18 Things We’re Improving This Week

Not only do we strive for personal improvement every week at Buffer, those of us who work on the blog here get the opportunity to dig into the science of self-improvement in many different areas.

Here are a few resources for improvements that might be on your list:
• 6 Research-Tested Ways to Improve Your Memory
• 8 Ways to Improve Your Morning Routine
• 6 Ways I’ve Improved My Writing In the Past 6 Months
• 8 Scientifically Proven Ways to Maximize Your Lunch Break
• 6 Ways to Improve Your Willpower Today

Got a self-improvement topic you’d like us to research and write about? Let us know in the comments!

Here’s what each Buffer team member is working on this week!

(Psst: We love chatting about each other’s improvements, too. See all of our comments here.)

Buffer team improvements

Rodolphe – First full week in Paris in quite some time, keeping up 4 meditation sessions per week, trying out my local swimming pool (aiming at 2 sessions). Also exploring artistic collaborations with Senor Octopus and Alix for ohilikeart.com. On Tuesday I’m attending SaaS is Beautiful, my first meet up on all-things SaaS :-) I’m currently reading Gary Vaynerchuck’s Jab Jab Jab Right Hook, and wish to read Mathieu Ricard’s book next. Last but not least, #bufferparis is on Thursday, yay!

Octavio – This week I’d love to find a time to chat with the teammates that I still haven’t had an opportunity to talk to, it’ll be fantastic to get to know more about them. I also want to continue with the habit of reading daily, it worked out well last week since I managed to successfully read for 30 minutes each day. I believe that if I can stick to it this week, it’ll be easier to keep up with it moving forward. As usual, a time to workout and to be grateful/reflect will be something that I’ll set for each day. :)

Dave – I’m inspired by Mary’s approach to keeping key habits when travelling, and as I’m going to be in Paris for a week (have I mentioned it?), I’m going to focus on three of mine: my morning walk, my hourly movement / activity, and getting 8 hours sleep. With the travel and with #bufferparis, I’m looking forward to embracing the absence of my normal schedule and being grateful for the opportunities I have. And to finally use the French I’ve been working on! So fun to put this into practice!

Mary – I always really enjoy feeling out a new routine in a new place. Maui very much has a slow-paced, no-rush culture and I’m working on leaning into that a bit in the places of my life where it makes sense. It’s a bit challenging when I’m excited to fit in as much as I can everyday though I think it leads to enjoying each moment. :) Other than that, I’m working on running four times a week, drinking 91 oz of water each day, reading every night before bed and sending 2 letters each week.

Sunil – After having quite an eventful past couple of weeks, things are slowly staring to get back to a point where I can set up a routine! My goal for this week is to one-by-one get back into the things I was doing in SF now in DC. I’m hoping to focus on running this week. My goal is to run 3 days this week including sprints. This is in preparation for the yearly ultimate frisbee tournament I participate in every end of July. This week, I’ll also be on the hunt for apartments in DC which I’m excited about. So I’ll be balancing looking for apartments and everything else.

Kevin – I found myself reading a lot more since I chose to read a few pages everyday before bed. I’m sticking with this improvement for this week as well because I’m making such progress in my current book! I also going to spend some more time in the sun, being inside all the time makes you kind of pale, so I’m aiming for spending the morning on my balcony eating breakfast!

Adam – Something about last week threw me off. Not sure if it was the odd start to the week or if something else was at play, but I could never find a good rhythm. This week I am looking to reclaim some lost personal productivity. Jumping back into Code Academy in the evenings, lifting and running, and some dedicated time for reading. One additional thing that came to mind the end of last week was that my eating habits had slipped. Part of me wonders if this contributed to my lack of energy and focus when evening came. This week I am reeling that back in and sticking with “cleaner” foods.

Tom – I’ve been hitting my goals of 3 gym sessions per week for the last three weeks, which I’m happy about! In light of the Android release this week, I’ll be adjusting that goal to 2 times for this week. I received my Kindle (yay!!), so I’m going to add a goal of reading at least a few nights before bed (or whenever). I’ve submitted version 1.1 of my own iPhone app (Lessons Invoicing) and it’s being held for developer release at Apple, so I’m looking forward to doing some final testing and releasing the new version to the world! It’s a pretty update that includes invoice themes and taxes, so it should be super useful for those users needing those features! Also, as mentioned, looking to release the Android update this week, so I’ll be focusing on hardening this build.

