I started work on upgrading my personal operating system with a fairly straightforward motivation.

For years, I’ve been experimenting with tiny habits that require 5 minutes or less to complete and I’ve found that they work well for me. There are worthwhile efforts, though, that simply require more than 5 minutes per day and where I’ve struggled is to create a sustainable way to make progress in areas that matter to me for more than a few weeks at a time.

I’m wrapping up the 5th week of experimenting with a personal scorecard and while it’s early, the initial results are promising.

To recap, I identified 6 areas that I decided were worth investing at least 25 minutes per day, a minimum of 5 days per week.

Here’s how this week looks so far.

This was a fairly atypical week. We had a hit and run in our neighborhood this week. No one was injured, but multiple cars including one of ours was hit. Working with the police and just processing it all took up a day and impacted my plans for the rest of the week. I remember feeling a sense that the day was lost, but then realizing I could still make progress on my scorecard – which felt good.

Looking back over the past few weeks I’ve noticed a few things.

First, the original piece of work I’d planned for the “Finances” category was processing through a bunch of paperwork. That took about a week and a half, then it was done – which felt great, and it had been months without progress up to that point.

Once that original piece of work was done, though, I was at a loss for what to do next. I have a backlog in ToDoist, which, I’ve just realized, I haven’t actually checked in about a month – several items in my list are now complete!

What I did instead, though, was I decided to read a book on finance (I chose Psychology of Money), which also met my goal of 25 minutes of “Input” per today. That’s been a big hit. I’ve found myself inspired and it’s already brought meaningful input to how I approach my personal finances and business planning.

On the spirituality front, I’ve found myself reading more. This past week, I picked up The Exvangelicals from my local library and I’ve enjoyed reading that before bed. I’ve also found myself doing more 25 minute walks and combining that with time to pray and reflect.

Fun has been an easy one. My current games of choice are Polytopia, Brawl Stars, and Squad Busters, which I am usually playing with friends and family. By having it on the list, though, I’ve found it psychologically valuable to acknowledge an activity that’s important to me and that I’m making time for it throughout the day. (If anyone wants to play Polytopia, let me know. Adam Weeks and I have been at it almost daily for 4+ years and we welcome more folks to play with).

Also, making it so that success is 5 out of 7 has been key for me. Here’s how last week looked.

There are going to be days like Monday and it was important to go into Tuesday knowing that I was still on track for the week and, hey, at least I got my walk in and had fun.

I set out to create a way to have sustainable progress in areas that matter to me and, so far so good. Let’s give it another month or two and see how we’re doing then.

Also, we’re up and running on WordPress 6.6 today! Woohoo!