The Nine Spheres

This will be a blog for recording progress in everyday life. I have identified nine areas (spheres in the title) of my life in which I want to invest more time. For the sake of a sense of progress, I need to quantify my progress in these areas in a way that is accurate enough to feel valid but doesn't require unreasonable maintenance. This will primarily be done by recording time spent in each pursuit using units of five minutes. I would prefer to have a more accomplishment-based system, but fewer than half of my pursuits would accommodate such quantification, and I think it will be easier to keep record by being consistent in my units.

Japanese

I failed the JLPT 1 in December. That wasn't much of a shock. However, it was a bit of a shock to see how much I failed it by--I got 36% (56% is passing). I expected to do poorly on the reading, but the other sections (grammar, vocabulary, and listening) weren't significantly better. So I'm going to double down on my studying so that I can have a chance to pass the test in July, 150 days away.

My study areas will be reading, vocabulary, textbook, and listening. For the present, I'll only set goals for reading and vocabulary. I'm a little skeptical about the value of the textbooks relative to the test, but I have no doubt they will help me in some way. I can do listening via TV or audio, but I'm not really interested in either method at the moment. I do a lot of listening at work, but I won't count that. Speaking and writing are important skills, but as they aren't measured by the test, I won't be studying them for now beyond what I do related to work.

Reading: 45 min/day from at least two different sources

Vocabulary: 10 min/day, 5 new words/day

Programming

I don't think I can continue my teaching career forever, and after that programming is the skill at which I'm most qualified. I've thought of several projects over the years, but aside from one game in high school and another for some of my students in Russia, I've never managed to even come close to making a working product. Lack of accountability is, I think, an enormous barrier, but so also is the lack of restrictions. Programming is fun once I get started, but getting started is difficult when you're staring at a blank white screen or an enormous list of features that you haven't even begun to implement. (I should probably make some planning and organizational documents first, but that's even more difficult to start than programming because it's not really making any progress.)

For now I'm going through programming exercises at hackerrank.com. At some point I intend to move on to my own projects, or possibly . My goal is to complete at least one exercise, but I would say that translates to about 15 minutes/day, and I'd like to do more. But I'm just getting into the habit, so for now:

Programming: 20 min/day

Health

By this, I mainly mean exercise. I walk or bike for at least ten minutes every day and teaching elementary school is fairly demanding physically, so I don't think I'm unhealthy. However, cardio and strength training have appeared sparsely in my life and here in Japan I still don't quite have habits. About six months ago though I took up (indoor) rock climbing, and I started going twice a week from November. Three times a week is difficult with my work schedule, but when the new school year starts in April this will hopefully change. I'm also interested in tennis, which I can currently play for ten minutes on Monday and Wednesday, and while it's a short time it's quite intense. In April there will be a Saturday morning class that I can join too, and maybe I'll be able to find some people to play with. I can also ride my bicycle, but that's heavily dependent on the weather, and I probably won't do so with a specific destination, so I don't think I'll set a goal for now.

In winter all of this is a little more difficult, even the indoor gym because I have to bike or walk to get there. Next winter I will be in a different, first floor apartment, so maybe I can do some dancing or interval training in my apartment. For this winter, I'll have to use my willpower to do push-ups, sit-ups, squats, and floor sprints. So my goals are:

Climbing: 2 hours, twice a week (typically Thursday and Saturday)

Tennis: 10 minutes, twice a week (Monday and Wednesday)

Indoor exercise: 10 minutes, once a week (probably Friday)

Spiritual

It feels a bit wrong to set goals for this, and even more wrong to try to quantify it, but it's definitely important and better to be here than not happen. Incidentally, the title also sounds a bit suspicious, but I couldn't think of anything more appropriate. My goal activities are prayer, Bible reading, and church. I'm setting the time low with the hopes that the habit will be easier to establish--waking up and thinking I have to pray for 30 minutes will be, I suspect, daunting and probably detrimental to habit-forming.

Prayer: 10 min/day

Bible: 10 min/day

Church: 1 hour/week (worship time only)

Writing

By this I primarily mean journaling--I want to review my progress daily, and writing is the best way to do that. As for my other blog, I intend to distill the material from this blog to make posts for that one. I may decide to move correspondence from the social sphere to the writing sphere, and I might also try writing fiction or other non-journal material, but for now the only goal I'm going to set is: (and wow did I exceed the goal today...)

Journaling: 10 min/day

Career

Since I'm not planning to be a teacher forever, I want to regularly investigate other options.

Investigate: 15 min/week

Housework

I like cooking and cleaning, but it's difficult for me to make time for them. So I'll set a goal:

Cleaning: 15 min/day (5 minutes in the morning for breakfast dishes, 10 minutes for other cleaning).

Cooking: 90 min/week (not including breakfast)

Reading

Since coming to Japan, I've done a lot of reading. What kind? Fan fiction. It's very entertaining, but not very worthwhile, and I suspect it has a detrimental effect on my outlook on life. I want to change this pattern and find some books that have some value. I'm not going to set a goal yet, but I intend to in the next week or so.

Social

This will involve any time spent in activities with other people outside of work. I don't feel like I can really set a goal for this, but it's something I want to encourage so I need it here anyway and I'll just track it. My only consistent source of work-free social interaction is at church, but other possibilities will certainly crop up.

In total, this makes 2 hours of activities to do every day. I should be able to handle this, and if I can't, hopefully I can make a good justification or pick myself up the next day. Tomorrow, for example, I have six classes and so won't be able to do anything at work probably, and then there is a dinner party, so if I get anything done it will be fantastic.