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Thanks for your visit! Agree! Slowly I am adding some activities to my daily arsenal. Cooking healthy stuff, journaling, and friends time are the first contenders. But I appreciate the new ideas, will try slowly and keep you posted!

Day 7: Time I woke up: 10:30am Time I went to sleep yesterday:  11pm Physical task: None Getting more money task: Started sending CVs to get a better job French task: Started passée compose and imparfait, I need to cover one more topic for my target of this wek Music task: None Miscellaneous accomplishments: ~ Started the creation of a new product that will help people getting more job offers, more details to come ~ Stopped the streaming sites so my sleep time is better (midnight vs 3am) Summary of Day #: I decided to change my target in the templates because they better match my objectives for the detox. I decided to send CVS today while doing so I realized that my CV is not the best and I also don't send cover letters. So I decided to create a tool that helps created tailored CVs for job descriptions and cover letters. It should be ready tomorrow, I'll share the link. What I am grateful for today: ~ CursorAI. This tool allowed me to code a full app in a few hours. Is just amazing. ~ Improving at marketing. While developing my new product. I started thinking ahead about how to market it. Game changer for me, I've never done it before.

16th October - Clear Day 5 (Progress) It's the place for it, so I admit to having an addiction dream, where my brother (he used to play my RPG before mainly moving on to others, but came back to try occasionally) listened to me rave about an item/buff that I quickly got on a private server but not the original game. In the dream, he listened excitedly but unless I'm absolutely stupid at reading faces, his mind has now progressed beyond such things where I'm concerned. This was after falling asleep just as dusk settled in (like 7pm) and getting up 12 hours later (briefly awake at 3-4, but couldn't force that or the wait for daybreak at 6), hoping it would be 6am and I'd find myself heading to the park ready to jog. No, all of yesterday's worries either disappeared or waned significantly overnight, and will head out for therapy in a little while. I'm going to try and mention the utterly bored/unmotivated hours in the late afternoon/evening yesterday, but it will probably sound funny because they've all but evaporated this morning. I did try and wake myself up delicately though, and largely succeeded. That's all - merely disappointed again. Back soon, Matt

On my end, I have found it helpful to have activities that can fulfill me in the following areas: Physical health - exercise, walking, planning your meals and making healthy food, etc. Mental stimulation - challenging tasks like projects you're doing, relaxing ones like board games, etc. Spiritual (or mental health) - connecting with nature, meditating, reflecting and journaling, etc. Social and emotional - spending time with your friends and gf, or calling relatives to talk with, etc. I find that I'm more satisfied with my life as I fulfill these areas on a daily basis, to the point where I have greatly lowered my tech (in general) for personal use.

