Jump to content

NEW VIDEO: The EASIEST Way to Stop Gaming

super_seabass

Members
  • Posts

    10
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Recent Profile Visitors

The recent visitors block is disabled and is not being shown to other users.

super_seabass's Achievements

Newbie

Newbie (1/14)

5

Reputation

  1. @WorkInProgress - yes, Vim is a good starting point for any adventures on Linux. But Vim by itself is not as good as a lot of the IDEs for C++. At the very least I think you'd want to use ctags with Vim--but I don't have much experience with C++ in general so there may be better Vim-based solutions out there. You could also consider taking the opposite approach: most IDEs (including Eclipse and IntelliJ) have plugins to support Vim keybindings, so you could install one of those in your IDE of choice to try it out. The plugins usually only support a limited amount of Vim commands, but that is actually pretty nice because it feels like less stuff to learn right away. As for the journal, I wanted to catch up on the days I missed. I'm still doing well with the detox. Friday night we ended up having dinner with friends and falling asleep early. Then Saturday was my designated "free-form" day. We did the German class and ran some errands. Then my wife really wanted me to watch Stranger Things (starting with Season 1) so we had that on most of the afternoon while I researched and experimented with a few programming languages to pick my "next" one. I've been weighing a lot of different options, including Rust, Nim, Haskell, OCaml, Idris and some JVM-based languages like Groovy, Scala, Kotlin and Clojure. Ultimately I picked Clojure, not because the other languages were bad but because I wanted to stick to something JVM-based so I could potentially use it when building prototypes at work. Clojure seems like the best fit for this purpose. Sunday included the gym, cooking soups for the week, mowing the lawn and making dinner. There was some other miscellaneous stuff in there too (like laundry), it ended up being a pretty full day. But it felt good: on many Sundays I'd write out a plan for the day and then tell myself I could spare an hour for gaming before I got started. Then I'd end up gaming for way more than an "hour" and getting half the things I wanted done (or even less), and feeling bad about it at the end of the day. So first weekend of detox = success! Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday has been mostly work, the gym and cooking dinner, with some programming tool research during my breaks. I also got a couple more of the Respawn videos in. My energy levels have been really high, but almost uncomfortably so--like I'm not doing enough to spend it all. Maybe it's a subtle form of anxiety that Cam has alluded to in the videos. Going a little harder in the gym has helped burn it off but I also don't want to overdo things and find myself swinging the other way towards fatigue or depression, so I'm being cautious. Overall though I'm still feeling great, and I'm still really grateful that I decided to detox and found this program! I see a positive future stretching before me rather than the "get through it" slog it felt like before. For anyone who's reading, what is your strategy for sticking with journaling? I enjoy it and I've been finding a lot of value in it already, but it only seems to make sense to do at the end of the day and that's the problem. Many times that means choosing between going to bed on-time or staying up to journal. Is it just a matter of scheduling a strict time to log on and write? Or maybe journaling in the morning about the previous day works just as well? I also want to participate more with the forum as a whole, so morning journaling could fit with that, otherwise I'll just log in during my lunch breaks when I work from home.
  2. Day #4 A little quieter today. I cancelled an early morning meeting to get some extra sleep and I'm glad I did. I actually had three major steps completed in some projects today--two were being handled by other people but they needed my support to wrap them up. It felt good to close a lot of that stuff out. Good Stuff Good progress at work, and turned a late afternoon lull into productive time after a quick break. In the past, that lull would have easily turned into postponing my remaining work until the next day, or resuming work really late at night and messing up my personal priorities.Finished another day of the language learning streak.Made it to the gym and had a pretty good leg day.Set up Emacs org-mode for organizing my project notes and to-dos. I really like it, it feels like the note-taking system I've been searching for.I have a plan for Friday evening (which tended to be when I binged on games): I will help my wife get caught up on some German coursework she missed (we have a quiz in our Saturday morning class), then if there's time left we'll play one of our tabletop games.Challenges Today was pretty good overall. My only disappointment is that I keep procrastinating on some paperwork things at work: the kind of stuff that is never "urgent" but will be a big pain if I continue to put them off. Messing with Emacs org-mode was a bit of a "productive procrastination" trick to avoid doing them. I definitely want to submit the paperwork tomorrow!Next Steps Watch more course videosDefine the daily schedules
  3. Thanks @WorkInProgress, that is a good reminder. I've definitely had that experience of one "miss" turning into a longer negative streak. I think I'm getting better at picking things up but it's almost like I need a reminder app to ping me with this note on the day after I've slipped on a goal. Maybe that's one of the benefits of keeping a journal, and of a community like this one. As for the editor thing, I used Vim for a really long time because the extra overhead of Emacs did not seem worth it. But after using a bunch of different IDEs/applications and trying to use Vim plugins in them, I got frustrated because every Vim plugin has its own quirks and the inconsistencies were driving me nuts. I'm ready for one editor to rule them all, and Emacs is much better at that than Vim. Org-mode is a revelation. That being said, I don't regret starting with Vim and if I had to start from scratch I'd pick Vim in a heartbeat because it's simpler to get up and running with. I also think Vim's modal editing is superior to Emacs' crazy key-chords, not because it's "faster" but simply because it's easier on the hands & forearms. Coding-wise I do a mixture of Java & Python at work, plus a fair amount of Bash shell scripting. My company owns/maintains a large data set for our clients and integrates it with data from a variety of other sources, so I tend to end up on projects where we're trying to integrate a new data source or mine the combined data set for new insights for our clients. Most of the time I use Python for prototyping and then build the production version in Java. I dabble with other languages in my free time but tend to keep coming back to those two.
