May Reset With Me

in depth April goal review, lifestyle analytics, habit analysis, + new monthly goals

I’ve been doing monthly resets /plan with mes on my YouTube channel all of 2025 (and intermittently in 2024) and it’s become my primary source of accountability to my goals with my online audience. Given how well they’re received in video format, I thought my Substack audience might enjoy the written breakdown of each month!

Truthfully, all YouTube videos start from scripts aka writing so I’m actually helping myself by committing these thoughts down here first.

I hope these resets give you insight to how and why I stay productive while also serving as an example for you to emulate should you ever need one.

1 Big Picture Progress

2025 goals

I started this year with an ambitious list of goals but I’ve slowly trimmed and refined that list as life has continued to do her thing. The most relevant goals for this year that align with my big picture goals are:

1. Submit Math Modeling Methodology Paper

2. Submit a K01 research grant

3. Attend SMB 2025 Conference

4. Get 50 people in WPP

5. Launch YouTube / Substack Memberships

6. Lose 20 lbs and/or 8 inches off waist

7. Full first draft Aspergillosis ODE Model paper

8. Pay off my Credit Card

9. Post 52 videos on YouTube (1x a week)

10. Grow Substack to 500 subs

11. Write a literature review of math models in endothelial cell research

2025 mission statement:

By the end of 2025, I will be a 2x first-author published postdoc that’s also a fit + productive lifestyle vlogger with consistent monthly revenue and a renewed contract.

Quarterly Goals

To accomplish these goals by the end of the year, I’ve broken them down into quarterly goals. I also filmed a full Q2 reset where I broke them down in detail!

Quarter Two’s goals include:

1. submit math modeling methodology paper

2. first draft / outline of ODE paper complete

3. Monthly 10k step challenge

4. buy my passport

5. limit the scope of my literature review

6. Draft specific aims page of grant idea

7. Post 13 YouTube videos

8. Post 5 paid substack posts

9. Finish reading The Testing book trilogy

April 2025 Goals + Vision Board

🎯 complete math modeling methodology new draft

My P.I’s gave me revisions of my paper in February and the death of my niece distracted me from completing those throughout March. So this month I wanted to prioritize getting through those.

I went through all of my track changes revision notes, edited the minor ones I saw and then wrote out the rest on a separate doc to reference. In my process of updating my ideas and citations, I found a paper that already posits the idea we thought was totally novel. I thought this meant my paper would be scrapped and had to pause or writing to fully break down the find and come up with a new trajectory.

I then did just that: made a presentation to share with my PIs breaking down each section of that paper, addressed their revision concerns, and shared my idea for a new direction. They loved it and applauded my find and said they think it actually makes our argument stronger, especially since the find only has 49 citations.

So could I check this goal as done? I’m gonna say no. I’ve not actually written out this new idea since that meeting with my P.I’s was just a few days ago.

This goal will be pushed to May.

🎯 Complete the 10k step challenge

In community by WPP, I embarked on a 10k step challenge for April. My March steps were the lowest of the year (8k avg) compared to Jan and Feb (10k avg) so I wanted to do a challenge that would help me get my steps back up. 3 members of the club joined me and we checked in everyday on discord.

I personally knocked it out of the park! I met the goal 29/30 days! Woohoo! the day I missed was still around 9,000 steps but I spent that day sitting a lot ( nail appointment, car appointment, + solo movie date.

I’m excited to continue this challenge in May to keep up the momentum!

🎯Post 4 YouTube videos

I record one video a week, a habit I started in 2023, and I post one video a week. My videos are not shared in realtime outside of my resets to help with privacy online. Therefore the videos I recorded this month aren’t all shared this month. My videos are posted at least 2 weeks after the date of recording.

This month I posted:

(1) productive day in the life of a mathematician | phd diaries

(2) the only failure is to never try | SPRING RESET 🌸 weekly vlog

(3) weekly non-negotiables for a productive week | phd reset routine

(4) coming technically in May but this last week of April:

I’m very happy with how these turned out and I’m glad to be in a consistent place again!

Here are 5 of my favorite comments from the past month:

🎯 Post one paid reset on Substack

My primary offering for my paid subscribers on Substack will be these in depth resets both monthly and weekly, allowing me to go into much more detail and share more statistics of my life in real time.

I think I’m going to stay away from promoting or selling products and instead sell access to me and my knowledge. Anyone looking for transparency around life in academia, needing help staying organized, or just nosey asf will be able to see all the chaotic detail by becoming a paid subscriber.

I technically did not post one “paid” post this past month since it was published March 29th, but I did at least let the people know that the membership option is open!

🎯 Apply for my passport

I have not done this yet!

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2 Lifestyle Analytics

Being a mathematician impacts my choices and perspectives in almost every way. I find great clarity and objectivity in numbers and always enjoy the insights revealed from pattern recognition.

One of my favorite things about my channel compared to others is this numerical approach to productivity: instead of saying “I think I met that goal” or “I felt like I did good”, I actually have a numerical measurement of exactly how I did and can therefore compare my days, weeks, and life objectively on top of the subjective.

I hope that my sharing of these techniques highlights to others that math plays a part in every aspect of our lives AND that math is a neglected tool in everyone’s toolbox. So today I’m going to take my math wrench out the productivity toolbox to analyze and then tweak my behavior to optimize my lifestyle system in accordance with my outcomes.

weekly habit analysis:

My four grades for April were a 74 (C) -> 79 (C) -> 72 (C) -> 93 (A). This shows me that I maintained my C level consistency from the end of March and eventually improved by the end of the month. Seeing the grade week to week helps me realize that even though I’m always trying my best, that best looks different week to week - and that’s okay!

monthly habit analysis:

While the weekly grades help me see my progress trend over the month, it’s also important to me to see the snapshot summary of my behavior. This makes it easier to compare months to each other and zoom out to observe a wider pattern. For the 7 habits I track monthly, my adherence to those goals were:

• 10,000 steps: 29/30 days -> 96%

• Strength training: 18/22 days -> 82%

• 100g+ protein: 16/30 days -> 53%

• 7 hours sleep: 20/30 days -> 67%

• 80 -100 oz water: 19/30 days -> 63%

• Reading: 5/30 days -> 16%

• Lymphatic drainage: 20/30 days -> 67%

96+82+53+67+63+16+67 ‎ = 444

444 / 7 ‎ = 63.429%

This means my April adherence grade is 63% which is a D letter grade.

Compared to last month:

I walked more, trained more, slept more, drank more water, did more guasha, and overall stuck to my habits better.

My areas of improvement continue to be eating 100+ G protein daily and developing a daily reading habit.

I am incredibly pleased with this improvement and aim to have at least a B grade for May!

calorie deficit deep dive:

I’m able to know my intake stats because I log them nightly in my excel sheet deficit tracker. In there I track:

• number of hours slept

• total calories eaten

• total calories burned

• grams of protein

• grams of carbs

• ounces of water

• number of steps

• weekly weight

• weekly body measurements

I track these things to observe how my daily health choices impact my weight while also aiming to adhere to a caloric deficit to lose ~1 lb a week. By looking at these totals weekly and monthly, I can better adjust my behavior if the scale or body measurements are trending down. It is my ultimate goal to lose 20 lbs by the end of December and I’m using this excel sheet to keep me honest and aware with myself.

Disclaimer: my metric goals are totally personalized - based on my 6 years of food and weight tracking and considerate of my health conditions like PCOS. Your goals can and should be different than mine, especially if we aren’t built the same or have the same goals.

My April analytics are as follows: