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Fri 11.01 No compulsive social media use: 30 days No compulsive research: 30 days No passive screentime before bed, first thing in the mornings, or during work: 33 days The work day is winding down now. I had my 2nd last session with my ADHD coach. Next week is my last, because that is how much I paid for. I feel that I have cemented some really solid habits overall, but I know there's more work to be done too. So I'm not getting lax about this. This is another reason why I started journaling, and also why I'm continuing to practice the 7 Habits. ...hmm, maybe this is something I can actually use when reviewing my mission statement later today. Things I will do to stay healthy Sleep around 8h - to bed at 11pm, tended to the baby at 5:30am, went back to bed about 15min later, and then I woke up at 7am to my alarm. Good sleep overall. Glad to have my wife back too, as she handled an earlier wake-up from baby. Stretch - Something which helped with morning stretches is setting my alarm to a more calm ringtone. The one I had previously always made me feel rushed to get my phone, this one I set up last night let me just stretch and calmly get out of bed before it got too loud. That said, I think I will look at getting a separate alarm clock that isn't my phone. See it was after stretching to shut off my alarm today that I noticed cravings started coming in strong. I jumped right into the weather app - part of my necessary use - but I found that I was impulsively looking to click on an ad in the weather website; one for a really basic and dumb looking mobile "puzzle" game (p2w for sure) of all things. Now thankfully, I didn't follow through with that. Instead, I sat down and meditated. That helped me process those feelings for the cravings. Meditate + deep breaths - yes and it helped me ground myself after waking up. Learning to listen to the mind and witnessing what thoughts are arising (not acting on them) was the theme. This practice will also help me step back in conversations with others; like my wife a few days ago when I got reactive. Listening involves not just other people, but listening to my mind too. The things I thought about after mediation, for why then did I get a craving: We are approaching the end of a really important election year worldwide. And while important indeed, it's not like everything that happens is within my control, or even within my influence necessarily. I keep thinking to myself that if I can occupy my time talking online about these political events, I can make a difference. But I know that's not true; I've been alive long enough now to realize that most people online have already made up their minds, and there's so many who just look to argue for arguing sake. The way I can truly make a difference is to focus on the local level, of where I live, and then work from there in my Circle of Influence; not starting from the outside, from my Circle of Concern. At work yesterday, the project which I'm working on... well it is still in a trash-bin-on-fire state. Instead of escaping it, which is where my cravings definitely keep being triggered by, I need to treat this as a learning experience. This morning at work, I spent a good 45min talking to a more senior engineer about it, and it's led to switching tasks so that we can be more efficient. That is exactly what we both needed. Go for walks / Exercise - yes, at lunch I did cardio with my wife with that dance game again. Only 15min but enough to get me sweating, but still I know I can do more; I just didn't want to be late to a work meeting coming back directly after my lunch break. So, I will do more workout stuff later today. Drink Water - As I've detailed before, I work on these "wall-of-text" entries gradually throughout the day in small breaks. As I started typing in the morning, I realized I hadn't had much water. So this is a positive, and a good reminder to get water. And yes, I'm aware these are long entries compared to other journals; I like this template myself though. I like writing. Nutrition: * Breakfast; cereal with a side of banana * lunch; made a sandwich for a quick yet nutritious lunch * dinner; this will be meatballs and pasta, the former already in the slow cooker (the latter is super quick) Talk to my partner - I've been helping her out in between breaks with some small chores, I cleaned the kids bath and toilet already, and will focus on their sink + our bathroom later today after work. Also there's other tasks to do. Tonight we've invited a mutual friend over for a bit, he's the one going through separation right now (he just got a new house for himself). After he leaves for the night, I will discuss my mission statement later today with my wife, just to get her perspective (this was one of my commitments). Talk with kids + play with them - Trick or treating wiped them out, which was great. My focus with them tonight is to do similarly. Actually a good idea for working out, I could do push-ups as usually one of my kids climbs my back. That adds some nice weight to tire me out. And they think it's a game, so it's a good win-win. Getting creative with my exercise time here 😄 Read a book - I'll see how I feel tonight, but more likely I'm leaning towards just reading fiction. More Cervantes or Hemingway, one of those for tonight. 7 Habits workbook exercises, I'll continue those later in the weekend. Practice French - yes, this morning. I will get more practice tonight avec ma femme et mes enfants. I should also give more of a try to the story process indie_rok suggested too, if it's not too late after supper I'll do this with my kids. If not, tomorrow for sure. Journal - Here's my entry with reflection. Grateful for the weekend and for the clarity I gained with next steps at work. 7 habits - proactivity test - day 14 My commitments for today: * work on personal mission statement and discuss with my wife -> Yes, I'll be doing this later tonight, and post about it tomorrow if there's anything that I feel is worth mentioning here for accountability. * expand on my goals from the previous entry -> Yes, the meat of this entry is here. So for my previous entry, I stated five general areas in which I find personal fulfillment; my direct family, friends and extended family, my career, my hobbies (expanding and working on them), and volunteering. Under my family - which I'll condense as direct and extended - I cover my role as an individual, a husband and father. I think these are the most important ones to me. I'm also a (grand)son, a cousin, a nephew, and so forth. Even though I know there is still work for me to do so that I may fulfill the image I have of myself in my head, I do feel fulfilled with my role as a father, a husband, and an individual. Or at least, I should say that I feel this way from the past month that I've started journaling regularly, along with working on the 7 Habits, detoxing myself from my compulsive tech uses, and being part of the ITAA community. Under Career, this also covers part of myself, as I do like the aspect of computer programming and problem solving. This also covers my role as an employee, a colleague, a software engineer, and at times the role of a technical writer and a task manager of sorts too. One thing which my manager says is that "we wear many hats when we work, not just one; we are not just tied down to our roles." I like that choice of words, because it frees me from falling into traps of not doing something just because it's "outside my area." And it puts the onus on me to make that step for growth opportunities. I would say that I'm fulfilled to an extent here. We do regular reviews and checkins, my manager