AlexTheGrape

The past couple days I got some decent studying done. I'm not getting to bed as early as I probably should. I'll have to focus on being in bed by 11pm. The school style routine kinda went out the window when I started doing practice exams. I need to make a two week plan of where I want to be in terms of my exam study, that'll put how much work I need to do into perspective. I haven't been exercising every mornung, but I'm starting to incorporate running into my study schedule to keep focussed.

Today has been a useless day in terms of studying, but it wasn't bad overall. I took a friend to the supermarket and went to go print some wallpapers for the flat, which I've been meaning to do for a while. I then studied for about 2-3 hours before heading to the gym for a really decent workout. I then went to support a friend at a comedy play they were part of. I didn't get anywhere near as much study done as I needed to, so tomorrow I;m going to restart my self-disciplined school-style study routine where I stick to the schedule I would have had at high school. This worked for me in my last study leave and will still work now. I'll also start the day with a quick run, which will be necessary to get me going quickly.

Hi again friends! I'm just about halfway through my second year of university now, and things are going alright academically. I'm still working out which has been good out of that, but I'm facing the issue again that I'm not growing as a person and am lacking clear direction. I'm happiest when I feel I'm consistently working towards a meaningful goal and challenging myself. Lately I've been sticking inside my comfort zone a lot, which isn't good at all. First things I wish to change: I want to be exercising every morning, improve on my sleeping habits, phone usage, study more effectively, and waste less time. Daily reflection is a necessary part of not making the same mistakes over and over, so I'm returning here to have greater accountability to do so. I've only played some 10 or so hoirs of video games this year. I don't seem to find it very exciting anymore, and they now seem a little pointless. Recently I've been getting into reading more, and am loving reading The Maze Runner. Today I'm going to schedule studying time and break time, and make sure to get 6-8 hours of studying done. As always, feel free to leave a comment or another way to prod me if I haven't posted in a while!

Thank you Cam for your continuous and tireless support for myself and all the other game quitters. I've become a much better person with your guidance?

Thanks Hitaru! I hope you end up great places as well.

It's been a while! I think I'll make a post here for some self reflection and forever wishes to look. My holidays have been going relatively well, I've been working hard to earn money, keeping fit, and I've made sure to catch up with friends. I certainly could see more friends I haven't seen in a while, but I'm relatively happy with how I've spent my time. I have been gaming for a few months now and it has been good. I managed tk keep it at a healthy level and only play a couple times a week, and sometimes not at all during the week. It has been a great journey on Game Quitters, and I've learned a lot about myself along the way. This may be goodbye, but I hope to continue a journal here if I feel incmined once university starts again. Bye for now Game Quitters!

Nice! I wouldnt expect you to come here just for the run. What length of run are you wanting to do? Message me pls

Quick update: Sunday went well without games, and I haven't gamed since then. I spent more time with my brothers and did some reading. I've come to realise the nature of my relationship with games, and it simply reflects how I gamed before I quit. I was not addicted to games as I find it manageable to simply not play any, but I just played a lot when I have nothing better to do and no urgent tasks that need doing. I may also be naturally drawn to fantasy types of things as I find it fun to play tabletop games such as Magic the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons. Even the books I love most are about adventure in fictional worlds. Hence I won't reprimand or try to change myself for desiring these things. So far my week has gone well, I'm currently working full-time hours some 3-4 days a week. I've been spending a good amount of time with my girlfriend, but I should catch up with some of my friends sometime soon. I managed to sort out some of my previous tasks, but I am still short on goals at the moment. I talked to some family and it seems I'm not expected to have any big goals or achieve anything for the world to see, as I'm only a human after all. I don't wish to live a life of mediocrity, but it is comforting to know that I don't need to be constantly working myself to the bone. What does this mean? I'll be enjoying life as much as I can by having everything in moderation.

This looks great! I'll definitely ask around. Were you coming to NZ for it or something?

