Endeavors

Day 2/14 Some urges today, but I didn't give in. I can definitely feel that it will get harder to withstand the temptations as time goes by, but for now it's manageable. Still recovering from the sickness; feeling a bit better every day.

Day 1/14 A few urges, but I managed to control myself and direct my thoughts elsewhere. Was somewhat productive today despite poor sleep.

Day 0/14 No urges today, kept myself busy.

I've been sick for the past couple of days, which has disrupted all my routines and usual activities. I'm starting to feel a bit better now and more mentally clear, so I thought, why not have a fresh start? Tomorrow is day 0. Initial target: 2 weeks of not giving in to urges. Let's do this!

Day 1 ☑ Sleep: Woke up at 9:45 am instead of 8 am, but I'm still gonna count that as a success since it was earlier than yesterday ^^ One step at a time ☑ Exercise: Worked out for 10 min ☑ Mental health: Meditated 5 min Woke up a bit late, but the day was surprisingly filled. Did more work today than expected and various other things popped up. Overall today was fine. I'm happy that I set the time for exercising and meditating so low, it makes it easier to accomplish on days with limited spare time. A little is better than nothing. I really want to watch The Office right now, but it's time to wind down. Oh well, perhaps I'll have more time for that tomorrow. G'night.

@D_Cozy Thanks a lot for the suggestions! I actually remember using StayFocusd a while back when I first quit gaming, and it worked really well as far as I can remember. It's definitely a recipe for disaster to rely on willpower alone, so I'll have to look into setting it up again ^^ Also really interesting idea to use different browser profiles to separate work and other stuff. I currently have a lot of bookmarks all mixed up with study, work, entertainment and such, so it makes perfect sense to have separate profiles.

Day 0 I've been having a hard time lately finding joy in doing things, probably due to laziness, having no goals, and consuming too much rather than creating/learning. I have many ideas of what I would like my life to look like, but right now I really feel the need to start with a good, basic foundation which I can build upon. Rule: No mindless consumption of content before 5 p.m. every day. This includes useless YT videos/shorts, news websites, reddit, streaming, tv, etc. Basically, anything that I would previously mindlessly consume automatically due to habits. After 5 p.m. the world is open. Hmm, it's a bit iffy to define what qualifies as "mindless" consumption, but I trust that future me can figure that out. Goals: Sleep: Turn off laptop/PC and put phone away for the night at 10:30 p.m. at the latest. Wake up at 8 a.m. (no snooze) Exercise: Do a little exercise every day, 10-30 min., aim for 30 min. Mental health: Meditate for 5-10 min. every day, either guided or not. That's it.

Day 18 Not much on the agenda today. Will probably head to the library and do some competitive programming, and later watch a video teaching regarding communication skills I've been putting off for some time. Also want to do a little bit of work-related stuff and perhaps clean my room if I have the energy towards the end of the day. Will try to turn off devices at 11 pm so I can be in bed by midnight at the latest.

Day 14 I defended my thesis yesterday, and it actually went really well! When I handed in my thesis a couple of weeks ago, I wasn't really satisfied with it, and it had some errors here and there. However, I pointed out most mistakes during the defense and corrected them, and apparently I answered their questions well enough to receive the best grade possible! I really didn't expect that since I feel like I wasn't disciplined enough throughout the project and could have produced something better than what I did if I had better focus. But hey, can't complain about the final verdict 😄 Glad this huge project is finally over. Today I've mostly just chilled out. Need to get a little something to eat now, then clean my room a bit and afterwards I will head out to the local library and do some competitive programming just because I feel like it.

Day 12 Morning routine is done. Now time to pack some lunch, then head to the library to get some work done. Afterwards, I need to head out to my university and test the equipment so I'm ready for the thesis defense tomorrow.

Day 9 Wow, that was pretty bad. So I woke up around 10 am, which was not optimal but not the end of the world either. Then I did part of my morning routine and ate breakfast while sitting with my laptop. I immediately got caught up in a programming problem I had started the night before. Spent around 2 hours investigating and solving the problem and completely neglected the rest of my morning routine. Not the worst way to spend time, since I learned a lot during these couple of hours and love solving programming problems. But the issue is that after solving the problem, I slowly transitioned into consuming various content on different websites while essentially completely turning off the logical and sensible part of my brain and going zombie mode. This went on for a little over 5 hours during which I barely ate or drank anything. Spent time on Youtube watching programming and sports videos, spent time on Facebook looking through images on a funny page I randomly found from a Google search, spent time on Reddit... and a couple of other random stuff. (I guess this is kind of a relapse, but I don't want to reset the count so I'll just let it slide lol) Bawdr. Using so much time on something that adds little to no value is the worst feeling. I think I know (at least partially) why I got so off-track. Not long after solving the programming problem, I received a call and a text message regarding a big decision I have to make concerning what I'll do after summer, which makes me quite anxious to think about since I'm unsure of what I want to do. This made me want to escape reality in some sense and get distracted with whatever content I could find online, exactly like many escape through video games. I could write other thoughts, but this post is pretty long already, so I wanna focus on what I can do to prevent this escapism behavior. Some ideas: No devices during morning routine (~1 hour after waking up) Post here right after my morning routine and write down what I need to get done today Set short- and long-term goals Meditation/mindfulness At least I spent time with my family after dinner, so not the entire day was wasted. Anyways, I still need to prevent cutting off from reality when things get just a little difficult. Reminder: The obstacle is the way. Upd. 11:58 pm: Turning off.

Day 7 Already got done a few things today. Need to have some lunch now, practice piano for a bit, and then go home to my parents to have dinner. Also watching the champions league final tonight. Upd. 11:37 pm: Powering down.

Day 6 Whoops, missed a few days of posting here. Have spent some time with my family and mostly relaxed. Still no relapses into gaming content or short video consumption, but I haven't managed to stick to my sleep goal most days, which I think caused me to wake up with a headache this morning. Will try to do better and update here when I turn off devices at around 11 pm. Anyways, today I need to begin preparing the defence of my thesis, which will take place in a week from now. Also need to do various other smaller tasks. I've set aside some time later in the day to have a 30 min. nap, as I didn't sleep that well this night. Welp, time to start the day and be productive or something, cya. Upd. 11:59 pm: Turning off devices.

Day 3 Turning off electronics now, will post more tomorrow.

Day 2 Time to finish this thesis. I know that I won't be satisfied with the final product because of the time constraint. And that sucks. But I should have thought about that during the past few months with all the stupid decisions I've made and not prioritizing this project. Anyways, not much to do about that now. Just gonna do my best today to finish it off properly, and hopefully end up with something half-decent.