ElectroNugget

[ GameQuitters : 22 // Meditate : 11 // PornFree : 5 // NoFap : 5 ] Oh man, studied alll day. Feeling confident-ish I guess? 😄 Exam at 9AM tomorrow morning. Super tired and brain exploded right now, spinal fluid leaking from ears. Gonna go sleep. Cya tomorrow.

Hey, just wanted to pitch in and mirror @BooksandTrees, feel free to swing me a PM if you need support. I know we don't know each other well, but we are all brothers and sisters in this struggle. If I can help I will. Either way, I hope you find the help you're looking for.

Good job on the exam man. 🙂 And getting out to socialize is amazing haha, it's funny how much gaming took that skill away from us.

Welcome! You're among friends here. 🙂 Look forward to seeing you on the forums!

Dude great job! Awesome to hear your story! I still need to get control of my sleep haha, kudos to you!

@BooksandTrees I take your point. I think for me it's just really hard to picture controlling this without at least eliminating it for a while. I know I'll need to replace it with something else either way I go about it, but as long as I even remotely have the option to pick up my phone and look at YouTube, it's difficult to stop and do something else. I had the same problem with games... It really only got easier for me when I completely removed all possibility of playing from my environment, then I HAD to deal with it. @Ikar I just uninstalled YouTube on my phone and blocked the website during working hours. Was very upset when I had to go to the toilet and couldn't watch videos! 😄 I guess I will learn with time. I've decided to track more habits here as I've had some other things going on in the background! I'll have a count at the start of every entry like I did for my game detox. [ GameQuitters : 21 // Meditate : 10 // PornFree : 4 // NoFap : 4 ] Yay! Three weeks clean of games today! To be honest, it hasn't been anywhere near as hard as it was the first time. But I've also had so much less to tempt me this time around. Now my problem is media! Nonetheless, it is really nice to feel like staying away from videogames is less of a challenge for me now. I guess I have changed a bit since my last detox. 🙂 Today, despite what I've said the past few days, I STILL managed to wake up late and burn like, 2-3 hours watching YouTube during a prolonged morning and chores routine, rather than getting straight to studying. That said, I took some more steps to tidy up my phone, which now has a blocker for all the time wasting websites during working hours. The nice thing is it's scheduled! So I don't even need to start it. I'm going to find something similar for my PC I think. I know it seems a bit authoratative or extreme, but looking at this graphic from Cold Turkey Blocker today was very sobering: Some of the days in the past month I spent upwards of 10 HOURS ON YOUTUBE. WHAT THE HELL! I mean, I've been watching long-form videos like debates and stuff, but still. 10hrs is a ridiculous amount of time to burn every day watching what is essentially online television. And this is just tracking my PC time! I also use my phone in bed. 😰 Imagine what I could have accomplished in my exams if I'd spent even half of those red bars in December on studying! 😡 Truly horrifying. This really made it clear to me that this has to stop. So, blockers are going on schedule every day now. Right now they're limited to working hours, but if need be I'll ramp them up later. I will not accept this for myself. There's so much more I could be doing with my life. All that said, I did EVENTUALLY manage to start studying, got in a solid 6hrs today. Not the best time but good all things considered, I'm happy with that as I managed to finish summarizing my textbook for Software Engineering, and even started to enjoy it at the end. 🙂 Exam is on Thursday, so now I can actually go into tomorrow fairly relaxed. I'm still going to study of course, but I won't feel like I have to cram like mad thanks to today. So yes, interesting day haha, if you read this, I appreciate your tenacity. See you folks tomorrow!

DAY 20: Well today was another weird day haha. My plan to fire up my YouTube blocker worked, but I overslept again and ended up spending a lot of time watching YouTube on my phone... So I'm starting to think I need to categorize this as a media addiction... I continue to watch loads of media even when I know the consequences are undesirable. As a result, I didn't get any studying done today between getting up late, going to my first shift at the boardgame cafe, and generally loafing around watching random YouTube stuff. So I need a blocker for my phone. I've downloaded one this evening and I'm going to set it to block Youtube for the rest of the week. While this has been frustrating, I guess it's good to have all this free time right now to 'burn' because it's really highlighting the magnitude of my problems with games/internet/media consumption. They seem to be a set of habits that conspire to devour my time and which will expand to fill the spaces left by the other habits if I give them up (in this case, my media consumption has skyrocketed to compensate for the time now free from videogames). This is a really serious battle. But I've won it before with videogames and I can win it now with media. In other news, my first shift at the boardgame cafe was awesome! I met a lot of really nice people, and generally had a great time introducing others to new boardgames. It's a great fit for me because I can scratch my gaming interest in a new way that involves me being out in town and face to face with others, socializing and relaxing in a much more constructive way than being cooped up in my apartment. I'm very eager to see where this takes me in future. Tomorrow, I continue the fight against YouTube! 😄

