The behaviour I chose to focus on changing was going to bed late. Far too often I find myself wishing I could sleep longer or wake up easier in the mornings, only to then continue my bad habit of going to bed too late. To measure this behaviour, I recorded my activities in 1 hour increments paying special attention to the hours close to my bedtime and wake up time over the course of 2 days. I decided on this method of tracking given that the bad habit is fuelled by longer patterns over the course of the day, and much less so the smaller 10-15 minute increments during a day (as we measured in the first Measuring Me assignment). Much like the first assignment, tracking this activity made me realize how difficult it is to keep track of what you’re doing, and tracking it honestly throughout your day.
Logging
Monday, Jan 15:
- 9am wakeup and breakfast
- 9-10 am headed to llaga for lunch
- 10-11 on computer planning homework
- 11-12 eating and working
- 12-1 leaving into car to SF
- 1-2 driving to store
- 2-3 shopping and quality time with friends
- 3-4 driving to lands end
- 4-5 hiking
- 5-6 hiking
- 6-7 driving to dinner
- 7-8 eating dinner
- 8-9 driving back to campus
- 9-10 decompress, fill water, scroll on phone, felt sleepy
- 10-11 homework
- 11-12 homework and shower
- 12-1 plan and sleep
Sunday, Jan 14:
- 10am wakeup
- 11 getting ready and on laptop, headed to brunch
- 12 brunch reunion with friend and quality time
- 12-1 eating
- 1-2 eating and leaving to change
- 2-3 Stanford basketball game
- 3-4 tennis
- 4-5 tennis and running
- 5-6 changed, and left to dinner
- 6-7 dinner reunion with friend to catch up
- 7-8 dinner, and moved to rays grill
- 8-9 hung out with friends
- 9-10 hung out at friend’s gathering
- 10-11 friend’s gathering
- 11-12 headed to friend’s home, quality time with friends
- 12-1 quality time with friends
- 1-2 headed back home, shower
- 2-3 bedtime
Models:
Explanation of Models:
Both models aim to better clarify the connections between patterns of behaviour that lead to my bad habit of sleeping late. In the connection circle, I use a purple highlight to denote patterns I think directly correlate with my bad habit of sleeping late, whereas the rest of the connections have tangential impact through the habit ecosystem. In the Casual loop diagram, I found it easier to visualize the direct impact of certain behaviours and even see a chain reaction effect from the beginning of my day to the end. This visualization helped me gain the insight that oftentimes just changing a key habit at the start of my day (even if it’s unrelated to my sleep) could help set off a different chain reaction.
Learnings & Insights:
Based on this experience I learned a few valuable lessons. First, logging hours is incredibly helpful in visualizing how one’s day pans out in practice. Though oftentimes before going to bed it feels like we’ve accomplished “nothing”, writing out each activity I did and accounting for the transportation time between events really emphasized to me just how full my hours are – often to a fault. This observation led me to think more about how I might be able to craft a more balanced schedule by changing elements within my control.
