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This! Sign of a parent and the inevitable running out of patience You can get apps that speed up the playback of audiobooks/podcasts if that helps. I usually have my podcasts on 2.0x speed and audiobooks on 2.5x speed. I think you can go all the way up to about 5.0x, but I sincerely doubt anyone would be able to understand that! I've battled a fair bit with anxiety if you want to talk about it!

Kia Ora bro!

Hi MrJorgan. Greetings from the down under state!

I think you would get a lot of benefit from spending time away from your phone!

Think of the amount of influence you could have to the open source community! Thanks to people like you I have the ability to even be online right now. The thought that something you have created is having a tangible impact on someone (or thousands) of people's lives would be amazing.

Why not an artefact that would gain value over time rather than a money-sink like a car? That way you are striving and shaping that competitiveness while still preparing your future. A house is an obvious choice, but another and cheaper option could be art, shares, collectibles, etc.

@Vlad is right about this one (I think) - the sugars are processed differently in your body, and I think it has something to do with the fibre of the fruit. I probably should do some more research into this. Like apples and bananas are supposed to be slow release energy rather than the sugar rush of refined sugar. Again, need to do some research to confirm or deny (fake news). I don't realise how little sugar I have in my diet until I have something with it in it and I get a huge rush to my head. The different is I don't like it at all, it makes me restless and gives me a bad feeling on my teeth. That's why I gave up soda, not because I didn't like the taste (I would almost kill for a dr pepper at this point), but because I could feel the amount of sugar just sitting in my gut, and I would drink about 3 litres of water after one can of soda to try and dilute that feeling. Mate if you keep losing weight like that, you will be wearing medium clothes before you know it!

I know that feeling with a young family! Try to think about what else you could use your time on the commute for - sleeping, listening to podcasts, or researching how you can better support/help your kid!

07 Aug 17 Days to go: 252 That's not what I meant @Mettermrck, or at least that is not the intention behind what I am doing. What I meant was I tend to keep myself preoccupied, before it was with gaming, and now it is with studying, but she would see the same outcome. It is not to avoid my wife, more the fact of I hate being idle. I'll spend lots of time with her, as long as we are doing something. If it's a sit around and talk kind of day or activity, I get bored very quickly. There are occasions that I will avoid her - but that is usually if we are having an argument and she is getting emotional about it or I am angry. In both of those situations, talking isn't going to help until either of us calm down. Well I am officially on the other side of the online debate. That was far more intense than I was expecting or what I had mentally and intellectually prepared for. I think I achieved my aim of being the dominant debater though, when the debate closed last night I had given the final say on the last 6 discussions. Might not have meant much to other people, but it meant a lot to me. So where to from here? I need to summarise my posts into an essay and submit that by Friday. Then I have a break for a few days, lo and behold I will be able to enjoy the weekend! I might have to come up with something fun to do with the family away from my desk. I would also like to get back to my electronic projects at least for a few hours. I have a white noise maker to finish for my son at a minimum. Even though the debate is finished, this week is not going to be any easier than the last. On top of my usual work and standing in for a colleague, I have a work trip to attend a workshop for two days on Thursday/Friday, so I need to have everything in order before that flight. It feels like it never ends, always being so busy, so hectic, but to be honest, I am not sure if I would have it any other way. If I do start to slow down or get idle, I tend to insert something or look for something to add in order to get myself busy again. Must just be how I am wired, and I doubt I am unique in that case! Sold a few more things around the house on eBay, doing my bit for decluttering! Was having a great conversation with my brother last night about how much money is wasted just on things and how eventually we grow to resent them for their clutter or the hassle of having to pack them and move them around. Think how much better of people would be or how much less they would have to work if they followed the minimalist path, or even if they don't want to follow the minimalist path if they at least just really stop and challenged why they are buying things. It definitely is a challenge trying to do it as a family, but that won't stop me giving it a go! Grateful corner Online courses. While distance mode was a thing back when I attended university in the early 00s, it has come along in leaps and bounds now to the point where I would question why you would need to attend lectures these days. If I wasn't able to study through the online format I wouldn't be able to further myself like I am now. I can set my own hours, choose which deadlines I want, go at the pace I want, and not feel disadvantaged at all. In fact, because I am a self-starter (got a score of 98% on my last personality test), I find it much easier and much more rewarding. Now that I am not trying to prioritise video games over studying as well, I can't wait to do more courses. I have been bitten by the learning bug again and it feels great.

It's a lot of fun to do the show!