  4. Hi Abbcott, welcome to the group! The woodworking thing sounds really rad, you should be proud of your abilities even if you feel like progress isn't coming as fast as you'd like! As I see, continuing onward and working through those frustrations is its own form of progress. If you get to the point where you want to sell bows, send me a PM as I'd be interested in buying one (if you're comfortable with exchanging info of course). My wife is interested in archery and longbows in particular, so it would be cool to surprise her with one as a gift.
  5. Day #3 Another busy day, essentially the same as yesterday. Had some time for reflection while I was walking home from the gym, and realized that normally I'd get stressed about being this "busy," because I felt like I NEEDED to have "time for myself" (with "time for myself" being code for "playing video games"). By recognizing that I also like walking, working out and learning languages, I viewed the time spent doing these things as time for myself, because that is in fact what it is: these activities are voluntary and I shouldn't see them as a daily burden/responsibility. If I truly feel that they are burdens then I should drop them or find alternative activities, but I don't feel the need to do that right now. Good Stuff Again had some procrastination moments but was able to keep them limited. Ideally I can move away from them entirely but for now I am happy with myself for recognizing them and working through them without negatively judging myself.Continued to make progress on work projects, and even accommodated a couple of one-off requests before the project owners needed them. Usually I have to let these slide and the project owners are understanding (because these aren't my primary projects), but obviously they're much happier to get what they need in a timely fashion.Kept my daily language learning streak going.Made it to the gym.Cooked dinner and washed dishes.Got my Emacs environment pretty dialed in for about 50% of the situations I want to use it for. It's definitely an improvement in the places where I'm using it right now.Challenges I forgot to watch the course videos during lunch. I set a lunchtime reminder for tomorrow so I don't forget to watch them next time.I need to get more realistic about what I can finish in a workday and prioritize accordingly, so I don't end up "wrapping things up" right before bedtime.Next Steps Define the daily schedules--I'll probably work on that on Friday evening or Saturday.Continue watching videos in the course.
  6. Thanks for the comments, @Hitaru and @giblets! I think those are very good perspectives and help to clarify meaningful "investments" vs more frivolous expenditures. As for the journal: Day #2 I'm grateful for a busy day with positive use of my downtime. Today turned into a long workday so I wasn't able to move further in the course, but during some breaks I was able to make progress in DuoLingo with Italian & German. Good Stuff Dodged some procrastination traps and stayed productive instead. The ban on gaming and related media really helped here--I did take some breaks, but since they were "busywork" tasks with an end state (for example, organizing recent phone photos into albums), once they were done I got back to work. If I had decided to watch some gaming videos or something it could have easily become a 1+ hour rabbit hole or much, much worse.As a result of point #1, I made progress on a couple critical work projects.Kept my daily language learning streak going.Made it to the gym and the grocery store.Made some first steps for setting up an optimal Emacs environment on my work computer--I've been "getting by" with a mix of other tools for a long time, but really want to consolidate a bunch of processes into a single environment. And for anyone about to say something about Vim, I use Evil for Vim keybindings. Challenges No time to move further in the course. I felt it was more important to keep daily routines going. I'll do a couple videos over lunch tomorrow.Still have some pots & pans to clean from cooking yesterday. I don't like leaving them that way because they annoy my wife. Maybe I can do them as one of my "breaks."Next Steps Still need to define the daily schedule as mentioned in my previous journal entry.Continue watching videos in the course.Reflect a little bit on the idea of expense vs investment (and evaluating things based on value/ROI), as noted in the comments above.
  7. Thanks Hitaru! The links are very helpful.
  8. Day #1 Today I'm grateful for starting this journey and kicking a bad habit to the curb. I'm happy to head into it with a plan and some tools for managing the rough patches, rather than simply saying "I'm going to stop" and losing my way in a weak moment. Good Stuff I found this site and this forum!I completed about half of the course and the related activities. I have a much better plan of action for establishing future positive habits.I took key hardware components out of my gaming PC and had my wife hide them. Ultimately I want to sell it or even just scrap it, but this was a quick short-term solution.I deleted all games from my phone.I put gaming-related sites into my web browser's blocker.Challenges Work feels pretty overwhelming, I have lots of projects that are all "high priority" for different people. I don't like juggling this stuff, I just like writing code! I think I need to carve a small chunk out of my work day for focusing on proactive communications that will help prevent these situations.Next Steps Set a daily schedule, with variations:Normal workdays (working from home)Include scheduling for the workday itself (when to do deep work, when to do emails), with flex options for when meetings interrupt itWorkdays where I go into the office (same as above, be a bit detailed about it)Friday evenings with a social planFriday evenings without a social planSaturdaysSundaysOther Thoughts There are a few existing activities I already do that I will ramp up, and a few new ones I'm going to try: Existing stuff:Learning languages - I'm primarily focused on learning German and secondarily focused on learning Italian. I actually like trying to learn both languages at once, as long as I do them at separate times of the day.Fitness - I want to really ramp up the time I do physically active stuff and cut back on "screen time" in general. 2-3 hours of activity most days is not too much to ask (1 hour in the gym, 1-2 hours walking/cycling while on errands), I have done it in the past and should have more time to do it now!Cooking - I like cooking and see a lot of value in it, I just tended to skip it to game instead. I'll pick it back up but also not be hard on myself about cooking slowly or not being "creative enough" with recipes.New stuff:Taking a class with my wife. She's interested in stuff like blacksmithing, archery, glassblowing, etc. We'll find the next opportunity for a course and start it up.Drawing - I think this will be a good tired/idle time activity for me.The primary challenges I need to overcome are the following: Setting a more rigorous schedule for myself and making it hard to deviate from that schedule. I work from home, so it's really easy for my schedule to "flex" if I'm not careful. Mostly this will come down to changing my environment at key times of the day so I'm not tempted to "take a break" for too long and throw the whole day off.I'm pretty averse to spending money, so I struggle a bit with the idea of signing up for activities that cost money or making the necessary environment changes (e.g., working in coffee shops) to facilitate a rigorous schedule. I think what I should realize though is that I end up spending MORE money by not doing these things, because when I get sucked into gaming I end up ordering food instead of cooking, paying for home repairs instead of doing it myself, etc.
  9. Hey Craig, sounds like you're paying attention to past mishaps and changing your approach, which is a great step. I've been thinking lately that this is the true definition of progress. Games have twisted that definition (for me anyway) since most games try to avoid ever letting you go "backwards." So we think the real world should work this same way and then the first setback feels insurmountable. I've also been reflecting on the procrastination topic you mentioned earlier, where procrastination is a deeper issue and gaming is what we did while procrastinating. However, I believe that gaming in particular makes procrastination much worse because it is so stimulating/engaging that once we've started gaming it's hard to stop. A lot of other procrastination activities I can think of tend to become boring much faster, so you return to the activity you've been delaying and get it done. I also believe that removing gaming as an option will make fewer situations trigger the desire to procrastinate in the first place, as more tasks start to feel rewarding again. Good luck with the workouts! If your fitness journey is anything like mine, you will hit some bumps where you feel like you're not as fit as you should be, why bother trying, etc. But the most important thing is to keep putting in the time. Make the activity (and its completion) the reward rather than getting worried about the results.
  10. Hi everyone, I'm super_seabass. I primarily used games for the escapist quality and for the (false) sense of personal growth. I grew up with gaming and pursued it with varying degrees of intensity throughout my life (I'm now in my mid-30s). I've never really hit a negative extreme with it, and I've actually got things pretty good: I'm married, I own a home and I have a good job. However, I still managed to "backslide" on life goals & habits by going on gaming binges, and I'm sure I missed out on better life opportunities and experiences by settling for the comfort of gaming. Therefore I've decided to cut it out of my life entirely. My reasons are the following: Gaming disrupts my healthy habits. I have a good fitness routine and sleep schedule, but on weekends I frequently binged on gaming. That left me tired and disappointed with myself, leaving me in a fog that tends to hang around for several days.I can't enjoy anything else. With the exception of getting into a flow-state at work, I find nothing else enjoyable. I still do other activities, but I mostly give them the bare-minimum effort that satisfies my sense of personal responsibility. I'm hopeful that quitting gaming will increase my sense of satisfaction from these activities, since they obviously provide better real-world rewards.It blunts my ambitions. I have lots of interests and projects I want to tackle, but when the time to start on one appears I end up gaming instead. It's just easier and more immediately satisfying to start gaming than it is to try something new or to keep an active project going. I need to make it the opposite way around. I also think this point relates to point #2.I'm sick of being "programmed to consume:" So much of the gaming industry is exploitative of its workers AND its customer base, and always has been. I believe the gaming industry and the media surrounding it would gladly take 100% of my time and mental energy if they could (and not care about the consequences to me), so I no longer want to give them that opportunity. This isn't unique to gaming, so I'll be wary of other time sinks with the same goals (TV, social media, etc). My position on this topic is a lot more nuanced--for example, I don't think most companies are evil, just short-sighted--but I don't think it's worth typing out at this time. I have gone on unguided, unofficial detoxes in the past that have lasted 3-6 months, but I relapse when the activities I take up start to become less interesting. Respawn looks like it will help me do a better job of addressing my needs and the activities that will fulfill them. That being said, I think I am particularly drawn to the "rapid-learning" phase that happens when trying something new, but as the learning curve and implicit rewards start to level off I find my interest waning and my mind returning to games. Perhaps I should embrace this tendency and simply make sure that I've got lots of activity ideas with easy first steps, thereby making it easier to jump into a new activity than it is to boot up a game. Thanks for reading! I look forward to talking with you all.
×
×
  • Create New...