Daniel – Continuing my push into living healthier by cutting out all the unneeded sugars and “filler” ingredients. Focusing on eating as much ‘all natural’ foods while cutting out all the processed, packaged foods.

Courtney – t’s my last week of the “30 Days of Minimalism” challenge, so it’s time to dig deep and let a few more things go. I also want to start prepping a blog post about the experience. This week I’m experimenting with an early morning schedule to see how it changes my productivity and activity level. The goal is to wake up by 6 a.m. every day this week. Hoping it’ll help me with my steps and getting things done!

Leo – This week I have 2 main things that I want to work on. One was that my focus on reading didn’t quite go as planned, so this week, I’m looking to read 10 mins every day in the evening around 9.30pm before I go to sleep. Looking forward to build some extra relaxation into my evening routine! Secondly, I’m planning to step up my home-cooked lunches this week, going to 3 lunches that I’ll bring to the office.

Nicole – I felt great last week getting rid of some physical and mental clutter in my life and want to continue to do so this week. I’m also working on keeping up a regular journaling habit and I’d love to write one blog a week on my personal blog. Now that summer is here and the chickens and ducks are getting close to laying eggs, we’re spending more time outside and prepping to build their permanent coop, so that’s been great to keep up on my steps and spend some time outdoors.

Kevan – I’ve felt a pull to do more daily creative writing (haha, reading books about writing will do that to you!), so it’d be great to work in a daily writing session, even if it’s only 5 or 10 minutes. I’ve started a Seinfeld calendar to keep me on pace. Also, I’m eager to improve on my mental energy. I’ve noticed this waning in recent weeks with how engaged I feel with family and friends, and they deserve better from me! I’m hoping that making a conscious effort to be aware of my interactions and energies will show me opportunities to improve.

Dan – So I cheated on my 30 day no-sweets challenge by having a small piece of cake at a birthday-bbq on Saturday. Not very happy about that, but I’ve done so well overall and the 30 days ends Thursday, so I’m ok with my one vice over the 30 days. Overall I do feel better without the sweets in my diet, but I miss them. I think I’ll make the move after the 30 days to no more than 1 sweet item a week. It has made me more conscious of what I was eating/wanting to eat, so I think it’s been a successful challenge. I’m staying in Venice/Santa Monica this week so I want to keep push my steps up higher and try to get up for some morning walks on the beach. Lastly, at a bbq this weekend I had more than a couple people tell me I seemed very serious. I think they were joking around a bit, but I kind of took it to heart. Time for me to stop being so serious.

Åsa – Been going pretty good with the morning runs lately so I this week I want to focus on some strength/HIIT in the gym. Aiming for 3 times this week. The other improvement is to read in my lunch break between 10-30 minutes depending on how much time I got. Got 8 hours sleep both night this last weekend and it felt amazing, want to get 8 hours at least twice this week too.

Michael – Got quite a few things I want to try this week! I’ve been pretty inspired by all the runners at Buffer and I’ve had a great running streak last year which somehow fizzled out, so I’m going to restart that this week. So far so good, I had a quick 15 min jog this afternoon and it felt great! Also I want to keep going with drawing this week, I sort of neglected it this weekend. It’s been really hard and the results so far haven’t been awe-inspiring, but I want to keep at :) I also happened to read through the Buffer values recently and have been thinking about working on some of them. The two values that really resonated with me lately are Showing Gratitude and Listening. I really want to focus on expressing my gratitude to all the important people in my life and spend time every day really listening, trying to understand their point of view and feel what they are feeling.

Brian – Sleep, sleep, sleep – I need to get this back up! I haven’t quite adjusted my schedule properly to account for an earlier wake-up time, so I’m ending up getting

Andy – Managed 2 days at the gym last week, would like to match that or improve it a little. Confirmed I still have a membership at 24 hour fitness so going to head there for some weight sessions and if no bikes are available at mine. Still struggle with morning sessions so may try some evening / mid afternoon sessions. Along with this continuing to cook more at home in the week using new Rice Cooker.

Want to share your own improvement goals? We’d love to hear about them in the comments!