P90X Day 41: Kenpo X

Okay, I'm finally caught up to today. The kenpo routine reminds me a little bit of saying the rosary, since you're doing a set number of moves for several reps with very similar breaks between sets. I'm not sure whether combining the two would be brilliant or sacrilegious. I'll break the tie thusly: if it means you're praying more overall, it seems unlikely that God would object.

Today's workout was the first time I used P90X's audio option to play only silence and cues. This meant I could have my podcasts playing in the background otherwise, which is perfect for the kenpo routine.

Knocking out these posts in a short, time-boxed time is good for my growth as a writer. There's a strain of perfectionism that really slows me down with most posts. It's good to write mostly about exercising/diet/sleep habits with a few life observations thrown in. Getting in the habit of this pace of publishing should lead to less perfectionism, improving both the quantity and, ironically, the quality of my output.

Since it's Saturday and my siblings have left, I've been able to catch myself up to buy back my time. I didn't have ready-made paleo dishes and I had a flat bike tire. So I took the Saturday, bought new bike tubes and installed them (take that, bus 8!), and then I've got some stuff to cook before the opera tonight (Count Ory should be a good time).

A fixed bike tire probably saves about 45-60 minutes/workday for commuting. Taking an hour to prepare some microwaveable leftovers should save me another 25 minutes/day. Fixing the tire took about 20 minutes since I've done it before but I'm still bad at it, plus the 10 minutes to stop at the bike shop before grocery shopping this morning. Because the bike tire saves me more time, I made sure to do that first. Worst-case, if everything else falls off the rails, I immediately have that new time to right myself. This is an example of how the key to productivity is more about strategic thinking than about horsepower. It's fun to use your brain on decisions like this, it's rewarding that you've been so clever, and it's hugely beneficial to have the time back. I've gone from wondering how to do more with less to realizing that doing less (the right "less") is the path to more. And even this zeal for "more" is less about greed and more about being prepared for the rough patches in your schedule, like entertaining house guests during Seattle summers, which is both pleasure and privilege when prepared.