one of my least favorite days of the month, January 19th:

“I was in a really good mood all late morning and afternoon. I went to a finance club meeting and when I got back had a call with my business mentor. The call was great and left me extremely pumped up and ready to go. While I felt motivated, I also felt extremely unmotivated at the same time. It made for a very frustrating afternoon. Here I was, wanting to be productive, but was struggling to get focused on one thing. I spent a lot of time thinking and reflecting on my life after the call, but couldn’t bring myself to do the work I had scheduled for myself. At this point I got kind of mad and in a bad mood for no real reason. I thought I could go to the gym and make it better, but that didn’t work. I tried to take a nap, and that didn’t work. I tried to eat food, and that didn’t work.”

Finally, here’s a longer excerpt I wrote recapping one of my weeks in the middle on January:

“This last week was my first full week back in the second semester. Honestly, it was a really weird week and I’m feeling motivated to reflect on it. Overall, this was a really good week. I can look back and see so many big wins throughout the week. Despite this, it still didn’t feel right for some reason and that’s partially what I want to reflect on.

First and foremost, I want to discuss my productivity over the last week. It was one of my most productive weeks in a very long time for several reasons. One, I had another perfect week with my accountability goal setting system with Terry which tells me I set 3 big goals for the week and accomplished each of them. On top of that, I got a ton of items cleared out of my GTD list this week whether it was through completing them, consolidating them, or just deleting them. Most importantly, I got the most important things done this week and didn’t really leave any big items left over. However, my productivity was very inconsistent this week. I had days like Monday and Thursday where I was really scattered, didn’t have a very good plan for the day, and thus, didn’t get much done. Looking back at those days makes me look at the week as unproductive even though the rest of the days were great and the week as a whole was extremely productive.

Next, I would like to discuss my routines for the week. The biggest win by far throughout the week was waking up on time at 8:00 for 6 days in a row. I only let myself sleep in on Saturday because I was up late, needed to catch up on sleep, and figured I earned it. This made my morning routines go extremely well and got my days off to the right start and left me a ton of time to work. My EOWD and night routines were not as consistent unfortunately. While I completed my EOWD routine on 6/7 days, I didn’t always necessarily do it at the right time which limited its effective. That said, the nights where I did it before going out or doing social things were really good nights. My night routine in general also struggled. While I had no problem falling asleep with the help of melatonin, I was pretty inconsistent on the times I went to bed and the activities I did before bed. There’s definitely still room for improvement in that department, however overall I felt like I did a really good job sticking to my routines this week. In general I just stuck to what I had planned for this week and was very disciplined about all of it. While that wasn’t always fun, I do think it paid off in big ways.

Finally, I want to discuss a few of my feelings from throughout the week. This week had some crazy highs and some crazy lows. I had moments of being in an amazing mood and moments of questioning life and what I’m doing. There were days where I just wasn’t feeling it, felt tired, felt unmotivated, felt brain fog, and wasn’t having any of it. I felt kind of forgetful throughout the week as I would think back and not really be able to remember what I did unless I really thought about it.

To conclude, I am still incredibly happy with this last week. I made so much progress and really felt a lot of the life changes I made toward the end of last year starting to pay off. I’m feeling great about where I’m out and simply trying to reflect on a few of the things that I could improve on going forward.”

3 Big Wins From The Month

Before moving on, I just want to mention 3 big wins from the month. First and foremost, my sleep schedule was the best it has been since I came to college. With a few changes to my systems as well as my priorities, I was much better about sleep.

A few things that have helped me the most the last few months are as follows:

• Short 15-20 minute naps
• Wrapping up work earlier in the day
• Taking melatonin to fall asleep fast
• Waking up at the same time no matter what
• Taking a shower first thing in the morning to wake up

One of main reasons why January felt like a weird month was because of a few personal things going on. I won’t get into the details, but there were a few things stressing me out this month that I think lead to some weird emotions. It’s hard to judge a month based on things that are outside of your control. All I can say is that I’m proud of the way I handled these things, got through them, and had all the other successes I did this month.

Just to demonstrate my productivity the last few weeks, I’d like to brag for just a second. Terry and I have weekly accountability meetings where we set 3 big goals for the week and place monetary bets on them. For the last 4 weeks, I have had perfect weeks. This means I have met my 3 big goals for the last month. I’m super happy about that and I think it speaks volumes to how the month went despite some challenges.

10 Ways I’m Crushing 2022

A little over a month ago, I wrote a post called, 10 Small Changes I’m Making Before 2022. In that post I outlined some frustrations I had from the last month or so and the changes I was making to improve upon them. Looking back now, I can honestly say that I’ve made some incredible progress on these changes. Here’s a list of each of them and how I’m doing so far:

1. Delete Time-Wasting Apps
   1. I deleted Instagram before the start of the new year. I ended my streaks with people on Snapchat. I haven’t been on social media for 4 weeks. I don’t miss it one bit. I have no desire to go back at this point.
2. Stop Spending Time In My Bed
   1. For the most part, I’ve done really well at doing more work at my desk and less in my bed. I’ll admit, there still have been one or two times a week where I’ll do some work in my bed. However, I’ve been trying to do more work outside of my dorm room and I’m having really good success with it.
3. Take Advantage of Mornings
   1. This has been a huge success so far. I changed up my morning routine a little bit in 2022 and I’m absolutely loving it. It’s a little longer than what I’m used to, but definitely worth it. On top of that, I’ve been diving into my most important work right away and have been getting a lot more done as a result.
4. Wrap Up For Work Earlier In The Day
   1. I implemented something called the End of Work Day Routine (EOWD Routine) and have enjoyed it so far. Essentially, my EOWD routine is the first part of my night routine I do to wrap up my work for the day and plan for the next day. Doing this earlier in the day helps me wrap up to relax and also have a smaller night routine to do later.
5. Wrap Up For Bed Earlier
   1. I was being very consistent with my sleep schedule for the first three weeks of the month. This last week hasn’t been as good as I have had to sacrifice sleep to finish up some other projects that need to be wrapped up before I head out of town.
6. Fall Asleep Earlier
   1. Along those lines, I wasn’t able to fall asleep as early as I would have liked this month. However, like I said above, falling asleep is the easy part thanks to melatonin. The more difficult part is getting ready for bed at a decent time. If I can start getting ready for bed, I can usually be out within 30 minutes. So the trick going forward is wrapping up for bed earlier.
7. Be Better About Prioritizing
   1. I definitely took a hard look at my priorities this month. I remember sitting down and creating an actual numerical list of each of my priorities in my life. Doing this allowed me to see clearly how I should be spending my time. I’m still continuing to become better at this, but happy with the progress I am making.
8. Become Insanely Good At Time Management
   1. I never really described what I wanted to do to get better at time management in my last post. However, I can say that I think I am getting better at it and learning more about it each and every day. Time management is a lifelong skill that is continuously developed, so I’m glad to say I’m working on it.
9. Take Advantage of Energy
   1. Super happy with my progress on this one. In the post I wrote about how you may have the time to do something, but you might not have the energy to do that thing. This month, I was much better about working with my energy level. I did high-energy work when I had a high amount of energy and vice versa. That said, there were also times when I knew I had to just do hard things despite not feeling the energy to do so.
10. Make Smaller To-Do Lists
    1. Finally, I had quite a bit of success with making smaller to-do lists. This was a pretty easy change. Instead of listing 1 big thing, 3 medium things, and 5 small things for each day, I started only listing 1 big thing, 2 medium things, and 3 small things. This reduction in items on my to-do list is much more realistic and leaves me feeling much better about my days.

7 Changes I’m Making Going Forward

Now that we went over the 10 successes I’m having so far in 2022, it’s time to talk about a few changes I’m going to make going forward. I thought it would be fun if I structured this in such a way where each goal’s number corresponded to the number of days I want to do it each week. You’ll see what I mean down below:

7. Wake Up At 8:00am 7 Days A Week

That’s right…no more sleeping in. Sometimes the college life gets a little crazy when it comes to a normal sleep schedule, however I don’t want that to be the excuse to me missing my goals. If I want to get more sleep, I need to do it on the front end when I go to bed. That way I’m making the sacrifice in the present moment and not the next day when I have important things to attend to.

6. Fall Asleep By 12:30 6 Days A Week

To aid the first goal, I think it would be helpful if I went to sleep by 12:30am on most nights. I’m sure there will be a night or two a week where I stay up later, but I’m going to make it a goal to get to bed by this time. I hope by doing this I can get at least 7.5 hours of sleep and wake up full of energy the next day.

5. Wrap Up Work By 7:30pm 5 Days A Week

I’ve had extreme success with my End of Work Day Routine so far and I want to get more consistent with it. I’d like to wrap up my work by 7:30pm most nights to free up the evenings for relaxation or socialization. Of course, there are a few nights every week where I have important things I have to work on, so I’ll shoot for 5 days/week.

4. Eat A Meal With A Friend 4 Days A Week

One of my current frustrations with myself is my lack of diversification of my friends outside of my roommates. I spend a lot of time with my roommates, and not enough time with people outside of them. I want to start to get lunch with 2 friends a week who are not my roommates while still getting lunch with my roommates 2 times a week as well.

3. Consume Podcast Content 3 Days A Week

This goal has two purposes. Yes, I would like to consume more podcast content. But, I also want to be more consistent with going to the gym 3 times a week. I’ve started listening to podcasts while I’m at the gym, and I want to continue to do that, so I have a goal of consuming podcast content (hopefully at the gym) 3 days a week.

2. Produce Some Sort of Content 2 Days A Week

Along with consuming content, I would also like to start producing more content here on the blog and on the podcast as well. My goal is to write 1 blog post a week and record 1 podcast episode a week. This one may be one of my harder goals, however I enjoy the act of making content and want to make it a priority.

1. Go On A Date 1 Day A Week

Yeah, that’s right. I just exposed my dating life on the internet. Yes, I’m currently single and actively pursuing a relationship…haha. To make this happen I want to start going on a date at least once a week. The only way I reach the goal of having a long term girlfriend by the end of the year is by making dates happen.

The Takeaway

That’s it for this post! I know this one was very different than our regular posts. Kudos to you if you actually made it all the way to the end. Like I said at the start, my goals with this post were to share a few stories, inspire changes in your own life, but mostly reflect on this last month for myself. I hope you found some sort of value in this post. Please feel free to leave any comments, questions, or concerns in the comments down below. Otherwise, best of luck on February!