and I, and the areas of self-improvement which I'm working on right now are the ones which will also help me grow in my career; being proactive, being a better listener to my mind and to others, and also managing with stressful changing and vague situations. All these help me personally, but also career-wise. So I'm working on this. Under Hobbies, I only put down two of the most immediate ones I could think of that I want to progress in; baking and writing. Well I have a lot more hobbies than those, but these are the ones I thought of first. Maybe what that tells me is that, if I'm gravitating towards them, I should do these things first. Then define the rest later if I get more ideas. These both fall under self-improvement too, learning new things, and expanding my skillsets. Baking-wise, my wife and I are planning to make a Skull cake for Día de Muertos; she will be guiding me and getting her to help out with the process. So I'm already taking steps here to learn, baby steps. Writing wise, well I love writing as you can tell. Sorry for those who see these monster updates, but this is how I like to write; this is really moreso for myself, so I can re-read at a later date and reflect on my journey. I do actually review my journal entries regularly, throughout weekends. I make some time to reflect on my reflections, because that is valuable too for identifying areas which I may not have noticed I need work on. But at some point, I would love to have a book to write; and that's something which I'll be working on at some point with my wife, to brainstorm ideas (this was her suggestion too, which I agreed with). Under volunteering, I think this covers my need to want to help others. This is a main reason to why I gravitate so much towards social media; when someone asks a question about a topic I'm familiar with (even if trite), I will jump at the opportunity because I'm "helping." Now don't get me wrong; I do think it can be valuable to help and answer questions online, just not to the extent I was doing that 8h a day, to the point of neglecting myself and others IRL around me. So this is why I thought that volunteering in-person would be valuable to add to my repertoire. I will admit, I have not given it much more thought than that. I should get around to doing that, figuring out where I would like to help besides the civic tech club. * help my wife with chores around the house -> Yes, I've done a few and will keep going on others after work. * (maybe) work on more exercises from the workbook -> Well this was a maybe, I did say that last entry, and I am most likely not doing that tonight. It's looking busy in a good way, so I'd rather curl up with some good fiction to read in bed tonight. --------- For tomorrow, these will be my commitments: Make the Skull cake with my wife Read books in French to my kids Do at least 2 more workbook exercise for the 2nd Habit (a for sure this time) I'm embracing the business of life; I feel like I have a purpose, like I have a mission.
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Thu 10.31 - Happy Halloween! No compulsive social media use: 29 days No compulsive research: 29 days No passive screentime before bed, first thing in the mornings, or during work: 32 days Long entry today. I have a lot on my mind. I worked on this throughout my work breaks. Taking a half day worked out yesterday, in the sense that I didn't have to work in the afternoon because I was feeling quite unwell after the vaccines. I still had to drive my wife to an appointment, then pick up my kids, and then make dinner later in the day; it was busy, but my mind definitely wasn't going to be doing deep thinking and problem solving. I did end up having a disagreement with my wife, which led to me being reactive. Having a lot to do is tough, but I recognize that I still have a lot of work to improve in how I view these situations. I'm reminded again of yesterdays meditation, about how hard things still happen; meditation doesn't make them go away, they will still happen, meditation instead helps with practicing awareness. What I could've done better is first to have listened, before seeking to get my point across. ...I also still don't think that the combination of having felt sick + cravings that came with that were helping though. From the ITAA meetings, I've heard others say about how they struggle the most with their compulsive behaviors when they are feeling sick. Well this is something I noticed with me too; I did reach for my phone after lying down in bed, only to put it back down and tell myself to not cheat with my Stayfree limits. I don't think it's a reason or excuse though, but I was cranky overall. The important things I'm taking away; * to recognize these vulnerable situations for me (being / feeling sick) * reflect (what better way than journaling!) * apologize for my mistakes promptly * allow time for the other person whom I hurt to process my apology * listen to the others needs, so we can best be on the same wavelength to meeting and anticipating those needs Things I will do to stay healthy Well technically I wasn't healthy yesterday, I guess, but I did my best to fulfill all the things I wanted to do. Since I posted early yesterday, I'll try to summarize some of the things I missed to my best memory; Sleep around 8h - went to bed quite early at 10:30pm, I would've preferred earlier but it was just me again that night. The baby is still waking up through the night (11:30am and 4am) but I think the park time yesterday helped, he only needed soothing for 15min to fall back asleep. I woke up at 6:30am, all things considered not bad sleep. My wife is also back now for the nights, her parents (my in-laws) are back in town so she doesn't have to stay at their place with their dogs anymore. I also had a REALLY ODD dream. I was at a friends cottage, with the layout being really modern. I had to make a lot of room to set up my stuff to sleep there. The cottage only had a few rooms; fewer than there usually are. It's like the whole place was sectioned off with a big courtyard in the middle (it does not look like this at all either, this is just the dream). I saw people there which I am not in touch with anymore (from high school), although funny enough most of my direct family wasn't there besides my wife. I am not sure why my dream left them out... even my extended family, I'm surprised I didn't see there. What I vividly remember asking too was for a bigger room, so that my wife could also sleep with me in the same bed; but I was told by my friend that I was overthinking things, that I still overfocus on details and should remember what has happened before. Then I woke up. ... yeah I was not quite sure what to make of this dream. My subconscious or my conscience telling me something? Maybe the key point is what was said right before waking up; maybe the stuff before that doesn't even matter and I'm overthinking it (as my dream said). Yesterday I did face cravings before going to sleep, but maybe I forced the feelings down rather than giving myself enough time to observe and process them. So when I next face cravings... I need to keep a level head, continue working on the 7 Habits and 12 Steps, using the MASTER list and mission statement for e.g., and stay on track with my priorities. Well that's how I'm reading it right now anyways. Stretch - not as much yesterday, but I was feeling pretty sick. This morning I woke up a lot better and gave myself a good back stretch. Go for walks / Exercise - yesterday instead of cardio, I did my best to go outside with my kids and took them to the park right after school, as it was before that which I felt chills. So cardio in a way~ish, just