Exams are over. They have been for some two weeks now! A lot of change has happened in the meantime. When my holidays started I spent a lot of time reading and I made sure to go to the gym the normal amount. I spent a decent amount of time with my girlfriend. I started to do some full-time construction work to fill in my time, whilst also doing my part-time job. For the better or worse, I started gaming again. I believe it came of running out of interesting books and I then wanted something fun and easy to fill my time, so I grabbed the lowest hanging fruit. I'm sure there are many more underlying problems which I need to address, so I need to do that very soon. It'd likely trace back to not having any long-term goals at the moment, I'm not visualising, etc. I let a couple people know that I'm going to play no games tomorrow to see how it goes. I'll likely continue going cold turkey afterwards, but I'll have to see. Tomorrow I'm going to: Sort out my immediate tasks I need to do Make a few calls and do some reflection to figure out what I really want out of life (I'm finding it rather vague right now) Create SMART goals according to what I want to accomplish. Set goal time limits which I'll keep here for accountability Set up measures to keep myself accountable (e.g. daily alarm for GQ posting) From my repeated experiences with relapse, I've found that posting daily during the holidays is essential for my productivity and wellbeing. It may not be necessary when time is sparse during exams and such, but throughout the year I should be reflecting daily and keeping myself accountable for taking the more difficult but more beneficial actions.

Last week has been an ok week in terms of productivity. During the uni days I went to the gym twice which was not ideal, but I made decent use of my time and ensured that I met my deadlines. In the weekend I had a couple dilemmas and effected my ability to study somewhat, I didn't get much work done as a result. This week I need to give my coursework and studying full priority, even cutting down on gym time if necessary to meet the exams as prepared as I can be.

Last week has been intense! I had another two tests and managed to get through the week well. I've been trying to achieve my highest during the tests, but in doing so I have been slightly behind in lectures. I'm pretty much caught up now though. I need to make sure I do these reflections on a Sunday, as I otherwise forget until I can hardly remember what I did during that week. I worked plenty of hours for my jobs, it is getting to be a lot to juggle though. I didn't spend very much time with my uni friends and instead spent a lot with my girlfriend. Its not a bad choice, but I need to be aware that friendships require consistent maintenance. I'm feeling good in general though, which is the best I could hope for in exam season. I only have two weeks until my exams are over! I haven't been meditating or anything like that, I am just not convinced enough that it helps me enough for it to be a priority. Perhaps because I'm doing regular exercise and progeamming I am already getting a good rest. Looking to my upcoming summer holidays, it seems like getting a temporary full-time job would be good to make use of my time, however I do want a bit of a holiday, so I won't rush into it.

I'm glad you enjoy it haha. Thanks for letting me know

@Cam Adair Will the meetup be on the 14th in Sydney near the same time as the show? I'm looking to buy flights right now.

Last week has been another blast of busyness. I did well to arrange my week days so that I didn’t have any clashes, but I made a couple of poor choices in how I spent my time during the week. I spend a little too much time with my girlfriend when I should have been studying or going to robotics, and I believe I’ve learned from those experiences. I need to keep my sleeping and studying routine consistent throughout the weekend during these important exam times, as it really messes me up when I stay up too late and get up too late. In general it has been a good and very busy week, and I know the workload will only ramp up from here. One of my pen pals wrote to me asking if we were still pen pals anymore, as I haven’t sent a proper email to any of them this year. It has made me feel a little sad and guilty that I haven’t put in the time to write to them, but it also shows that I’ve had a change in priorities. I initially wrote to my pen pals in the school holidays as I’d have a lot of free time, and it was a good way to keep myself from gaming. Now I am able to meet all my wants and needs without gaming or writing to people which is really good. It is hard to tell but I think I am happier than I used to be in general. Anyhow I will need to narrow down my active pen pals I write to down to just one or two, as I will simply be living my own life from now instead of reciting it.

