Day 6 - Afternoon
After spending time planning out a bunch of activities, my wife and I leisurely picked 4 activities to do today in a nearby town. I think in the 4-year history of our relationship, this is one of the first times I planned a day trip without her asking me to do so. When I'm not constantly diving into distraction during my free time, I find it interesting observing what I choose to do instead. My wife got a haircut this morning, and my first thought was, "Oh great, house to myself. Time to game!". I noticed the thought and actually chuckled at how innate it was. Instead, I practiced trombone, took a shower, and got ready for the day.
Yesterday, I was in a group meeting for a grad school class project. Earlier in the week, I took time to make a detailed checklist of our activities needed for the class and worked on it using a Pomodoro timer. As the group was working, it quickly became evident that I'd spent time working hard and understood the assignment. I assumed a leadership role and helped the group finish the assignment in a little over an hour. The next day, the teacher said she was postponing the assignment because other groups were having so much trouble with it. Now, because of the hard work we did yesterday, we have no homework for this week (More time to get ahead on readings).
I spoke to my dad about the "3-weeks becoming a habit" thing, and it got me thinking. I feel like this is more of a lifestyle change for me than a detox. That being said, I think it would be nice to reward milestones as I get my "Day count" higher. One of my Pomodoro/checklist tasks led me to getting a $25 amazon gift card, so I invested it back into my work and got my first planner since high school (I may still use my notebook, it's been really fun). Maybe when I hit 90 days I'll pay for my trombone to get a professional cleaning, I haven't done that in too long.
Every other time I've tried quitting, I've felt an enormous weight to find a new hobby right away and dive into it. For me right now, just being a functioning adult, bettering myself, and enjoying time with my wife is satisfying a lot of my "human needs" that gaming does. I want to keep pushing ahead in Cam's modules. I've spent so much time on Grad school, I haven't gotten as far as I would like; I guess I'll put that on my list 🙂