not the gym treadmill kind. But it's ok. A bit of outdoor time is good when sick (and I wore a mask). Today I ended up going to the gym in the morning, resumed with a leg day (squats, leg curls and leg extensions), as well as ab twists. My arms still a bit sore from the shots. Drink Water - yes, and I made some carbonated water the night before to save me the trouble for today in the morning. Wash Face + Body - After workout yeah. Meditate + deep breaths - yea I did quite a bit today actually, even engaged in one about being distracted and staying focus. It was interesting; "focus is not the lack of distractions, but the noticing when distractions arise and when the mind wanders." I never thought of it that way; I guess if we are aware enough to observe how we feel when distracted, it is a good way to gently recenter ourselves, rather than forcing the mind to do something. I liked it. Nutrition: * Breakfast; this morning was a yogurt with raisins, nuts and blueberries * lunch; leftovers from the chicken I made yesterday * dinner; air-fried hot dogs again, cuz we need something quick before trick or treating with the kids Talk to my partner - last night I talked with her in the night again. I was reviewing some of the 7 Habits work I had done in prior days with her. And I asked her the introductory question of the "End in Mind part" as well. Today she told me that she wants to do a whole rearrangement of my kids room at some point; which I'm actually excited about. They have too many damn toys! Lol. I want to find all the ones they do not use anymore and donate them or chuck them, depending on the condition. This seems to be a common struggle with every parent, all kids have too many toys. So we have to plan when we'll do that, but I'm looking forward to it. Talk with kids + play with them - I brought them out to the park yesterday and additionally they helped with cooking after that. well, "helped" haha. Tonight was going trick or treating, and it was a blast. We went with one of my oldest kids friends and their parents around the neighborhood. They have a ton of candy, enough to last them until next year May lol. Read a book - As per a little ago, I re-read the 7 Habits work with my wife, up to the first questions of Habit 2 in the workbook. I will also post the ones I have done so far in todays entry... been meaning to do that, but feeling sick is not fun. Tonight... I'm either gonna do more exercises, or read Don Quixote after posting this. We'll see. Practice French - I'll talk with my wife in French during the trick or treating walk. I did one review of words this morning on the green owl app, but I don't feel like doing more of that tonight. Journal - Here's my entry with reflection. I'm glad to feel better. 7 habits - proactivity test - day 13 My commitment yesterday was to talk with my other grandmother (check) and also do my best to feel better. For my grandmother in Mexico, she is doing well, and I talked to her about the upcoming wedding my brother is having. She's also excited to do the trip, and hoping nothing bad happens between now and then (me too). I also took some time to send her pictures of the kids, since she lives so far away it's not often we talk, so I do my best to keep her updated with pictures. Same with my other grandmother. I actually want to keep making an effort to talk to them weekly. So I'll set up some recurring reminders on my calendar. 7 Habits workbook - Habit 2; Begin with the End in Mind Okay I've delayed putting this here quite a bit. Let's get on with it. Checking Your Vision What do you want to be when you grow up? That question may seem trite at first, but give it some honest thought; Are you - right now - who you want to be, what you dreamed you'd be doing, what you always wanted to do? I like this question (it's kinda cute) because it asks me to really think about what I have always wanted, if I'm where I wanted to be now. To begin with the end in mind, as has been stated in the book before, means to begin each day, task or porject with a clear vision of your desired direction and destination.... then continue to flex your proactive muscles. -> I'm excited tomorrow to start working and reviewing my own personal mission statement. I plan on talking about it with my wife. And I also hope to get one started for our family; while our kids are still young. So what am I doing right now with my life? Does it make me happy? Do I feel fulfilled? I broke down each area of my life to answer these questions: Family; yes, I'm very glad to be a father, a husband, have pets. I know there is still improvement, but I'm working towards that in these roles. Career; I'd say yes for this, although I know I can still keep growing. As a kid I wanted to go into design; at first it was houses, then later it was video games (lol) and now it's databases! So in a way, I'm a designer, an architect-in-the-making if you will. I think my eventual goal is to get to the architecture point of my career for databases. Friends and extended family; eeh, in a way but not fully honestly. I have a small but close circle of friends, and I'm reaching out more to my extended family. I think I can still be better at this, but hence why I've made more efforts recently to reach out to them and just catch up, even if on the phone. I wouldn't mind being closer to my friends as well, offering to be more social with them instead of waiting for them to reach out. Hobbies Learn to bake sweets; my wife told me yesterday that technically, the breaded chicken I made counts as baking. I told her "well yeah, but I want to make sweets" haha. Well she is willing to help me out with this. Have a recipe this weekend we'll be trying. Writing: I would like to give starting a blog, or writing a story a go at some point. This is probably why I like journaling so much, and I think I could transfer a lot of my writing skillset to these hobbies. My wife has book ideas herself, so heck even just joining our minds together and making one together. Why not? I brought it up to her. Volunteering; finally, I would like to volunteer more in person. I like and enjoy volunteering at the online civic tech club I'm part of, but would enjoy being more present in an org. I should make time, at some point... I keep telling myself that I'll do it when the kids are a bit older, but it's always gonna be busy one way or another. I should just make the time. There is a lot to unpack here, so for my commitment tomorrow, I'll update tomorrow following up on these, and maybe work on more exercises. I'll also make more of an effort to help my wife out with chores around the house during my work breaks; these past few days have been absolutely packed and we need to catch up on them.
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These are all great points to start honestly. Sleep, Gym, and Nutrition all cover aspects of taking care of your own body. Reading, Art work, and learning new skills covers your mental stimulation. Socializing and attending Church give you an emotional and social outlet. Also Church will give you a spiritual outlet too. Something which also helps a lot is your own Journal too; the act of writing something down can let you remember it for later, and look back and reflect, which is a uniquely human quality that shows our self-awareness and imagination. Journaling can fulfill you, both mentally and spiritually. As for reducing your computer time, I am with you there. I have found it very helpful to have a mix of all those areas (Physical, Mental, Spiritual and Social/Emotional). Cravings still come for me, but they are a lot more manageable to process and "feel out" when I am fulfilling these 4 areas daily.