Hi Jordan. Congrats on breaking your previous streak! I'm in a similar space to you right now, even though I have already done one detox. When gaming and the internet have been your whole life it's hard to imagine what to do without them. But humans have been around a lot longer than computers and they have invented a whole variety of activities to keep you occupied. 😉 The trick is learning to go out and find them. Cam recommends some different categories of activities that you need to fill in: something social, something you can do by yourself to relax, something challenging, etc. You might have some ideas for these areas already. Taking up a sport might fill in a social/challenging need for you. You could pick up a hobby like cooking or painting miniatures as a solo activity. You might start reading to relax. Basically you want to take all the time you spent on gaming and fill it with new things to do, or it's going to be extremely hard to stay away from gaming. I've also found recently that my internet habit is just as time-consuming and destructive as my gaming habit, and has simply expanded to fill the time I used to game... So if you quit gaming and instead watch Netflix all day, you've sorta just traded one vice for another. There's a hobby tool on the main gamequitters page you can try out for some ideas here: https://gamequitters.com/hobby-ideas/ In my case, I recently signed up for volunteer work at a boardgame cafe, and I've considered picking up ping pong to play at the local club. Basically, GET OUT OF YOUR ROOM. 😄 That will make all the difference. Hope that helps!

Cutting out toxic people can be really hard, but I think it's an important thing to learn to do to live a healthy life. You only have so much time and energy to give, and you can't spread yourself thin for everyone around you. That's not to say you shouldn't help others, but I think there's a difference between a conscious act of giving that you decide to do, and someone who just takes from you constantly. It may be controversial but I've often felt that even family members should not be immune to this... I've had people tell me that 'Blood is thicker than water', as though that were an excuse not to cut off toxic family members. If you go back far enough, any human being could be considered family. 😛 There's nothing special about being related (and I say this as someone who has an excellent immediate family). So take care of yourself first and foremost, and don't feel bad when you take action in this space. That said, I do hope things improve with your family and friends. And if not, there's 7 billion other people out there who you can petition for better friendships, so it's not like you're starved for choice. 🙂 Keep it up.

DAY 19: So today started out with Youtube again (I really need to get my phone out of my bed), BUT once I got up, I blocked everything and managed to have quite a productive day! I studied for 6 hours this afternoon and evening, despite really not feeling like it (Software Engineering is probably my least favorite subject 😫). In that time I made a lot of progress! I'm sure if I put in similar hours in the next 3 days I will be more than prepared for the exam. I consider this a great success. It was still a bit uncomfortable, and I often found myself trying to open Reddit or YouTube in the middle of something, but my blocker kept me on track. I really think this is something I need to keep doing. It's incredible how much time I am getting back, and how much easier it is to stay on track with the things I usually used to avoid when my usual distractions are out of reach. The next step will be to block my phone as well, as I could still watch videos on it, but I was much less inclined to watch long videos since it sucks to sit on a tiny screen for an hour. Tomorrow I think I will try to find a similar blocker for my phone. Although I still slept in, and spent the beginning and end of the day watching stuff, and got distracted by my phone from time to time, it was a far more productive Sunday than most. I just need to keep building on this theme. 🙂 So, I think I will be using the blocker every morning until Friday, and we'll see how much I can get done this week!

The porn fight is so ridiculously hard, give yourself kudos for every resisted urge, every day succeeded, and just keep going. 🙂 I agree with @Icandothis, it's all about learning to handle the space between the urge and the action. Meditation has helped me a lot with this in particular, but even then, it's a tough fight. Keep it up!