Here's my weekly reflection: This week has gone really well. I managed to do fairly well to get studying done where it is needed, however I'm a little lacking in a couple papers. I made sure to get help when I needed it, and I did a good job of tutoring and working at the restaurant. Staying at university to get studying done has been helpful on the couple of days which I did do it, but I'm going to need to try a little harder on the weekend to study longer. I did however manage to get in intense exercise between 50min sessions whilst studying, which really helped me keep alert and engaged. I've been getting up consistently at 6am which has been great, and I've been trying harder than ever at the gym - things are going superb. My relationship is going very well, I could say I have a girlfriend now. I really think everything can only get more intense around the board, as exams are coming up and I'll be more pressured for time. I wasn't consistent with visualisation, I'll need to continue that. I'm going to stick with the weekly posts now, as I simply don't have the time every day to be writing a long post; every minute of spare time I can muster needs to be put towards my studies and social life.

I don't think I am currently, but I'll look into it

Doing improv sessions sounds interesting, I didn't know about them! You're absolutely right about the unpredictability of life vs. the predictability of video games. Keep at it, the results will come in time

What an awesome story! I hope you learnt a lot from hanging out with Cam and the surfers. I hope the relapse wasn't significant, and all the best for getting back on track socially. Great to see you're doing such in-depth reflections too!

Nice journal layout Looks like things are going well for you, keep it up man! Sounds like you had a good night out, and even better you could loosen up. Don't let it bother you if you can't do that all the time though, not everyone is suited to partying all the time

Well done! What kind of activities are you doing to replace gaming right now? If there aren't any, it may be a good idea to sort that out before a relapse can occur. All the best!

Here is how I set myself some goals (which I use to visualise). I asked myself questions about my past, current self, and desired future self to determine what was important to me to work on. I brainstormed how these areas can actually be worked on, and I circled the ones that would be a good fit. I then decided on something tangible I can achieve this week for each of the three areas, so that I have something to reflect and check on at the end of the week. The quality of these photos isn't that great, but it should at least show that creating meaningful goals can be done in less than 30 minutes!

Today has been a great day at uni. I got up at my new usual time of 6am to get to uni early, and I managed to get some good studying time in. I gymed today too, as well as tutored a student for an hour. I was surprised to find how easy it was to make visualisation goals for myself with the right tools. I also meditated and visualised, both of which I haven't done for a long while. I think it certainly helped me out when tutoring this evening. I knew that I needed to make some as I hadn't had any concrete goals for the past few months, if not the whole year. I'll likely upload a photo of how I set them too. Now that I have visualisation goals, I can visualise where I want to be, and remind myself of what my goals are. I've made them into weekly tasks too, that way they're achievable and measurable. If I look back at my previous goals, they were quite unrealistic. I wanted to have started my own community group by about March this year, but I never got anywhere close. I need to develop my social skills and leadership skills heaps before I attempt anything like that, which has been why I've been doing quite a bit of leadership stuff this year. Tomorrow I want to continue my success, and make sure to make moves on achieving my weekly goals.

You're quite right, I should definitely do that. I think posting daily would be best even if it does take a little more time, and taking a photo gives that option. Thank you for the suggestion!

The past week has yet again been a blur of activity, but it has been a lot different to any other week this year. I went on another date (same girl as before) which went very well, it was by far the best I’ve had before. We’ve been spending lots of time hanging out and studying together this week, and has been a really nice way to get through the week. I’ve also been getting up at 6am every day (with the exception of yesterday) which has lent me heaps more time to do my best at the gym and have extra study time before my first lectures of the day. I’m finding that doing journaling is currently a good reflection tool weekly, as I’m already evaluating how I’m doing on a daily basis in my daily planner (however not in word format). I feel this is working pretty well, as the only real things I need to be evaluating on a daily basis is how much work I’ve done, and how I can be more productive. I think I’ll only need to do extra posts during the week if things go particularly bad or some other reason for reflection. Now my goal is to do my journaling activities (i.e. gratitude journal, amazing thing that happened, meditation, visualisation, goal setting) on a daily basis but tracking them on paper since I’m not going to be journaling here every day.