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Very well said ❤️ these are supremely important foundations imo; that includes your identity (self-respect), those around you (treating others kindly), your body (looking after your health) and your mental and spiritual health (fulfilling activities). I think that fulfilling all these areas, every day to the best of our abilities, is what matters the most to really live life to its fullest.
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Oh yeah, I wanted to share the pumpkin carvings we made. The first one is of Jack Skellington from Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas, which is my oldest kids favorite movie. The other is of Dragonite, which is my wife's favorite pokemon; her and my kids likes the series, though I personally don't (but the carving was challenging and fun). Carving designs into pumpkins is one of my favorite things to do this time of year. It's a lot of busy but very fun work, it looks cool, the kids like it, it gets me active while I do them, and the process taps into my creative thinking process. Overall a very fun family activity. ❤️ Both will be placed on quote blocks, so expand at your own comfort level.
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Thu 10.30 (part 1) No compulsive social media use: 28 days No compulsive research: 28 days No passive screentime before bed, first thing in the morning, and during work: 31 days I feel weak today. I got both my flu and covid shots yesterday, one per arm, and the covid arm specifically (my left) is very limp. I called both my grandmothers yesterday. One of them picked up, the other one said we should talk tomorrow (which is today). Posting early today, have appointments to get to in the afternoon. I'll call my other grandmother in-between those appointments. Things that I will do everyday to stay healthy Sleep around 8h - As I was tired last night, I went to bed at 1015pm. Baby woke up twice at 2am and 4am, but he went back to sleep within 15min. So that wasn't too bad. I got about 8h total, not straight, but total. Tonight is the last night that my wife sleeps at my in-laws to care for the puppy, we are both very much so looking forward to get some rest this weekend. Stretch - yeah, and this is when I realized how sore my shoulders were haha... Go for walks / Exercise - I'm gonna do cardio later today, I have a half day at work. Won't be doing weights with arms today, will see how I feel tomorrow. Drink Water - I'm drinking some right now and will keep it up Wash face + body - I'll do that after my cardio Nutrition: breakfast - yogurt with nuts and blueberries lunch - yesterday I had the last of the pumpkin lasagna leftovers. Today probably a sandwhich dinner - I'm cooking tonight, parmesan breadcrumbed chicken breasts Talk to my partner - yeah, this morning about the schedule for the afternoon. Last night we talked on the phone, which I will admit is very helpful for me to not go down a spiral with my addictive behaviors. This reminds me, that back in May this past year I went on a business trip by myself. Partly due to different timezones, but also mostly because I was alone; I'd be up until 3am on my phone, watching something or just browsing around the internet forums and apps which I am abstaining from now. Then I'd wake up at 8am, hit the gym (at least I still did that) and walked to the office there for 9am. It was a crazy dumb schedule and I have zero clue how I did that for a week straight. When I got back home, I was jetlagged but I was also more irritable. Surprise surprise... it's because I got used to bad habits that week, and my kids certainly aren't gonna let me muck around. So yeah, all this to say that it's helpful that I've been talking to my wife on the phone at night, while she sleeps at my in-laws as they are out of town. I go to bed at good times. Talk with my kids + play with them - my middle kid was really attached to me this morning when dropping him off, he didn't want me to go ❤️ I've got the baby on my as I'm typing this. I'll see if my older kids want to help me with cooking as well (basic things like passing me a bowl + a pan, etc). And I'll try some French with them tonight. Read a book - I did a few more workbook exercises last night. I'll be posting them after all my appointments tonight in a part 2 Meditate + deep breaths - yes to deep breaths. I'll make time for meditating after my shower (or before during a short break). Practice French - Oui, dans le matin. By the way, @indie_rok thank you for that storytelling breakdown. I gave it a go with my kids yesterday, as they have quite a few French books (my wife is fluent). So I'll be doing that again tonight 🙂 I do agree that Duolingo is kinda meh, it is repetitive with its own biased keywords; but I've mentioned this in other posts, that I think what helps me is not just that I use that app, it's also that I have other francophone speakers to talk with IRL. Merci beaucoup! Journal (gratitude and reflection) - I'm so glad that I'm staying out of my bottom lines despite how hectic this week is. Actually, during a meditation yesterday, one of the guided ones from Headspace said something along the lines of; "meditation doesn't fix difficult situations, it helps us look at them through new perspectives. Life will keep throwing those difficult situations, but we will find that we see them and observe them differently as we keep practicing meditation." I think I get that finally, that greater awareness has helped me recognize unimportant distractions which I should not engage with, as well as important situations which are hard but I can engage with in a better proactive manner. Part 2 will be 7 Habits - Proactivity Test - day 12 I'll be back later tonight, as I am going back to work now. Sending lots of support to everyone! edit; as per my latest post, I'm not feeling well. I'll say that I kept my commitment to talk with my grandmother at night, that was good to do and hear how she is doing. She is also looking forward to go to my brothers wedding next year. On my end today, my commitment will be to get better and call my other grandmother back.
