M1D3. Wind in my Sails.

Status Update.

I'm on track to finish A Man of the People today. Last night I reached my modest goal of beating page 100 (I'm now at 102), bringing with it further intrigue: to get back at Chief Nanga for stealing his girl Elsie, Odili has hatched a plan to steal one of Chief Nanga's future wives. It's striking that a character so reasonable would plan to follow through on something so petty, but his resolve certainly isn't lessening, likely exacerbated by said wife's attractiveness. Curious to see where this goes.

It's late, and I've been working all day, but there's no room for compromise here. I'm borrowing an attitude I learned in my Spur Group days: reframing "To Do" as "TIOW" - or "Today Is Over When." Whatever I set out to do at the beginning of the day must be accomplished, or else the day isn't over. So no sleep until I finish Achebe and get started on a new book.

The Winds of Change.

I feel pretty good about this challenge, even though I know it's only Day Three. It feels like I'm at the culmination of everything I've learned in terms of goal setting and productivity, and I'm channeling all of it into this challenge. I hope, no, I believe something's changed within me.

That being said, I can definitely anticipate some hurdles. For example, I didn't reach my target 50 page an hour pace yesterday. It was difficult to stay focused more than a couple pages at a time, which I can see becoming a problem in future.

Right now, my means of addressing attention lapses is to deliberately go back to wherever I'd drifted off, however many times it takes for information to register. In that respect, I'm certainly not letting myself off easy, which may help my learning.

However, since I'm still struggling to maintain focus, I'm setting myself a slightly lighter read next book, to build concentration and confidence without making it a chore: David Lodge's Deaf Sentence. Hopefully, by keeping realistic about what's to come, I'm improving my odds of success.