to be honest, all of this is stock henry’s fault he’s the one who got me onto this daily business in the first place. and i suppose a bit of the blame could be reserved for shanima, my lovely wife. essentially, both of these people have been a huge influence on my decision to push myself to achieve more and to go farther than ever before. stock turned me on to this idea of “dailies” and shanima has told me that she doesn’t want a fat husband, and that i’m only allowed to buy camera gear that i pay for with camera work. hence, chasing realness was born.
i promised to lay out my dailies recently, and i can’t remember if the plan was to publish them on my birthday, but if that was the case, then i failed. in any event, i’m here now and i’m ready to put this out there. i’ve already committed to these things, already been achieving most of them regularly for some time now, and so i have no doubt about my ability to continue to do so.
before i list these out, i should explain that i’m not going to give a list of things i’m going to do every day. what i’m going to do is lay out a plan for myself, something i can follow for the months to come, and something i plan to update as i progress.
blog publishing goals:
complete at least one daily blog post seven days per week
complete at least two photo posts per week related to work i’m doing or lessons i’m learning about the art and craft of photography
complete at least one fiction blog post on each of the five weekdays that moves the needle forward on the planning and writing of my current project
fitness:
my goals are simple. by june 25, i aim to:
lower my weight from 195 to 180 pounds
touch my palms to ground with straight legs
to achieve these goals, my fitness routine will be as follows:
day one: 45mins core/abs + 45mins cardio (bike (15) + treadmill fat burning (30)
day two: 30mins legs/back + 60mins cardio (bike(30) + elliptical (30)
day three: 45mins arms + 45mins cardio (Elliptical (30) + treadmill (15)
day four: 100 push ups, 100 sit ups
day five: 100 push ups, 100 sit ups
day six: hot yoga
day seven: 90-minute cardio and stretching
diet
another component that will contribute to my goal of losing weight, and probably the more important component than physical exercise, is controlling what i eat. therefore, i commit to:
continuing weekly meal prep with shanima and limiting restaurant and other pre-made options as much as possible, and blogging about meal prep on sundays
this essentially means that one day per weekend, we will design a meal plan and prepare all breakfasts and lunches for the week and potentially for the following week as we’re able.
i should mention here that we are lucky, in that shanima’s mom prepares us bengali food to eat for dinner every night on a weekly basis, so we don’t have to worry about preparing those meals ourselves in most cases.
logging my food intake to myfitnesspal daily to ensure that i maintain a proper calorie deficit
photography:
learn and apply at least one photoshop technique to my work each week. this will involve:
choose a topic that i want to learn
watch youtube videos from at least three sources on that topic
first watch, then re-watch the videos while taking notes
attempt to replicate the technique of the week using one of my photos
write a blog post that walks through the lesson and shows before and after images that apply that technique to firm up the learning process and give myself a reference point to go back to if i ever need to review
include links to the three videos and site the creators that i relied on to learn the chosen technique
fiction:
complete character casting by the end of the second week of february so that i can move on to drafting the opening chapters of book one of the distant future series
complete the first three chapters of book one by the end of the third week of february
complete template story arc for book one by the end of february
draft at least 25,000 words of book one by the end of march
finish first draft by june 25
publish book one before year end
book 2? short story?
i am going to revisit these goals at the end of february to evaluate how i’ve done at keeping up with them, and to adjust the flow as needed. if it becomes necessary, i’ll update this list sooner, but i don’t foresee any reason for that. in the meantime, i’ve got a lot of work to do, so i had better get to it.