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Tue 10.29 No compulsive social media use: 27 days No compulsive research: 27 days No passive screentime before bed, first thing in the morning, and during work: 30 days Noon post today, because I'm getting my flu shot and COVID shot tonight. Merci beacoup pour vos suggestions! Ma femme est franco-ontarien et mes enfants vont dans un école français. Je pense que mon espagnol m'aide pour entendre le français. C'est un belle langue. To be clear, my goals are no social media, no compulsive research, and generally no passive screen time first thing in the morning, during work, and before bed. I went through an exercise called the "Sobriety Worksheet" to identify what I could still do while maintaining my sobriety, and what was off-limits for me. Journaling has been something that I've identified to help keep me sober. Keep in mind that my sobriety is what I've discovered for myself; doesn't mean that it's the same for anyone here. I would recommend everybody try the exercise to discover what their sobriety looks like. Important to mention that we are "discovering" it, not "defining" it; we don't get to choose what to put in which line... we discover what belongs in each line. You can read more about that in the October 1st post of my journal: Things that I will do everyday to stay healthy Sleep around 8h - Yes, this was a good sleep despite the baby waking up twice in the night. He went to sleep after I soothed him for 15min each time. Overall 8h; to bed at 10pm and woke up at 6:30am. Stretch - yes this morning and before the workout. Although a good reminder that I should keep taking my breaks for working out. Go for walks / Exercise - gym in the morning, my wife didn't come along again, due to taking care of her parents dogs. I did standing rows, push-ups, tricep extensions, ab twists, and planks (2min first one, and then second for 1min). Two sets total each for all the former ones. Good workout Drink Water - Yes, throughout my workout and also a good reminder that I should have my water bottle by me during the workday. Wash face + body - yes, after the workout to both. Nutrition: breakfast - another muffin with coffee lunch - oh yeah, I should have that haha. It's already noon dinner - air-fried hot dogs Talk to my partner - yeah, and she wants to talk tonight after bringing my in-laws puppy out again. Which will be soon. Talk with my kids + play with them - Again, my wife was out a few times taking care of the puppy, I was on kid fun duty. Today I gave them baths later and played with their bath toys with them. Read a book - finished Hemingways Kilimanjaro story; for a sec, it seemed like the main character who got gangrene was saved and then took off on a plane to get priority surgery. Welp he didn't, the "plane" taking off was actually the spirit of "death" flying him over to the top of Kilimanjaro. The story then abruptly cuts to the next day with his camp finding him dead. Or at least that is what I understood; Hemingway had quite the style to throw you off suddenly, to let you come up with your own interpretation of the story he presented. Tonight, I'll do more exercises from the workbook. Meditate + deep breaths - yes, before my shower again. Keeping it up! Practice French - Yes, last night before bedtime. Journal (gratitude and reflection) - again, I am grateful for journaling and my increased proactivity. It's been keeping me straight on the path I want to be on. 7 Habits - Proactivity Test - day 11 Okay after finishing this journal entry, I will call my grandparents. One of them at least. I will update here if there's anything of note in the conversations, but that will be later tonight or tomorrow. I've started the workbook exercises as well, although I'll also post about those later today too. Need to get back to work. Keep on trucking everyone!
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Mon 10.28 No compulsive social media use: 26 days No compulsive research: 26 days No passive screentime before bed, first thing in the morning, and during work: 29 days I am glad I started this journal, because I don't have the time to be wasting on my addictions and compulsive behaviors. A few months ago, I would not have liked the next few days; my in-laws are out of town again, this time for a few days. My wife is taking care of their dogs (she is sleeping at their place tonight). Now it's not a problem, I want to emphasize that, but I'm saying that I would've treated it like one a few months ago, when i was not really taking care of myself. I feel confident I can handle the kids for 3 nights now. My in-laws live a short walk away, so it's not necessarily a problem to go back and forth, my wife will come back in the morning after she lets her dogs out. But I will be going to bed early tonight, to get as much sleep as I can. For the proactivity test... well I did forget totally to call my grandparents. I should've known that I need to make calendar reminders for myself so I don't forget. Oooops. So I'm going to commit again to trying that tomorrow; calendar reminders around my lunch time already created. Things that I will do everyday to stay healthy Sleep around 8h - To bed at midnight, which wasn't great; I stayed up reading the Snows of Kilimanjaro story by Hemingway. I am almost done it, but I should've just read for a little bit. I was a bit tired today. Woke up at 7:15am. Still within the range of sleep I'd like but it could be better. Stretch - when I woke up, before working out, and while taking my breaks. Go for walks / Exercise - gym in the morning, my wife didn't come along due to taking care of her parents dogs (she got a good walk in with them though). I did rows, pull-ups, walking lunges, and dips. An active workout overall. Drink Water - Yes, throughout the day and I kept it filled up. I also made some more carbonated water; I have four bottles that can go into the soda streamer, so I should make all four. I only drink carbonated water out of that. Wash face + body - yes, after the workout to both. Nutrition: breakfast - apple cinnamon muffins that my mother in-law made (she's another good person to ask for baking btw, making a note of that for myself) lunch - pumpkin lasagna leftovers dinner - chicken wings and more of the spicy bread rolls Talk to my partner - yeah, and she wants to talk tonight after bringing my in-laws puppy out again. Which will be soon. Talk with my kids + play with them - As my wife was out a few times taking care of the puppy, I was on kid fun duty. I was doing tongue twisters with them, rolling the R in Spanish as well. I showed them how I do it. Read a book - I'll finish Hemingways Kilimanjaro story tonight. Someone always seems to die so far in his stories, very depressing stuff, but well written. Meditate + deep breaths - yes, before my shower again. Seems like between workouts and shower, there is a good time for me to mindfully breathe and meditate. I'll keep it up. Practice French - At night and will do a bit more after posting this Journal (gratitude and reflection) - grateful for journaling and my increased proactivity 7 Habits - Proactivity Test - day 11 As I said, I've made calendar reminders for myself, so that I now don't forget by the end of my shift to call my grandparents. I only have my grandmothers who are alive, I want to make the best of talking to them regularly. Set up time to completely separate yourself from daily activities and work on your personal mission statement. I have also set up a recurring event each Friday to work on my Mission statement, and review it. So come Friday, I'll do work on it in the mornings. Start a collection of notes, quotes and ideas you want to use as resource material in writing your personal mission statement I actually already had a lot of quotes saved up in my computer. They are all about... procrastination lol. Yeah sometimes I really need to look at these more regularly. I should put the file with them on my desktop. I am going to copy and paste them in a quote block, so it doesn't elongate the length of this post: Identify a project you will be facing in the near future and apply the principle of mental creation [imagination and visualization]. Write down the results you desire and what steps will lead to those results. Man this project I'm at with work is certainly one which needs it. So the whole thing is a dashboard, with reports and charts and filters that other partners use. Except the whole thing has this "held together by twigs and strings" sorta vibe. Yeah it's that bad. The beginning of the data flow is a database function that, if I were to print it, it would take 9 feet worth of pages laid straight to read in one go. It's that long! And the worst thing is that a lot of the code is duplicated. Now I could easily throw my hands in the air and say "welp I didn't write it" but that's the reactive way out. I don't want to exit. I'm here in this company to make a difference. I want to be proactive. Although at the same time, I do think that this shouldn't ultimately be part of our team, because this data is more important to the partners; so there is a better team longterm that can care for it. BUt for now, we are the ones who should fix it up. So the future state I see here is, in rough terms (to also not overshare my work here): Refactor the whole thing to remove the unnecessary duplication of code blocks Make a plan to move all of this report out of the old tenant and into a new one Then after this is cleaned up, it can be handed over to a team which cares more about it This is the plan I proposed earlier today and which all of my colleagues present agreed with. So I put this question into a real application at work. It was good and cathartic to get that out. The last question is this one: And that is something I'll discuss with my wife closer on Friday. She and I are too busy with her parents out of town and their dogs to care for. Tomorrow I'll read and do the workbook exercises. These ones are just the ones on the book itself; there is more to go through. Oh and ofc I'll call my grandmas. I have calendar reminders now so I don't forget. Good night everyone!