If I find I meet my aims for the day really early on, then I start thinking about what I want to achieve tomorrow. Is there anything you can do to make those aims easier? Can you start them now? For example, if you finish your typing early in the day and are trying to find something else to do, would clearing your desk make it easier to focus? If so, get your desk sorted so that tomorrow's lesson is easier to focus on. Do some chores so that tomorrow your mind will be clear and in the flow.

06 Aug 17 Days to go: 253 Baby steps @Mettermrck! I remember a line back from when I was going through my gym phase, it was something along the lines of "there is no point in trying to go too hard, because then you won't be here for weeks while you recover". Obviously I am paraphrasing as I can't remember the exact line, but what I took away from it was as long as you were turning up, you were making progress. When I have those days where normally you would make excuses, such as not feeling well or tired or just couldn't be bothered, I still force myself to run, but I'll accept a slow jog instead, because I'll tell myself "It's ok, as long as you're here". I think the same when I see people struggling on a jog or something, normal people would say "look at that sucker, he's exhausted, he is not fit at all", but I would say to myself "at least they showed up today". When you switch to running, initially your only milestone should be that you're running, rather than a time or distance. Over time as you practice more and more those milestones will come, just focus on turning up. Someone asked me last week what my desired time is for the 16km city2surf next weekend, and my response was "to have a time". I just want to finish. Now don't get me wrong, I will push myself, but the fact that I am turning up and will finish is a success in my books. Same for the marathon. So my alarm literally was just going off for 20 straight minutes. That's how long it took for me to wake up and get moving today. In my defence, I ran the longest distance I have ever in my life yesterday - I managed to get 26.6km. I was aiming for 20-25km, basically any distance longer than last weekend of 20km, so when I hit the 12km mark and I hadn't turned around yet to start coming home, I knew I was going to crush it. Averaged a 6:30min km throughout too, which means I would of been around 39 minutes in front of the slow bus. When I checked my app when I got home, I realised there is only 2 more long runs before the marathon, as the last two weeks are a combination of lots of rest and short jogs. I feel like I need more time! The 22km mark was really hard and the last 4 minutes felt like that they took me an hour, and in reality I would still have another 20 kilometres to go. I am not sure with just two more long runs that my legs will be ready for that. But then I guess if I got to choose when I did the marathon rather than aiming for this deadline, then I would never do it, as I would just keep training and training. Only 19 hours left on the online debate. I only did one post yesterday, spent the rest of the time trying to research my response to a question from another lead. I don't feel like I will do enough in this online debate, I wanted to have more comments, but ultimately I prioritised other tasks this week and had that panic attack. It is really difficult to try and jam everything in each day right now! I am really puzzled how I even managed to play games before, because even if I wanted to in the last few weeks I wouldn't have been able to fit it in. But that is why I started down this path anyway, there was so much I was trying to achieve every day, week or month, that wasn't being achieved because I was choosing to game instead. The result was feeling guilty, feeling regret, feeling anger towards myself. Now I don't feel any of that, and while I don't yet feel any pride or sense of accomplishment, I do have some tangible results from trying. Plus when I get asked what I got up to on the weekend I get to say something more interesting than "just sat on my computer" or need to make something up. Almost finished "My Life in Parts" by Bryan Cranston. Such a powerful book, and shows how much effort goes into the lead up to landing a big role. His determination was inspirational as well, once he had set his mind to become an actor, there was no length he would not go to in order to get his desired end state. I need to channel that. I think with all this talk about Arnie, I might have to read his autobiography next. Grateful corner My wife. Sounds cheesy right? The time that I am putting into running and my studies this year could be comparable to the amount of time I spent just sitting in front of my computer playing games. So to her probably nothing has changed, I am still here not interacting with her, I am still getting agitated when she wants me to do other things, such as spend time with my family, even though it might be for different reasons (annoyance/frustration back then, stress/anxiety now). Still, through all that, she pushes on and deals with it. She does everything she can to support me, giving me peace and quiet so I can focus, or making dinner or doing my washing. I really doubt I am returning the effort she is putting in, and I don't know how I'll ever make it up to her. I have faith that I'll work it out one day, preferrably sooner rather than later.

The only stupid question in life is "who does this name tag belong to?"

Glad you could just dismiss those thoughts! Your self awareness is really high, which is great!

