February was not great. It wasn't a total bust, but compared to January it was a bit of a downer.
Here's a rundown of February's goals:
February's Primary Goals
1. Run a total of 20 miles
I managed just over 16.5 miles before suffering from some minor knee pain. It wasn't too serious, but I didn't want to chance doing more damage so I took a few days off. The cold weather didn't help either.
Even though I'm calling this a fail, I was pleased with how everything went. My longest run was 3.4 miles (nonstop), which isn't bad considering I could only manage 2 minutes straight in August.
2. Add bodyweight training to my running workouts
I added bodyweight exercises once a week. I didn't track these workouts so I couldn't really measure any improvements. Even the lowest level exercises were quite difficult at first, although things did get easier after a few weeks.
It's definitely something I want to keep doing.
3. Release a prototype of Tiny Tactics
Not even close on this one.
I only worked for around 10 hours over the course of the month. I got a very basic map working along with some gameplay elements (mostly menus), but nothing even remotely playable.
At this point I'm not sure I can turn things around in time to get a demo released. I may end up releasing a tiny game in March just to get something positive done.
4. Write 1,000 words of my book
This one is 50/50. I only wrote around 500 words in February, but I spent some time researching the topic in more depth. I have a pretty good idea of how I want to structure the book and what I want to cover. More importantly, I have a better idea of the stuff I don't want to write about.
5. Finish setting up my GTD system
There's still a small pile of things left to process, but I got a basic system up and running. My inbox was finally emptied after two years, so I can't call this anything but a success.
February's Secondary Goals
1. Finish adding items to my "other goals" list
Given how badly February went, I think this list is long enough for now.
2. Release IFTTT version of Garlic Spy
This isn't a project that's particularly important to me, but I wanted to experiment with Ruby on Rails and this seemed like a good start.
I built a few bits and pieces with ActiveJob, set up integration with IFTTT and tidied up the deployment process. There's always more to do, but I'm happy with what I managed to get done.
3. Add new backend to crypto-ticker-mode
I started writing a basic API layer but never got around to finishing or integrating it.
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That brings February to a 50% success rate. Overall it was a pretty disappointing month. Worse still, it's had a bit of hangover effect into March. Even though I'm a week into the month I haven't really been productive.
Primary goals for March
1. Run a total of 18 miles
Football season starts this month, so I'll be down to running twice a week whilst until I adapt. 18 miles gives me a little leeway to adjust distances depending on injuries and soreness. At this point I'm still working on building a base, and I won't start adding more miles until May or June.
2. Continue bodyweight exercises and track my workouts
Tracking exercises (usually) encourages me to exercise more. I like to see how I'm progressing, so for March I want to create a basic system to track my bodyweight workouts. The paid tier of fitloop comes with tracking, but I may end up just using a spreadsheet or text file.
3. Release a playable game
This may be Tiny Tactics, or it might end up being something totally different. Either way I'd like to get something released so I have a win, no matter how small.
4. Write every week
I wrote a lot in January and got a lot done. I stopped writing last month to give myself more time to spend on my goals and ended up getting less done.
I'm not sure if writing helps or not, so for March I'd like to test it and see what happens.
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I'm not planning any secondary goals for March. I'm not sure if I planned too much to achieve, or if having such varied plans made it difficult to focus. I tend to work on side projects when the mood takes me, so having a schedule of which ones need completing didn't really fit in with that.