DAY 18: Today I decided to try and block Youtube, Reddit and other time-wasting sites like Facebook until 8PM. I used a program called Cold Turkey Blocker which works very well in this respect. It's very hard to get around it, and it blocks the pages quickly and provides a motivational quote in their place. What I found was WOW, I have even MORE time when I'm not burning hours on Youtube... And I really do burn a lot of time on Youtube. It's made me extremely aware of how much time I spend on autopilot. Suddenly my day felt really long... I found I had to fight a strong feeling of boredom in order to direct my time and energy to something productive. The good news in all this is that I finished reading The 5 Second Rule today as a result (It's really good!). 😄 And I also cleared my entire to-do list. So, I think perhaps quitting Youtube, Netflix, etc, will need to be a major focus for the next few weeks. This is clearly an area where I could make big gains in time and productivity. I will have to add blockers to my phone, and either permanently block them on my PC or at least set a daily timer that only makes them available later in the day after I've gotten all my work done. In the long run, perhaps I should banish Youtube altogether. This little experiment made me realize that I usually watch something when I eat, so I don't enjoy my food. I've also become conditioned to almost need videos to fall asleep to, which means my sleep hygiene is not great. Basically, while at first changing my life meant quitting gaming, the next step seems to be to quit consuming so much media. It's gonna be tough! I gotta admit I was surprised by how uncomfortable I felt today when I couldn't just watch some dumb video whenever I felt like it. But the time I got back seems worth the sacrifice. So, starting tomorrow, I'll block Youtube and similar sites for most of the day, and perhaps I will eventually escalate that ban. It's going to be interesting to see how that works out...

I can highly recommend a good morning routine! That's been a game changer for me. I am 100% not a morning person, but if I get up, do 10 reps of something, meditate, drink a cup of coffee and then take a cold shower my days go a lot better. 😄 Then you can open a computer afterwards.

Nearly at the three week mark man! Good going so far. 🙂 Regarding your relationship, have you tried to express these frustrations to your partner? Sometimes a little communication is all that's needed to get the ball rolling. Everyone has weaknesses, but if they're open to hearing some constructive criticism and advice on them then that's usually a good sign. Best of luck with that.

DAY 17: Hey everyone. After a dispassionate couple of days I finally feel a bit more like myself. I don't know if it was some kind of exam blues or what, but I was just really down and low-energy for a few days after my programming exam, after the initial feeling of success. Today I decided I really needed to get out and so I organized a board game evening for a few of my friends at ITU. Before that I spent a lot of time meditating and reading a book called 'The 5 Second Rule'. So far I think it has some really good principles I can apply to my near future. The board game evening went really well and I had a lot of fun. I really just need to spend more time at social events. My Software Engineering exam is coming up on Thursday, so I really need to start studying this weekend. I am considering blocking YouTube on my computer and phone for the duration to try and curb that time-wasting desire, and to make the most of the weekend. It would also be interesting to see what I do with my time when YouTube is out of the picture... Although now that I think of it I might have to block Reddit too. Hmm. I will think about it some more tonight, maybe just blocking all distracting websites for a day or two would be a good experiment? My first shift at the board game cafe begins on Monday evening, really looking forward to that!

DAY 16: Hey all. Not much to report today as it was another lazy day I'm afraid, need to get back on track tomorrow.

Great job deleting your steam account. Mine is well out of my reach, but it is honestly something I should do. Good luck on your date! Like you said, take it easy and see what happens. 🙂

DAY 15: Very weird day today, had a bit sort of emotional slump and felt really tired and miserable most of the day. Perhaps it's just coming down from the exam stress of the last week. I just had all the usual negative thinking that comes with my usual downers. Lots of bad thoughts about how I'm not good enough, not successful enough, etc. Kind of a bummer. Hoping I will feel better tomorrow. The last exam is on the 23rd so there's plenty of time to study. Got started today, and going to be getting more heavily into it in the coming days. Looking forward to being done with this semester tbh, and hoping I can study a bit better next semester. I'd like to be able to say that I did my best with 2020.