05 Aug 17 Days to go: 254 @Vlad - great question, but I am not planning on it! They usually give out little medallions when you cross the finish line, so there is that. I have quite a few of them now. One day I plan on making like a pin up board where I can display them all. I saw a picture of a board someone made out of some old floorboards and some industrial hooks. If I can find it in my phone I'll post it later. So yesterday was a very relaxing day, which is what I needed. Didn't achieve much in the end but I wasn't aiming to be super productive so I wasn't upset about it. It has been a couple of intense weeks so I just wanted to survive the day! Hopefully that has recharged my batteries and I'm now ready to achieve a lot today. I need to - only 40 odd hours left in the debate and I haven't posted for a while so I need to get back in there and throw some digital punches. Ever since I sent the Arnie down/up video to @Mettermrck I have been watching a lot of inspirational videos on youtube. I have never been into those but watching some over the last two days has given me a "feel good" vibe, so I will keep using them out the moment. Good old Arnie is a funny guy, but Terry Crews also has some great videos. Today I hope is the 25km run day. I am feeling a bit flat this morning so I will need to perk up by the afternoon to try it. Maybe some bacon and tea will help! I am a bit embrassed to admit I was thinking about playing Pokemon yesterday. I did enjoy the competitive scene of it regardless of the target audience, maybe because I began playing the original Red/Blue back in the day and enjoyed the strategic nature of building teams and movesets. Anyway some peers were talking about it and it got me thinking of how I was getting heavily into the competitive scene around regionals here and I was having a lot of fun. It got me wondering if I will ever go back to games socially, and I still think I probably will not. I have a lot of good memories about playing consoles socially at people's houses, but I think there are still a lot other great activities I could do with them instead. I always wanted to get more and more into Monopoly, for example, though that generally makes some tense moments if you play with friends! Got my "cloud" storage up and running now - so my phone automatically backs up to one of my Pis whenever I take photos or change files. What motivated me to finally get it working is when my phone crashed yesterday and all I could think about is losing all the photos and videos of my son. This should avoid that possibility for now - though I need to tweak some settings and boost the security. I will focus on that after a run and debate posts. I wonder i there is random online debates that you can get involved in? Not your standard flame wars that occurs in comment threads, but organised digital debates. Grateful corner: Open source software. Without costing me a cent I have my own cloud service running at home, and not only do I save cash on not needing to buy software, but now I can avoid the service fee - I think I was paying about $100 for Dropbox. The sheer amount of online support for setting things up properly is always so humbling and makes me feel bad for not being able to give back to the community. I will figure out a way to do my bit eventually.

03 Aug 17 Days to go: 256 Today's post was brought to you by getting out of the funk. My favourite part was the "hello" at the end Alright so I think I have my shit back together after what I assume was a little panic attack. I am still the only one throwing punches on my side of the online debate but I am just getting on with it. I think I was stressing out because I was comparing myself to the lead of the opposing side of the argument or getting angry at my debate partner for basically disappearing instead of just getting on with it, just focusing on what I am doing. So what if my posts aren't perfect, so what if you don't feel like your comments lack the punch that others do, as long as I am doing it and getting on with it. Each post and each day gets me closer to the debate being over and going back to focusing on my essay. As for my bills - I'll deal with those. The biggest one went away which I am really pleased about, a right place right time kind of moment. One of the others came in at half what I expected which only leaves one big one ahead of me. It's not due for another month or so, so here is to working that out somehow. Pushed myself really hard in my run today as a result as well. My average time per km is now down to consistently the 5:30 mark, which I am super happy with. I think I only have about two or three more chances of running long distances before I should start resting for the marathon, so now is the time to push it. I know now I am going to finish the marathon. I'm going to crush the first 20-25km, then I will just do what it takes to finish from there. I am getting excited about it again now instead of worried or stressed, so now I just need to stay healthy. Decided I think I can only last about 6 odd weeks before I need a break from work - whether that be just one day or longer. I should of exploited the holidays from my study to take some long weekends with the family or something to recharge. I haven't had any days off since Vegas and it is beginning to show in my work and life, so need a bit of a kickstart or reset. Lets finish with Arnie after I sent Bob a link to watch his videos - "I wanted to make sure that I used all 24 hours of the day. I did not want to waste a single hour. People say they don't have time. Yes you do, you make the time."

When you're posing in the mirror, make sure this is playing in the background

Instead of spending time in the rest of the house, what about maybe going outside? Is the weather good where you are to either go for a walk, or just sit outside and watch the world go by? You'll still get the same urges and thoughts if you remain in the same environment.

What is Miracle Morning?