Tue 10.15 (part 1) No compulsive social media use - 13 days No compulsive research - 13 days No passive screen time during work, before bed, nor first thing in mornings - 17 days Today, I deleted a sobriety worksheet "how-to" post that I was planning to post on Reddit at some point; my thought was that it would be after my 90 days of no social media were over. I wrote it about 10 days ago, and had been editing it here and there as I work through the steps. Well, I realize now that it's a fools quest for me to keep it going; it's just toying with the idea of relapsing into compulsive social media use and information research for myself. My intentions for writing it were selfish, to get the "most upvotes" and attention. Yeah maybe it could also provide support to those looking for it, but I can't honestly say that it was the only reason; it would be rationalization and justification for me to throw in that support benefit, however true it may be. The truth is that I felt guilty of keeping it around for just the intention of gaining internet points. Worry not, I still have much of the information on my head. Also through this journal. So the info itself is not lost; it's just not in a document that I was planning to copy-and-paste anymore. And I'm glad I deleted it permanently. ---- I attended the 2-way meeting for ITAA this morning. I revealed that I had altered my goal at this meeting; instead of giving myself a few minutes a day to hop on social media and only during my own time, I shared that this was not great for me and instead changed my goal to cut out all of social media, only keeping some necessary and healthy behaviors. I reached this conclusion because I would otherwise keep thinking about "I wonder who upvoted my posts" or if I was gaining any brownie points for what I posted, and it would feed my distraction constantly. I feel dumb for thinking this way about my internet interactions, but I am glad to have shared there. The support is great to receive. I'm still keeping this forum as an exception, with time limits; not because I'm rationalizing or justifying my use of the internet, but because I have seen real benefits to keeping me journaling and sharing what I learn from ITAA and the 7 Habits. I know I could very well do my journal privately, but I like the fact that putting it online keeps me accountable as well; which is really a benefit that does make sense with tech use. In an earlier entry, I mentioned how I would commit to more outreach and ITAA work, and I have done that. For Wednesday I will be attending the meditation meeting, and for Monday I'll be attending the Top Lines meeting. I identified these days as the most "isolating" ones where I need the most possible support. Thursday and Friday I have 1-1 meetings set up, not necessarily with ITAA but with work; nevertheless I find these can actually fulfill that same role from the ITAA meetings in keeping me connected and gaining insights for improvement. See for e.g. how my manager told me to share the 7 Habits self-assessment results with my wife, which led to some really neat discoveries about where I need to work the most; and my ADHD coach is self-explanatory, as she has guided me to practices and habits that let me stay productive without procrastination or overworking myself.  Things must do each day to stay healthy Sleep around 8h - to bed at 11pm but my son woke up sick in the night 30min later. I went back to bed at 11:45pm, and woke up at 6:30am. So closer to 7h, still counting this as a yes; but I'll go to bed earlier tonight most likely. Stretch - yes, though today I had been doing 50min Pomodoros, but I may have to lower them to 25min depending on the task. Making a note of it here so that I stretch more regularly. Go for walks / Exercise - this morning was real busy, I had to bring back the ECG and then drop my wife + kids at school after that, because my wife was volunteering for a field trip. So we didn't get to work out this morning. I did walk my dogs through the neighborhood in the afternoon for 15min. And I will be doing 3 sets of handstand pushups later today so I can stay on target with my strength training. I'm learning about being flexible, so this isn't upsetting to me, rather it's a good opportunity for me to practice figuring out new things that can work for me when my schedule gets thrown off. @wheatbiscuit I promise you that tomorrow I will try those suggested exercises! Tagging you to keep me accountable 😄 Drink Water - yes, both regular water and carbonated water.  I do have to remember to fill it up more often though, when it's out. I went through a 3h stretch without drinking any water, which is longer than I would like, so this is a note I am making for myself. Wash face + body - not yet, but I will after my handstand pushups tonight Nutrition: breakfast - yes, tuna salad lunch - yes, leftovers (once again; a lot of turkey left) dinner - tbd; my wife has a plan here Talk to my partner - yes, as we headed to drop off the heart monitor together and back to the school for the field trip. She talked to me during lunch about her experience, I'll probably ask her more about it once I'm done work too as it was a short conversation. Talk with my kids + play with them - will do this after they are home and after I'm done work. Read a book - yes, the 7 Habits workbook throughout my breaks. Meditate + deep breaths - yes, at the ITAA meeting. I think I can do better with my meditation ritual in the morning break though. Making a note. Practice French - yes, this morning before work and before leaving home. Maybe more later tonight depending how tired I am. Journal (gratitude and reflection) - my entry is here🙂 ------- 7 Habits Workbook - Developing Proactivity Make it a point to really listen to your language during the next week. Is your language more proactive or reactive? (Day 2) I've been trying to not use the words "I must do this" and rather say that I would "prefer" or "want" something instead. I stopped myself briefly from saying something along the lines of "I have to work out" and instead told my wife that I'd prefer to work out later in the day. I noticed that the statement was received better than I'm used to, she said something along the lines of "yes, we can make that work" rather than me being more aggressive with my wording. So now I get what she means when she has told me before to watch my tone! 🙂 Is there any area of your life you are unhappy about or frustrated by -- family, a relationship, your job? What are you unhappy about or frustrated by? For example, do you feel powerless hopeless, or used? Describe the situation. Haha, this is why I started journaling basically. It's my job; I don't feel like I am being as well performant as I'd like to be. I'm just winding down from the day right now, but even today I felt slow; maybe due to getting those closer to 7h of sleep, or maybe it's just that I felt guilty about that "how-to" post I ended up nuking off my device. Whatever the case, I did feel clearer afterwards, but still frustrated about me keeping it. So maybe not my job necessarily, but how I use my time at my job. I feel that could still be better. What is the stimulus to your frustration or unhappiness? I think it's knowing that I could be better about how I use my time. Procrastination is basically the stimulus. I have to minimize my engagement in middle line behaviors. How do you respond? In the past, by scrolling on my phone, playing some dumb "quick" game on my phone, and generally procrastinating. Which would follow with overworking myself later at night. What other choices might exist between the stimulus and response? Now, I'm instead choosing to be more reflective by journaling here. By breathing, drinking water, and by respecting my breaks off the computer (and off technology) throughout the day. I think it's important to keep that up for myself. MASTER This is something the workbook shares with me, which I'm gonna share here too. It's a sequence of steps to master the moment between a negative stimulus and my response to these events: Measure how important the situation is to you on a scale of 1-5. Assess your initial reaction -- frustation, anger, fear, etc. See the stimulus/response model in your mind. Think about a proactive response. Engage or exit -- use the response you've chosen, or exit the situation. Review your performance to see how proactive you are. I think this is something that I've been doing well. For e.g. with the procrastination issue; Measure - my work is a 5 for me Assess - anxiety and stress for sure See - deadline approaches with either easy or boring work, or hard and unknown todos following Think - a proactive response here would be to "clear the fog" so to speak; to take initiative and follow through Engage or exit - well I can't exit, so it's engage. Start on the next step, at least the "clear the fog" one Review - I think my performance would be much better this way, I would get started on the problem right in the morning rather than delaying it till almost noon. The book is also challenging me to use the MASTER checklist for one week. So this can actually be a top line for me that I can lean on. The book wants me to assess my performance at the end of the week with some questions. So I'll be answering them weekly.