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Sun 10.27 No compulsive social media use: 25 days No compulsive research: 25 days No passive screentime before bed, first thing in the morning, and during work: 28 days Carved another pumpkin today and made dinner with the insides; I mean, why not use the whole pumpkin you know. It was a pretty busy day with the kids overall. Otherwise today was more of a cleaning day. Things that I will do everyday to stay healthy Sleep around 8h - All the kids slept better last night; probably due to all the stimulation from driving out of town, being at a party, meeting and playing with other kids, etc. We slept about 7.5h, waking up at 7:30; which is a win for us. Stretch - waking up yeah, but I kept moving a lot today. Go for walks / Exercise - brought dogs out with my 2 older kids, about a 25min walk. Also moved some furniture around for the mentioned cleaning tasks, which my kids "helped out" with (what matters is they think they did). I'll get back to the gym tomorrow morning. Drink Water - Yes, throughout the day. We went to do errands and I remembered this time to bring my water bottle. Wash face + body - yes, afternoon shower Nutrition: breakfast - quesadillas lunch - spicy bread rolls dinner - pumpkin lasagna, which was delicious! I'm absolutely going to be doing more with pumpkins moving forward. My wife and I really like carving together. Talk to my partner - yes, while doing errands and doing the pumpkin as well. I mostly carved while my wife mostly handled the lasagna, but I helped out with whisking (which gets me more confident to try baking) and she ended up getting the final details of the stencil. Talk with my kids + play with them - Some outside time with them as well as inside time with the chores. It was a vacuum and clean the rugs chores mostly with them, on top of my other regular weekend chores. Read a book - Ah, I knew I was forgetting something. Yeah I'm ready to go to be now, so I'll curl up reading a short story from Ernest Hemingway after this entry is done. Meditate + deep breaths - yes, before my shower in the afternoon. I use an app called Headspace btw, in case anyone is curious. It does require a subscription, but I find it excellent for myself because sometimes a guided meditation is exactly what I need to get started. Practice French - I did 30min of French this morning. I also indirectly influenced my brother to start practicing Chinese; his fiancé speaks the language, and I think my influence (part of the 1st Habit) gave him some encouragement. Journal (gratitude and reflection) - grateful for my family. 7 Habits - Proactivity Test - day 10 Take the time to record the impressions you had in the funeral visualization at the beginning of this chapter. The previous entry, linked as promised. Take a few moments and write down your roles as you now see them. Are you satisfied with that mirror image of yourself? My roles are that of a: Father Husband Employee Volunteer Son Extended family member; grandson, cousin, etc. Individual (personal) I think I could do a better job as an employee, and as an extended family member too. I recall thinking that I should call my grandmothers more, for instance; both of them in their late 80s. They have both met my kids, my 2 older ones at least, though the distance makes it tricky to visit them (one of them is an 8h drive away, the other one lives in Mexico). But I should make an effort to call them. The employee part is regarding how I procrastinate. I'm going to be kind to myself and also acknowledge that I'm making progress. But will be keeping it up. Set up time to completely separate yourself from daily activities and work on your personal mission statement. This will be my commitment for this upcoming week overall. The mission statement is something I could work on each night after work. Even if for a brief moment. Go through the chart in Appendix A showing different centers and circle all those you can identify with Do they form a pattern for the behavior in your life? Are you comfortable with the implications of your analysis? The alternative centers which I had identified myself were Work (role), Possession (intangible ones like being well known or liked), Pleasure (chasing the next high), and Enemy (trolling and flaming). These alternative centers definitely form a pattern of reactivity, which I'm doing my best to instead be aware of and practice my proactiveness. Meditation has definitely been helping me with that, staying more aware and grounded lets me choose better responses. Confident in my analysis of myself, comfortable on that part; not necessarily on staying this way though. I also wanting to keep working on myself, as I have been detailing on this journal. --------- Y'know, I just said how I could be a more frequent extended family member. How about I call my grandmothers tomorrow? Both of them (not at the same time). Let's make that my commitment for tomorrow. I might also answer more of the questions from the previous post, though that is more of a stretch. Tomorrow my wife is helping out with my in-laws dogs so I'll be busy with my kids; I will only commit to calling my grandmothers and working a bit on my mission statement. For my reference in a later entry, the other questions: Good night everyone!