Some silver linings, two of the massive bills I thought I had coming my way are not going to happen, which is great news. That has lifted a lot of pressure off of me mentally. Still haven't worked out my debate partner issue, I am sleeping so poorly at the moment I won't have the energy to focus on it now. Grateful corner: The Art of Charm Podcast. Listened to a great episode today where they said "Argue like you're right, listen like you're wrong." So are some amazingly smart people out there, and they give up their time and wisdom for free, just like those guys. I have been reflecting on that comment all afternoon, contemplating putting it up in my office, something that a lot of people I work with could learn from!

You begin life with nothing, and you leave life with nothing, so what have you lost? Nothing!

02 Aug 17 Days to go: 257 So I am posting early today because I am STRESSED the fark out and getting it off my brain might help. I am stressed out because of the amount of bills coming up that I need to pay and I can't really afford them and eat at the same time, but the main thing I am stressed about is this freaking online debate I need to do for my studies. I front loaded it in the semester to get it out of the way and I am now thinking that was a massive mistake. I chose the for argument because I thought it would be easier, boy oh boy was I wrong. Not only is it really hard to find credible sources to back my arguments, but my debate partner is not helping at all. I keep reading her opening argument to try and find something to agree with, to give her some confidence to come out swinging, but I can't find anything, which is why I am stressed out here. Her argument just makes no sense. As a result, nobody has touched her argument and are instead going after mine like bees to a flower. I am sure the silver lining here is that I have presented a strong case, but I am heavily outnumbered and receiving some well researched rebuttles. I simply don't have the time to keep up with the reading needed to stay in the debate at the moment with my hectic home life. So I can't sleep, have been waking up constantly since 2am, all the words on my screens are blurring into one and I need to start work in an hour. Fantastic. Right, hopefully that helped a little, and I can get on with my day. I'll revisit later for my gratitude section.

01 Aug 17 Days to go: 258 So today was another crazy day. A lot done, but not the stuff I would really like to get done. I break down my to do list each day into "priority A" and "priority B". Lately I have been getting about 3-4 items off the priority A complete, which means I transfer 3-4 things to the same list the following day. It makes me a bit disappointed seeing me write the same things over again, but right now I can't see a way around it. My work day is peppered with personnel problems that I spent the majority of my time trying to sort out, and then my train of thought is broken. But, I did manage to get 2 more study submissions done this morning before work. They are 200 words each so not very big, but I like making sure I have done some extra research for each one, even if it is only one journal article to read. I was hoping to work on another 2 today during the day but the opportunity never arose. This may be why I am a bit down as per above paragraph. One great thing I did discover today is how to set up alerts/rules in outlook. I think email is a very incorrectly or inefficiently used tool, and the more I am mastering these tricks with my inbox I think the better my work flow is. Today I set up some alerts that would automatically move my sent emails to folders based on their subjects, so it should save me a few minutes a day from opening up my sent folder and moving them myself. If I can keep finding these little alerts/rules and save minutes here and there, I might be able to carve an extra hour out of my work routine. Listened to the Productivity Show today where they were talking about Journalling. The biggest thing that stood out to me was the fact that it is yet another source that says I should be putting in a "grateful for" section to force some reflection on the positive side of life. One of the presenters was on my train of thinking though by saying don't force yourself to try and find a certain amount (3 in his case) of points to be thankful for. If you only have one, then only write one, but try to break it down to 3 different aspects that may make up that one topic. I'll see how I go today. Rested from running today for a couple of reasons. First is I couldn't remember when was the last day I had a rest from running, assuming 5-6 days, and I could feel my back tensing up which is usually a good sign to have a break. Plus I felt a bit flat today, probably a combination of not really having a clear mind at work, not getting very good sleep lately and feeling a bit stressed about my personal life. I feel confident I will be ready to hit it again tomorrow. Grateful Section: Having my own office. The flexibility to be able to close my door to have personal conversations with either my team or my mates on the phone, or to disconnect myself from the work environment if I am feeling frazzled and need a reset, is underrated. This is the first time I have had this experience in its true form and it is great, I don't want to give it up. It also lets me have a little bit of my own space at work, a spot where I can put my teas, snacks, or notes up on the wall without impacting anyone. It's not a massive corner office like everyone seems to aspire to, but it's tucked away in a position that most people from other departments couldn't be bothered walking to see me, so I am left to my own devices most of the time.

The Productivity Show by Asian Efficiency released a great episode I recommend today. How Journaling Cam Make You 25% Happier (TPS154) Listened to it today at work and had to pause a few times to jot down a few notes on what they were saying. If you're struggling to stay motivated to journal, it will help you a lot. I will be incorporating the "thankful for" section in my journal, as it is yet another source that recommends reflecting on the day for things you are thankful for.

Don't forget to push for a man cave! Compulsory in every home.