Experimonth 2010
Last year about this time, my colleagues Larry and Erin told Beck about their experiment with the diet of corn (eat nothing but corn for a week and see what happens). Several other co-workers were interested in doing a similar experiment with raw food, and Beck created Experimonth.
I love Experimonth for many reasons. I think it’s a great alternative to new year’s resolutions - rather than trying to do (or not do) a bunch of new things all at once, you can pace yourself throughout the year. I also think it’s a great way to try something that you may not want to do forever, but would not do otherwise (that’s why I participated in Movember this year). I like that I learned a lot about myself - I found it much easier to give up old habits (smoking, alcohol, fast food) than to start new habits (walking, taking photos, doing pushups). I love that it’s only for a month, but I can then choose if I want to continue.
Most of all, I love the simplicity and adaptability of experimonth. The rules are simple:
1) Pick something to try, and form a hypothesis about what will happen
2) Be honest about your progress and observe the results
That’s it. During the January experimonth, I chose not to officially participate by eating only raw food for the month, but I did give up fast food for the month. You choose which months you want to participate, and whether you want to share your results with the world or keep them to yourself.
Beck has graciously allowed me to take over Experimonth for 2010, and I’m going to follow her lead in crowdsourcing what the months will be. I’ve set up a place for you to make suggestions and vote on your favorites. I’ve put 9 ideas up there - feel free to vote for those or add your own and vote for them. If you’d like to participate, return to experimonth.com in January and check out what we’re doing each month.
p.s. One thing that we found was that doing something every day can be burdensome - even if it’s as much fun as writing a haiku. While I personally like the self-improvement aspect of experimonth, it’s not necessarily intended to be all about that. In fact, something like “try a different flavor of ice cream daily” is a perfectly acceptable suggestion. Help me make this interesting and fun!
