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Mindfully engaging with technology - "Things I will do every day to stay healthy"


D_Cozy

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13 hours ago, D_Cozy said:

 Wed 10.23 (part 1)

  • No compulsive social media use: 21 days
  • No compulsive research: 21 days
  • No passive screentime before bed, first thing in the morning, and during work: 24 days

Yesterday was hard, but this morning felt even more difficult with cravings. My mind really "misses" (that's how it feels) going on Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, Discord, etc. and also it "misses" just sporadically looking something up, going on wikis and editing articles that I follow.

Yesterday night, I did some supervised research - my wife being the one supervising, set up a 10min timer so I didn't fall into a rabbit hole - on a new phone that I'd like to get; my lease for the current one is almost up. I'm looking at a phone that supports a stylus, since I tend to use the stylus in my current phone to take notes throughout the day (I much prefer and I find it faster to just jot down messy notes, over typing on a touch screen). This approach worked mostly I'd say, but this may be one of the sources for why I felt strong cravings afterwards. It felt so easy after that to try and justify looking up something else that catches my curiosity, it'll be "quick" is what it felt like I was hearing. Gosh, I sound insane 😛 But it's how I felt. I allowed myself to just put my phone down and start meditating instead.

After meditating this morning, I also think it's because of the MASTER problem from yesterday that I typed out; it's an ambiguous work task, a trigger for me to crave a bottom line because they are "easy" to do. Struggling with procrastination is something I've had to "power" through my entire life, having ADHD. Reflecting though, I think that powering through something has been precisely the problem. So for today, I'm going to be very respectful of my Pomodoros.

I have more to post later, but I'm keeping it at this for now. Quick 5min post for this morning. Will be back later.

could you please share the findings of your research regarding a phone that supports a stylus? 😄

I am pretty much into these things too

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7 hours ago, D_Cozy said:

Wed 10.23 (part 2)

Better half of the morning and afternoon, I immediately dove into those diagrams to figure out what I wanted the current state of this ambiguous project to look like. Also attended an ITAA meeting on meditation, and we discussed bottom line cravings. If you are curious about what I shared in ITAA, you can read this other post I made today on another topic; it's the same points of dealing with cravings I made in that post.

Things that I will do everyday to stay healthy

Sleep around 8h - I went to bed at 10:30pm, slept soundly until it was 6am when the baby woke up. Good sleep overall, though feeling stiff cuz of kids.

Stretch - morning getting out of bed, in particular really needed that because the 2 older kids joined us at some point in the night (I didn't wake up, must have adjusted in my sleep to be in a not-so-comfortable position)

Go for walks / Exercise - no gym this morning, instead went for two 20min walks with my dogs (for a total of 40min) outside. I tired both of them out. I don't do that enough, so I thought that for today I would focus on cardio with my doggies. Pets need exercise too! Later today, I'll work on some push-ups and crunches; after all my kids are asleep.

Drink Water - throughout the day

Wash face + body - still need to do. Will commit tonight

Nutrition:

  • breakfast - cereal (cheerios) with fruit and coffee
  • lunch - pan fried mushrooms with eggs
  • dinner - to do, but will be chicken and cucumber salad

Talk to my partner - she tagged along with me to drop off my middle kid, and I helped her out throughout my breaks with laundry tasks at home. I don't mind using my breaks for off-screen chores, it's something I've found to actually benefit me because those micro-victories at home can carry over to how I perform at work.

Talk with my kids + play with them - My oldest kid mentioned he wanted to do some game together after school, though I can't remember exactly what he mentioned at the moment, so I'll ask him later 😛 and we will do that as long as it doesn't interfere with their bedtime routines. My oldest also has a PD day on Friday, something he's been looking forward to as a way for us to spend time together. I'm looking forward to it as I can do stuff with him in between my breaks.

Read a book - yes indeed, I read more of the 7 Habits. Got to a really interesting part about the centers we tend to focus on.

Meditate + deep breaths - yes, at the meeting this morning, afterwards as well during a break

Practice French - to do still, I'll carve some time out when my kids get home and speak to them in French

Journal (gratitude and reflection) - I'm pretty grateful for that Master checklist.

-----

7 Habits

30 day proactivity test - day 7

My commitment today is to expand on what a Mission Statement is and make my own.

Well, it takes time to make your own mission statement. The website that the Covey book links me to says so itself. So that is something I'm working on. My first draft of my own personal Mission Statement currently is:

I will be an honest, loving, kind, supportive and present family member, coworker, volunteer and friend.

In all walks of life, my journey is to be a loving husband and father, so that those which I care for may remember me as someone who was there to help them, support them, guide them and listen to them.

I like this because it represents 5 things which I think are very important; love, honesty, kindness, support, and awareness. All of these things are traits that I want to live up to, as well as verbs (actions) that I want to practice everyday.

There is a lot more that goes into a Mission Statement than just this, but I don't necessarily want to bog down this post with all my personal details either. It is still in a rough draft, and I'd like to share it with my wife first too; I may eventually post it here, but that day will not be today.

