Floor-it February - 2026/02/02
Happy February 2nd! I'm currently quite sick; between hourly naps, constant attempts at draining my sinuses, and the Sisyphean task of finding a comfortable way to lay on the sofa for hours on end, this weekend hasn't exactly fostered the best environment for me to start this blog. If I was more reasonable and held respect to rest for rest's sake, I'd probably 1. not be sick at the time of writing this and 2. have postponed the creation of this blog to sometime in the near or far future. However, if you know me well, you'd know that I have a strange fixation on dates/times/the calendar in general, and dictate a lot of my new projects and actions based on the date/time.
I feel that certain numbers are more 'aesthetically' pleasing than others, and that the days (as well as hours) that are named by these numbers similarly hold the positive/negative aura rooted in their name number. For example, I'm drawn to 4 and 9, whereas I'm repulsed by 6 or 7[^1]. Following that, I generally have issues with starting new projects/relationships/internet accounts/habits on days that bears this bad energy. As a student, you wouldn't have caught me submitting my papers at 7:36pm, or on the 3rd of the month— I would instead wait until it turned to 8:00pm or the 4th of the month, for example, to ensure I was filling the submission with as much good luck as possible (I imagine this is akin to the thought process of wearing your special underwear to bring good luck to your first day at work, first date, etc.). I know this is peculiar to a fault, and lacks any real justification beyond gut-feel; it makes sense that this is one of the key symptoms that led to my eventual diagnosis with OCD. I often think about how I make fun of those who give weight to the horoscopes, though I'm not sure if I'm much better with my personal variant of numerology.
Getting back to the context of this tangent, this is all to say that while I much rather spend this weekend truly resting, it was important for me to create the blog this weekend to capture the 'positive karma' mapped to the date February 1st, 2026. Particularly, the number 2, and its associated month February, has always felt to have had a certain freshness to it. It makes sense at some deep level to have started this project at the start of this month. For some, maybe the above doesn't fully track; wouldn't January 1st be a better day? Doesn't January hold the cultural crown re: new beginnings? Well, aside from the aforementioned lack of reason behind my gravitation towards the aesthetics of certain numbers, I also believe I can make a vibes-free case for February serving as the best true start to the year, at least in terms of personal growth.
January very much so is still a month of disruption. In the same way it feels strange to really establish any habits in November due to disruptions around Thanksgiving, I find that January still holds too many residual schedule anomalies inherited from the holiday season. Winter vacation often eats into the first part of the month, one's schoolwork or quarterly work often has yet to be fully defined/pick up to a steady flow, and there exists some general fatigue from the transition out of the holidays. By the time people are back to a normal routine and hold a general dissatisfaction with their day-to-day life that can be acted upon, it's already midway through the month (and for the procrastinator, too late in the month to kick off a new habit grind). Now consider February; free of these disruptions and relatively predictable. Given how early it is in the calendar year, and it coming down from the chaos that is the holidays, most people won't take time off or plan extravagant vacations. The only notable cultural event is Valentine's, which is relatively non-disruptive unless you have a messy situationship.
That may help explain why February over January, but couldn't the same be said about many other months of the year? Yes, though I think February still has a few more reasons as to why it is the ideal start of the lock-in period. For one, it is a clean 28 days (well, 75% of the time). For those who benefit from AA month token mentality, this means the goal of doing something everyday for a month is about 10% easier. This shouldn't be seen as a cop-out; making the first month less daunting helps make the goal feel more attainable, and the completion of it can help turn a month-long achievement into as a multi-month goal. Beyond this, I also think that it is seasonally blessed. For many, being forced to spend more time indoors due to the cold and shorter days can help promote less lollygagging and more time at home/in a library to actually get to work. Additionally, it means that any new habits established at this time will start to really come to life around spring and summer, which is great for those who may have goals whose fruits are best enjoyed in the summer (I'm mainly thinking physique goals here, but also can apply to summer outdoor performances or what not). Finally, 28 is cleanly divisible into 4 weeks, making it easy to divvy up plans into week long stretches. Okay just going to pause here since I'm realizing that my arguments are starting to get less weak, and I'm getting bored writing this section. Just imagine I am ending this paragraph with a strong argument and a beautiful segue into the next point.
Why do I bring this up? Well I wanted to use this blog post as a public declaration of my 2 goals for this month.
- Post every day for the month of February
No surprises here given the intro, but I think that for me, I really want to force myself to give this site a real hot start to make sure it isn't just a web domain tied to some short term ideal I hold. I don't have any hard rules around what I'll post here or the length of said posts, but I think that I want to both create a longer term habit around posting in general (not something I internalized on my social media days), as well as feel comfortable with the concept of writing. I understand that I have a lot of room to improve on this front, and if I can spend this month forcing myself to experiment, I think it'll make it a lot easier for me to achieve the longer term goals I have for both this site and myself.
- Touch the guitar every day for the month of February
I've honestly gotten really bad about music and the creation of music. What used to be a daily hobby has withered into more of a once every month thing after moving to New York. This city is supposed to be where you push yourself on creative endeavors! And I've hardly pushed myself since leaving BVP and my community of music makers and lovers. I would love to set loftier goals like re-record my EP or publish music, but quite frankly I think those goals are far too lofty. I also want these goals to be goals that are focused on the habit and not the outcome.
If you're reading this at the start of February, I highly recommend you join in me in picking two things you want to focus on this month and try to think of actions/habits you can stick to every day this month. I'm calling it "Floor-it February", though I'm open to better name suggestions (I have yet to make an inbox feature, I imagine everyone reading this has some other direct way to contact me).
Anyways, I think that's enough writing for today. Looking forward to working towards this goal publically; come see my post tomorrow!
[^1]: I debated reversing the order of these numbers to avoid the almost-topical joke, but I realize that once this trend is over, it may go over some readers heads why I'd avoid the natural ordering of 6 to 7. Making a footnote for that... man, I'm the worst!