INTERNAL SCORECARD #15: A Brief Illness
I write up an "Internal Scorecard" weekly -- we look at production, productivity, habits. Some people like this, because you see the implications of long-term decisions unfolding in a real-world context. I like it because it gives me an accountability mechanism as well.
This one covers 8 September to 14 September.
STRANGELY PLEASED AT THIS ILLNESS
I was feeling great on the September 7th. On September 9th, I was feeling quite sick and run-down.
In a very strange way, I was pleased that this illness came on.
Illness is one of the #1 ways that excellent habits and patterns of action get broken. Lately, I've been firing on pretty much every cylinder. So when I started to feel slightly low on the 8th, and then full-on sick on the 9th, I realized I had an opportunity.
I've been thinking a lot about robustness of habits. A most crucial point for that is that the degrade elegantly.
If you pack your schedule with 15 hours of work a number of days in a row, that's probably fine and you can run with it, and get large gains. But if an illness comes on, that can quickly become unsustainable and stupid to try to keep running.
So I was forced, this week, to choose which habits to keep and how strict to keep them.
ELEGANT DEGRADING OF HABIT
I'm not sure what I'd call a "habit" specifically, but there's some broad groups of things I look to do or not do every single day:
--Health/fitness
--Finance
--Impulse control related
--People, connecting, networking
--Tracking time
--Tracking achievements
--Tracking calories
--Intermittent fasting
--Plan the next day
--Start the day with the most important work
--GiveGetWin: Team coordination, production, systemization, experience improvements
--Consulting: Service delivery, prospecting, getting new business
--Writing
Here's how it wound up shaking out:
*I was running between a 600 and 1000 calorie deficit each day. After some careful research, I decided it's not good to run a caloric deficit when sick. Additionally, I thought there would be some small secondary advantages to running a caloric surplus this week. I held my calories at about maintenance for the first half of the week, and had a couple days with high surpluses towards the end of the week (two 1500+ calorie surplus days). In theory, this could set my progress in marching towards single-digit bodyfat back a week or two. In practice, getting healthy and not staying sick is key on many levels, and there's some research that says that an occasional large surplus could have benefits after a prolonged period of running a deficit.
*I decided I'd re-evaluate this after the week is over. At the end of the week, I'm feeling reasonably healthy (still a little low, but mostly good), and I'm going to run a deficit again starting on the 15th, though it might be slightly smaller than previous depending on energy levels.
*I outright abandoned the idea of intermittent fasting, and eating everything I eat within a tight window. I'm also not holding that restriction for the followup week.
*In finance, I kept my spending targets/budgets in place, but I removed any expansion/income targets.
*In consulting, I kept all my client service, but did no business development or prospecting.
*In charity, I kept all team coordination up (except I missed one call when looking at the calendar wrong on a particularly hazy morning), and I kept my own personal production up. I eased up on system and experience improvements. (Routine tasks were doable this week, but I was pretty flat when it came to putting in expansive things.)
*I intentionally dropped most of my socializing, and all of my unnecessary followup (the things that weren't scheduled, but which I simply wanted to do). I did take the bulk of my appointments scheduled in Beijing (it was now, or possibly never), and most of my already scheduled calls.
*I completely stopped tracking time and didn't bother with it.
*I did still mark down what I achieved. It wasn't much this week beyond maintenance activities, but there were a few wins.
*I did keep planning the next day the night before. This was very important. I'll go into more detail on this in a moment.
*I did do my review of each day and cooldown activities, and my meditation pretty much every day. This was the hardest one to sustain, but I see this as a set of habits that make everything else easier. Analyzing the day, seeing what went right or wrong, watching thoughts, etc. I figure, if I'm taking weight of each day and seeing what went right and wrong, it's hard to fall too far off the rails. I've noticed in the past, when I stop tracking or analyzing at all, that's when things can go fully bad. By keeping cognizant of what's happening, I was able to navigate at a lower level of performance.
PLANNING EACH DAY THE NIGHT BEFORE
This is a great habit that leads to much higher performance and much more focus.
I should clarify, first: I'm not particularly strict about how I do this. I'll write down all the appointments I have the next day -- even though I have a calendar, just re-typing them the night before will make me realize if I need to do more research or preparation.
Then I'll look at the unscheduled time of the day, my priorities, and I'll write down 1-3 things to do "ASAP" in the day. When I do them varies. I like to start the day with the most important work, but it doesn't always happen. But inevitably, I'll have some free time and a little presence of mind, and I'll say, "Oh, I should look at my plan for the day and see if it's done yet or not."
This was one habit I kept up fully this week., and I think this was key. It felt like I had only around 20% as much "high creative energetic time" as normal, between being flat in general, taking longer to get going, and sleeping earlier/longer. That meant that I needed to know exactly what I needed to get done. I kept planning the next day with just a few relatively simple actions to do in addition to maintenance, and most of those got done. This was one of the biggest wins of this week and helped a lot with staying on track.
AZITHROMYCIN
I felt a little bad on the 8th, and started to think I was getting sick on the 9th. On the 10th, I woke up full-on sick.
The next thing I did was take azithromycin. Azithromyn is a very strong antibiotic that's quite effective. I always carry it when I'm traveling.
I thought it quite likely I had a bacterial infection and not the flu, but even if it was viral (and thus, azithomycin wouldn't have done much), I thought it not a bad gamble to take. Given that I had a last intensive travel week here before settling in for a while, I wanted to minimize the chances of being sick.
After taking azithomycin, I started to feel better and feel the power of the illness start to subside; it was gathering storm before, now it was on its way out.
Do your own research of course, but I almost always stock antibiotics and other medicines with me when I travel. This was the last dosage of azithromycin I had, so I went to a pharmacy in Beijing afterwards and got two more complete dosage cycles. (The price? 40 RMB total, or about $3.50 per dosage. It's nice when generic drugs aren't marked up so crazily as in the West.)
Of course, do your own research. There's some advantages to letting an illness run its course for 2-3 weeks so that it passes without taking antibiotics if it was a virus, and potentially letting your immune system get some experience. I can't speak to all the permeations, and I will let an illness run its course for a while if there's no leveraged downside to being sick. The back-end of a trip isn't that, though.
I do recommend carrying antibiotics when traveling and azithromycin in particular. It's quite strong and effective for a variety of purposes, and a nice get of jail free card for a variety of ailments.
AND I THINK THAT'S IT FOR THIS WEEK
Not the most action-packed or exciting Internal Scorecard, but actually a week I'm incredibly pleased with. Illness is one of the most common reasons that an entire program and lifestyle that's running well will go off the rails. I weathered it, and though I'm still not 100% (maybe I'm back to 70% right now), I held firm on some areas that could have crumbled, gave way well enough on areas that I needed to for rest and recovery, and seem primed to keep going at a sustainable pace.
We'll see what happens, and hopefully there's not too much hubris here -- but I'm pleased that I was able to weather a down week in a smart and effective way.