2017 Winter March 16 Thursday

47 degrees this morning (feels like 37), walk 35:00 minutes

Walk this morning a little longer (about .10 of a mile) since I got into the groove of walking and started on a second round in one area!  

There actually is only only one area where I repeat a part of the walk at all and I started to automatically repeat a part I normally only go on one time.

A little cool for 47 degrees, but not bad. 

My pace was about 24 seconds per mile faster than expectations, which was good.  

Being lost in thought (or whatever) and not keeping track of where I am is not unusual for me when I am exercising.  I can remember when I used to walk on a 1/4 mile track and not remembering how many laps I had done! A good reason to wear a watch!  This was when I was in my twenties, so I don’t feel bad about it now.

I have the same problem with weights, even when I only do 3 sets on the bench press, I lose track of how many I have done.  Again, this is an age old problem.   

I actually never really planned to lift weights (I always liked to exercise, but this was normally walking, running bicycling etc.).  However, a couple of employees asked about going to the exercise gym (right across from City Hall at the time) and for some reason I thought it was a good idea and started going myself and started lifting weights etc., something I have never regretted.  

Makes you think about all of the “automatic” actions in your life.  Perhaps I need to review my “automatic” actions and see how much time I am wasting!  

I know in the early morning (from the time I get up until I start my walk), it is amazing how much time I can waste on “piddling”, literally.  I have learned not to check Facebook, Twitter etc. or I can easily waste a lot of time.  I do still check my e-mail  although I normally don’t respond until later.

Perhaps I will make revising my “automatic” time wasters a priority and try to keep a  record of how I waste time.  (Not counting naps and reading the newspapers).  

I think one reason I like the regular paper more than e-news is I can control the time a lot better when I just read the regular paper, maybe not.

Listening to the Harvard Business Review articles on “managing yourself” is rather interesting and may be rubbing off!  One article this morning mentioned about how he checks his e-mail twice a day and saves a lot of time.  

Frankly, I never agreed with that policy.  I check it often and plan on continuing to do so.  (With an iPhone, iWatch etc. it is hard to stay away anyway).  Frankly it always irritated me that someone thought so little of responding that they would only check their e-mail once or twice a day.  Not that I think they should check it every second or have it “ping” (I don’t) and respond immediately but once of twice a day just isn’t realistic anymore.

Of course, I can remember when you wrote a letter and figured you had a week before the response!

That’s it for now, Thursday, March 16, 2017