February

One month into the project - a quick assessment:

In the beginning, I was enthusiastic about all the fresh, new changes to make things better. After some time (10-15 days), I started wondering about the balance between self-imposed additional stress in having to meet yet more deadlines and goals vs. the actual benefit of these goals. They did stress me a bit at times. So I tried to be a bit leneant with myself - taking the goals as guidelines to be followed whenever possible and rewarding; but to be interpreted flexibly when it just didn't fit (like when I was travelling to Gland for 2 days in a row, and just felt more for having a beer after work with colleagues, instead of going running to maintain my exercise rhythm).
And it does feel mostly good to exercise some self-discipline.

At the end of January, the enthusiasm had faded a bit, but almost all of the resolutions have proven helpful in advancing me on the respective topics (e.g. in getting more organized about work note taking), even though I didn't achieve all of them. I plan to maintain all the new "daily" tasks.

Ramp up on learning Hindi

Continue from January:
- digitalize my Hindi notes - finish, and import all notes into Quizlet not done
- reserve at least 10 minutes/day for revising vocab and past lesssons (e.g. before sleeping) done
- at least 1 short conversation in Hindi with Varun/day done
- actively study and memorize the Hindi "Word of the Day" every day done
- other measures (e.g. listening to podcast; downloading and using app; watching movies etc.), as time allows - if at all possible, try to do a bit more of not really scaled up


Diet and better eating

Continue from January:
- live on fruits, veggies, soups and cereals only for at least 2 weeks (starting 1st January) - maintain this diet for 1 week/month (2nd week of the month), starting in February to trial and see if it works well - if so, continue in following months done 2nd week of February


Exercise
 
Continue from January:
- do serious exercise every other day (running, yoga, swimming, hiking or bike tour) (with the relativization that this can be handled flexibly in exceptional cases such as travel) done
- situps every day (as many as I can handle)  (with the adaptation to alternate situps/pushups every day - better for the muscles) done

New in February:
- decide on whether or not to pursue a "big sport project" this year, e.g. climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro or running a half-marathon haven't faced this yet


Photography

Continue from January:
- join at least 1 meeting of the Basel photography group, if timings allow -this month for real done, joined a meeting on city night photography

New in February:
- put my digital photo collection in order and transfer to new external harddrive not done


Inspiration

- finish reading Naomi Klein "This changes everything" latest by the end of the month - this month for real, but if not possible, then latest in March advanced a bit, but not finished


Getting organized

New in February:
- make doctor's appointments for checkups that I have procrastinated for years not done


Social

New in February: 
- deliberately schedule a couple Skype calls with far-away and long-lost friends talked to Charlotte and Kadda, wrote a couple others, but no success