80 Percenting: The Finale!

Hello Nerdfighters!

If you missed my last post, 80 Percenting: Putting it To The Test!, you might want to go check it out before continuing here. This post is a part 2 to my 80 percenting adventure.

As a quick recap, last week I shared my experiences of "80 percenting" things in my daily life. This inspiration came from Episode 101: Knit Like a Mofo of Dear Hank and John. More specifically, in the pod Hank Green made the suggestion that the first 80% of the effort is only 20% of the work, while the last 20% is 80% of the work. In order to test this out, I shared with you 4 instances of implementing this philosophy in my life, but I sort of left you hanging on the last one. I apologize, but I was only following Hank's advice and that meant I could only post 80% of my work.

But, the time has come! Here's my fifth and final attempt (well... sixth if you count 80 percenting the blog) at putting in 80% of the effort into my daily chores.



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5. Getting Dressed

For my final task, I had to do something a little more uncomfortable. When I was discussing my ideas for this project with one of my friends, she suggested that I wear 80% of my clothing, so I can't take total credit here. However, if I were just doing this test at home for the day, I wouldn't particularly see this as a challenge, so I decided to think of ways I take the idea further: with clothing.

For this test, I separated my clothing into 5 general articles, each being worth 20% of an outfit : Shirts, Pants, Socks, Shoes, and Jackets. In order to maximize the test and minimize the number of weird looks from people on campus, I decided to remove my socks for 2 days, thus eliminating 20% of my outfit. Now I know this doesn't seem like a big deal, and to be honest I thought the same, but I was wrong. Very wrong. 

5.1 Day One

Day One was a Friday. On Fridays I have class from 11 AM - 2 PM, so my test ran about 3 hours. On that day, there was a high of 56°F and low of  39°F, which isn't terrible, but there was also a chance of rain, so I took a big risk.

To be honest, Day One wasn't the worst, my feet were a bit chilly and I had little red markings from the creases inside of my shoes by the end of the day, nothing too major. But I encountered a different, unexpected outcome...

You know the phenomenon where someone says "I bet you weren't aware of your breathing until now" or "Think about how you're blinking" and then you immediately become super conscious of your typically unconscious actions? (I apologize if I just made this happen to you...) Well, as it turns out, removing your socks while wearing shoes meant to be worn with socks does the same thing, except for your feet. I had never been more aware of the position of my toes or feeling of wearing shoes until those three hours. I honestly couldn't stop thinking about it. To try to counteract this uncomfortable feeling, I caught myself fidgeting and moving my feet around much more than usual. This probably enhanced the presence of the little red marks all over my feet by the end of the first day.

5.2 Day Two

On Day Two, my only excursion was to the grocery store, but it was quite the adventure for my feet. Primarily because it was storming. Now, I'm used to rain, especially in the town I'm currently in, but it hardly ever "storms" here. So I really feel like the universe was trying to elevate this experiment much more than I could have planned for.

The first thing I noticed is that one of the marks on my toes from the first day's excursion hadn't healed yet, so it was a little painful to put my shoes back on. But nonetheless, I set out for Target in my trusty sneakers and no socks, and hoped for the best. By the time I walked in from the parking lot, my feet were completely soaked. So this time, not only was I hyper-conscious of my feet, now they felt like a damp popsicle.

Walking around the store wasn't terrible, but definitely unpleasant. However, I did run across these two fun John Green displays in the book section and it made me remember just why I was doing this whole experiment in the first place. So that helped a lot. But regardless, as I went throughout the store, the general sticky, wet feeling inside my shoes continued to remind me how much of a bad idea this was.

Overall, this last task was definitely the least fun to attempt in my 80 percenting journey. However, it was quite humbling and I now appreciate the warmth and comfort of socks more than ever. Although it wasn't a radical change, its one I wouldn't recommend if at all possible. Oh, and if you do decided to try it, make sure its not raining. That was a mistake.

And that's all for now! What activities would you like to try 80% of the way? What was your favorite that I tried? Let me know in the comments or on Twitter @rehankandjohn!

And as always, let me know if there's any other dubious advice from Dear Hank and John that you'd like me to research or test out in my own life!

DFTBA,

Liana