DAY 14: Thanks for the encouragement guys! It feels good to succeed. 🙂 Not much to say today as it was super lazy: I slept in, went to the bookstore and bought a nice sci-fi book by my favourite author, and ate a giant victory hamburger and chocolate milkshake. Overall, a very uneventful day of rest and relaxation to celebrate my progress. This evening I'll just be in bed reading my new book. 😄 Today also marks two weeks clean of gaming! That seemed to go very quickly. Tomorrow, studies will start again for my third exam, and I think I will need to begin planning how to disconnect from Youtube, so more on that tomorrow!

DAY 13: I passed my programming exam! And I even got a decent grade. 🙂 I'm absolutely exhausted haha. It's been a wild week between these two exams. But I'm proud of myself... Programming was my biggest subject this semester, and arguably the most important. And I did it! Despite ups and downs, pain and uncertainty and all the other challenges that have come with adjusting to my first semester here. It's nice to feel like I actually achieved something after the past few years of failure. One exam to go! And now I'm off to sleep for a day. 😄

Dude! You're nearly halfway there! Great work! Looks like you had a really solid week lately too. You can be proud of yourself. 🙂 Make sure to give yourself kudos when you do well!

Good luck with the job interviews! What kinds of jobs are you looking for? 🙂

Vidar, as someone who suffered from very bad anxiety and then clinical depression over a period of about 4 years, I totally understand where you are coming from. It's very hard being negative all the time. But not just for others, also for you! Have you done much reading to try and tackle the problem? The most incredible book for me that was a big part of climbing out of my depression was Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David D. Burns. While the title might sound a little lame and self-help-book-ey (there's loads of them out there), the book is really about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which is now considered one of the most successful methods of psychotherapy for treating depressive patients. I can highly recommend it. And if you don't like reading, you can get the audio book on audible, maybe on your smartphone, for relatively little.

Thanks guys, it's nice to hear that this idea seems to be the right one. 🙂 I have been listening to Cam's podcast and I am coming to believe that it's very important I establish new hobbies this time around, or else YouTube will just become my new gaming! DAY 12: So, very weird night last night. I completely acted out and sat up, unable to sleep until about 6AM, wasting time watching series and dumb videos on Youtube. I knew today was going to be important, and somehow the fear/procrastination monkey in me completely took over. I was even really tired at 10PM, and thinking of going to bed! Next thing I knew it was 8AM and my alarm clock was ringing after I slept for less than 3hrs. This sort of swinging from what felt like a really good 'high' of good study habits, meditating, exercise, etc, to a sudden slump that just knocks me completely over is a very familiar pattern and I'd really like to figure out why it is happening because it's completely unsustainable in the long run. I'd like to remain in those productive 'high' periods for longer without having these insane crashes afterwards. It's like my willpower completely runs out and I go on a self-destructive spree or something. That said, I did still get out of bed and to uni at 11AM today and spent until around 8PM studying the project and discussing code with my team. So I'm proud I did that despite my sleep deprivation. I also immediately meditated and exercised again when I got home, so that's hopefully going to get back on track too now. I've been thinking A LOT about what I want this year to look like. I'll turn 30 in September, and I feel like I owe it to myself to make sure that when that birthday comes, I'm doing much, much better with regards to fitness, meditation and studying than ever before. I'd also like to be further along with my fight against games and porn. After all these bad years, I owe it to myself to step into the next decade of my life on the right footing - and with the proper mindset I believe it's doable. Wouldn't it be amazing if, on my 30th birthday, I feel the best I've ever felt with regards to health, fitness, academia, and personal goals? I'll write more about what I maybe want that birthday to look like another time soon. All that and I've barely discussed the programming exam! I'm quite nervous, but I think I would have to fail catastrophically at the oral exam to fail the course. My knowledge is solid. Yes I could have studied more... That's probably always going to be the case. I just need to go in there tomorrow and do my best. Time to try and sleep, I'll see you guys tomorrow.

DAY 11: Slow day today, met with my group to start studying for my programming exam. Our final programming task was a group project so there are four of us going into the oral exam together as a team. We made a good project so I am hopeful I will at least pass, but I am a bit nervous about my personal performance. I haven't been meditating these last few days and I can feel my anxiety slowly creeping back. I've also been up way too late the past few evenings. So yeah, been acting out a bit recently. Need to get back on track. Tomorrow I'm meeting my group the whole day to study the code for our project. Hopefully that will go well. Exam is on Monday!