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Sat 10.26 No compulsive social media use: 24 days No compulsive research: 24 days No passive screentime before bed, first thing in the morning, and during work: 27 days The whole family went to a Halloween party, drove out of town for 1h and 30min to get there. A bunch of our mutual friends were there. This was hosted by 1 of those friends + his girlfriend who now live together in this house. His girlfriend's family, who has cousins with kids the same age as ours, was there too. So even the kids had fun, they got to bust a piñata that had candy even! Kids slept throughout the car ride. We got back home late, so I'm keeping this entry short. All kids are asleep. Things that I will do everyday to stay healthy Sleep around 8h - My 8mo baby is going through a sleep regression 🫠 So last night I went to bed at 10:30pm, originally I had meant to go to bed at 10pm but the baby woke up right then. My wife and I took turns waking up to get to the baby. I woke up at 2am and then 6am. In my estimate, I got closer to 7h of sleep. Better than yesterday, but I'm still feeling tired. I hope tonight is better; we did keep all the kids really busy after all. Stretch - Big stretch when I got up to check on the baby at 2am. Then waking up at 6am. Go for walks / Exercise - early morning the whole family went to the park, which was basically my cardio workout; pulled a wagon with 2 kids to the park and back, also played tag with my two older kids. Drink Water - Yes, although I forgot to bring my water bottle in the car ride, so I drank a lot of carbonated water when I got there. I stuck to drinking only carbonated water; no alcohol, as I was driving back later. Wash face + body - yes, before heading out to the drive. I'll have one tomorrow morning though, I could use another shower and wash. Nutrition: breakfast - cereal lunch - chicken drumsticks dinner - pizza + snacks at the party Talk to my partner - yep, I talked to her about the 7 Habits book and workbook I've been reading and doing, respectively. Summarized everything from the paradigms and principles, Habit 1 about being Proactive, and Habit 2 about beginning with the end in mind. We actually did an exercise together too relating to the 2nd Habit; I asked her to imagine what our life would look like together by our 25th wedding anniversary. We discussed financial goals, vacation goals, personal goals (career and individually), and so forth. And ofc we talked a lot at my friends party too. Talk with my kids + play with them - Park time this morning, also they had a lot of fun at the party. They are all hopefully gonna have a good nights sleep tonight! Read a book - early in the morning, when my baby woke up, I read Don Quixote while rocking him back to sleep. Meditate + deep breaths - yes, in the morning and before going out on the drive Practice French - I did a solid 1h of French practice while my wife was getting ready before leaving to the Halloween party. Kids allowed it because they were tired and calm after the park. Journal (gratitude and reflection) - today was a great day overall. 7 Habits - Proactivity Test - day 10 Since I knew I was going to be busier today, I wrote a simple commitment for today; to post the exercises from the 7 Habits on Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind. Questions are as follows: Take the time to record the impressions you had in the funeral visualization at the beginning of this chapter. I've done this one before in a previous entry, it was the first exercise the book asked from this Habit. Just have to link it at some point; easy todo. Take a few moments and write down your roles as you now see them. Are you satisfied with that mirror image of yourself? TODO Set up time to completely separate yourself from daily activities and work on your personal mission statement. I do have that first draft, but I should review it. So I'll add this as a todo still Go through the chart in Appendix A showing different centers and circle all those you can identify with Do they form a pattern for the behavior in your life? Are you comfortable with the implications of your analysis? I'll have to summarize these, but I did highlight which ones I identified with in a previous post. Easy TODO Start a collection of notes, quotes and ideas you want to use as resource material in writing your personal mission statement I have a bunch of these I use for motivation already. Another quicker TODO Identify a project you will be facing in the near future and apply the principle of mental creation [imagination and visualization]. Write down the results you desire and what steps will lead to those results. TODO Share the principles of Habit 2 with your family or work group, and suggest that together you begin the process of developing a family or group mission statement. I am definitely going to start with my family on this; my wife specifically. I think I used the car ride time well, talking about this book with my wife. Should make it easier to start it. --------- For tomorrow, I want to work on at least 2 of the above questions from the book. Good night everyone, I'm pretty tired. Bonne nuit!
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My 8mo started going through a sleep regression just a few days ago. Baby is back to waking up every 3h. Normally this happens around the 8mo period, I forgot about it because my middle kid never really slept through the night (apparently my oldest did go through it too, my wife recalled to me). Sleep regressions happen because babies hit a lot of milestones at the same time; teething continues, they crawl more actively, they are sitting / attempting to sit/stand, but most of all emotional development accelerates -> they start understanding happiness, silliness, fear, sadness, etc. at a basic level, and which also comes with separation anxiety due to that greater awareness. All this is overwhelming to them, and so they struggle sleeping again. This period doesn't last forever though, it will go away in a few days to a few weeks. ... For that explanation, I'm channeling my wife haha. She has education in early childhood development. But yeah, I'm circling back here since your kid and my youngest are about the same age; you may still notice a "sleep regression" even in spite of those steps you both take. Just so you know that it's completely normal.
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Fri 10.25 No compulsive social media use: 23 days No compulsive research: 23 days No passive screentime before bed, first thing in the morning, and during work: 26 days I'm close to a month in with these goals of mine, which is really cool to see how far I'm coming. Was checking to see my screen time and it's trending greatly downwards. Not something I forced either, naturally downwards instead. Being busy with kids, my wife, my friends, my dogs, enjoying life; real life that is. True, I do still have interactions with technology, but I am not making it a point to just find pleasure. I am sticking to screen time that also benefits me; such as my work, journaling here, or if it involves spending time with my IRL friends and family to further foster my relationships with them. Something I'm noting that has greatly shifted for me, is that I feel like I'm using technology with intention and with awareness now. October 2024 is the first month... nay, the first time ever since I've felt this. I no longer think in terms of showing off while playing a game or sharing on the internet, these are just not important at all. Things that I will do everyday to stay healthy Sleep around 8h - Ehhh~~ well, I went to bed at 11pm, a bit late but not usually terrible... however, last night was one of those nights where kids just weren't staying in bed. The baby woke up 3 times, 2 of which my wife wanted to handle, and 1 which I did myself. My oldest joined us at 12am, entered our room upset. And my middle kid also woke up at 5:30am and did not want to go back to bed. So I got about 6.5h of sleep, and I'm really feeling it today. I'll be going to bed earlier today for sure; reminder for myself to talk to my wife about that. Bad sleep means cravings, usually with procrastination. I'm glad to say that I did not sink to my bottom lines, but there were times where I thought about it. I grounded myself with meditation and deep breathing to help me here, as well as taking a break to refill my water bottle and do some quick chores around the house; these things ground me. I still was not super productive at work, to be fully honest, but I think it also could've been much worse too. Ok day overall. I'm glad it's Friday. Stretch - Big stretch when I got up to check on the baby at 4am. Then waking up at 6am (begrudgingly) and before working out today, and through my breaks; admittedly, I didn't take as many breaks as I could have. Skipped a few pomodoro breaks, specially near the end of the day feeling like I had to "crunch" my output, and it did cause some pain in my back. Go for walks / Exercise - my oldest had a PD day, my wife let me go to the gym by myself. I used the treadmill for a 30min incline walk, then I went to shower afterwards. Drink Water - Yes, I did drink a lot, mostly because I've also gotten used to drinking water whenever I find my mind is racing, as a way of grounding myself. Similar results to deep breathing and meditating. Wash face + body - yes, both after working out. Nutrition: breakfast - cereal lunch - crackers with hummus dinner - flatbread pizzas Talk to my partner - yes, I also talked to her about next week, it's going to be busy with my in-laws away from Monday to Wednesday. I actually got this idea to talk about it with my wife from my ADHD coach earlier today; this is a good reminder from her, as it's a proactive way for me to plan ahead for a week where my work will have to be made up at odd hours. Also, reminder about the sleep thing for me to bring up later. Talk with my kids + play with them - Outside time while I let the dogs out; this is a fun way for them to get outside time, while I also let my pups stretch out and supervise my kids at the park across the street. Read a book - I finished reading the 2nd Habit. There's quite a few exercises to do still, but I'll get to those over the weekend. Meditate + deep breaths - yes, see the above section on sleep. Practice French - still have to practice, will do it before my bed routine Journal (gratitude and reflection) - kids can be tough, but it's worth it! 7 Habits - Proactivity Test - day 9 My commitment yesterday was to finish up to Habit 2. I finished reading, but there are 7 exercises. Technically I already did two of them; one being that initial funeral visualization exercise, and the second one being the alternative centers which I identified closest with. I'll edit this post to link them, at some point later in the weekend. Something neat that Covey writes in the 7 Habits; "Just as breathing exercises help integrate body and mind, writing is a kind of psycho-neural muscular activity which helps bridge and integrate the conscious and subconscious minds. Writing distills, crystallizes, and clarifies thought" He says this in regards to the writing of our Mission Statement. But it hit me then that he's also describing meditation, deep breathing and journaling too. Ah, so that makes sense to me, why these two things are so helpful; indeed, I do think it's healthy to sort out our thoughts and put them down on paper. Writing, even typing, is helpful just for noting what we want to remember later. A bit of a tangent here, but I think this is why I prefer writing with a pen / stylus, or typing on a physical keyboard at least, over typing in a touchscreen. With a pen / stylus, I can feel the shapes of the letters, symbols and numbers that I'm writing out in paper; I can feel how much pressure I'm putting, and physically see how the pen leaves stronger marks. Even in my phone, while using my notes app with the stylus, that also leaves a darker shade if I press it harder against the screen (really neat detail). With a keyboard, not as satisfying as writing by hand imo, but my hands are always in a specific position, as are my fingers within reach of the keys I hit. I also get tactile feedback, I know by how my fingers are extended (through just practicing a lot and getting used to the keyboard layout) exactly which key my fingers are about to hit. I just... miss all that when I type on my phone. I'm not saying this is the only reason either, but it's probably part of why I also negatively associate hopping on social media on my phone now. I know I'm not really wanting to type anything on my phone, so I tend to default to just doomscrolling and posting low effort nonsense. I mean, even without the touch screen keyboard reason, I can think of many other reasons why it's not a good use of time, haha. But anyways, I digress. Just a cool thing I thought about after reading that part. --------- This is all I have to share for today; I'm tired. Tomorrow, I have a Halloween party at a friends place, so I will keep tomorrows post short. My commitment will be to circle back with the exercises from Habit 2, just maybe the questions. I won't answer all of them tomorrow.
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From videogames to learning new things (startups, music and French) 🚀
D_Cozy replied to indie_rok's topic in Daily Journals
I know it's easier said than done, but try to keep any passive screentime out of your bedtime routine. I've noticed for myself that it takes me about 1h after using screens to fall asleep. In practice and from my own experience, I know it can be very tempting to reach for your device though, particularly if you've made it a consistent habit. It's hard to break bad habits. But give it a go; put your phone away from your nightstand / bed at night, if you text your partner at night you can offer to do a call instead, and generally keep tech out of the bedroom (or all screens off at least). Focus on a more calming set of activities, like reading a book, do a nightly hygiene routine (shower, brush teeth, etc), even eating a light snack like a banana or yogurt (keep it low-carbs and protein). -
Yeah, Mission Statements are hard to write. I'm not familiar with that book, the one I'm reading is from Stephen R. Covey on "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People." But the idea sounds similar; you want to create a base, a foundation that is built on correct principles like honesty, integrity, fairness, quality, and accountability (these are the ones I'm remembering atm). Covey also states in the book I'm reading that it isn't just a once-and-done kinda thing to write a Mission Statement, it can take several weeks or months before we feel comfortable with it, and even after that it's something we want to keep reviewing to align it as our understanding of principles evolves. As my signature says, one day at a time. I'm not rushing the process; it's certainly hard to find time some days with 3 kids, but it's been worth it for me to carve out the time to do the work. Mission Statements can be written to be personal, for a family, for a community, and for a business. I'm starting with writing my own mission statement, but at some point I would like to write one with my wife for our family. We have a whiteboard that I think would make a good drawing board for it.