So instead, I'll shift to briefly explain what a Mission Statement is as I understand it. A Mission Statement is the center for what we stand for; it is our basis for making major, life-directing decisions, the basis for making daily decisions in the midst of the situations and emotions that affect our lives. Whatever is a the center of our life is the source of our security, guidance, wisdom and power.

I think what really helped me put this Mission Statement together, as is summarized above anyways, is having worked on two things.

First, the Sobriety Worksheet; that exercise has been pivotal for identifying what addictive behaviors I'm prone to, and also identifying situations and emotions which are triggering for me, and which I would reactively submit to my urges to browse Reddit or (this is going back years) spinning pokestops and starting auto-battles to "keep up with the grind".

The second thing is the things which I keep doing every day to keep myself physically, emotionally, socially, spiritually and mentally healthy; "the things which I will do every day to stay healthy." They are honestly so helpful at ensuring that my needs are met in healthy ways. Every day that I do them, I feel fulfilled, no matter how hard the cravings may have been that day. If I were to still be deep into my addictive behaviors, I know I wouldn't feel this way; I'd be too busy looking at my phone, either playing a game and not noticing how beautiful the fall scenery was while walking (instead I'd be too busy with something like Pokemon Go or E&P). My mind would be too distracted, wondering about my Reddit karma or my post likes. I wouldn't be living life; I would simply be floating by life.

My top lines from the sobriety sheet naturally guided me towards those things, and I think that is what has helped me truly get to know myself; my roles, the scripts that I was following rather than writing my own, and what situations and emotions bring up my weaknesses.

MASTER (exercises post-week)

What is the stimulus of your frustration or unhappiness? How do you respond?

Having used the checklist, as well as having worked on my Mission Statement, I see now that (at least one of) my weaknesses lies in ambiguous tasks; open ended problems that are not very well defined. It makes sense then that I tend to thrive with closed problems, those which are well defined and have a list of steps.

Being faced with an open-ended task tends to be the stimulus for my frustration, which then leads to me responding by procrastinating or putting the task off. It doesn't really address it though.

What other choices might exist between the stimulus and the response?

I see now that I can use the MASTER checklist to think through those situations where I react with frustration, anger, retreat, fear and so on. Sometimes it does make sense to exit too; if the task is not particularly important or if it's not worth chasing an empty victory. I like how that first Measure step allows me to put in perspective the importance by thinking about it first.

I also see that I am allowed to ask for help, and that I can work on defining a blueprint; what I want the end to look like (Thinking with the End in Mind) for an ambiguous task or project. Habit 2 is going to help me a lot with this, to be proactive and grow myself in this area that I'm not comfortable in.

---

Anyway. I'm at very interesting part of the book now, which talks about the different centers that everyone has, which their paradigms are based out of. There are parts of life like marriage and work are very healthy to have; but they are not good to center your life around. What does the book mean by that? I'll write about it tomorrow; there's a lot to cover! Consider that my commitment to share here for the proactivity test, The Alternate Centers.

Wow, your mission statement is beautifully written, meaningful, and deeply human. I understand the significance of having a mission statement in one's life! I have to find one for myself. 

Edited by Mohammad
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Thu 10.24 (part 1)

  • No compulsive social media use: 22 days
  • No compulsive research: 22 days
  • No passive screentime before bed, first thing in the morning, and during work: 25 days

Things that I will do everyday to stay healthy

Sleep around 8h - My wife and I went to bed at 11pm, she was making invitations for my oldest kids birthday party, and I was reading. I woke up at 6:45am, despite being in bed late I still woke up energized. Not using screens before bed really makes a difference!

Stretch - I forgot to stretch when I got out of bed and I felt a bit of sharp pain on my right leg. I stretched it out and it felt better, but it just shows here that it is important for me to make sure I get some blood flowing on my body first, before jumping out of bed. Also stretched before the gym

Go for walks / Exercise - went with my wife after dropping off my middle kid. Today was a leg day; leg curls, leg extensions, squats. We also threw in some chest press and flys. Good overall workout.

Drink Water - Yes, but I do have to remember to drink water with every meal as well. That is important too, it helps with digestion (or so I've been told by my brother, who studied sports science)

Wash face + body - yes, after the workout

Nutrition:

  • breakfast - made two sunny-side up eggs and put them on top of a bowl of reheated brown rice
  • lunch - tbd, I'll check the fridge later to see what I can make
  • dinner - tbd, will checkin with my wife later

Talk to my partner - this morning getting the kids ready and at the gym. I gave her a spook by accident, opened the door to my kids room very quickly, where she was in getting their clothes, and scared her. I felt bad, didn't realize she was there! I was also trying to get clothes for my kids. I still apologized too, showing that I want to take responsibility for me spooking her.

Talk with my kids + play with them - yesterday I read books to all my kids, so that was fun. Literacy is really important imo, and preferably I try to keep it with physical books over digital content. Will see what to do more with them tonight.

Read a book - did I ever 😄 I read out loud the 2nd Habits centers with my wife last night, as she was making the invites. We had a good discussion around them too. I'll be reading more tonight.

Meditate + deep breaths - deep breaths this morning. I'll carve out some time to meditate later today during my lunch break

Practice French - je parla avec ma femme ce matin en français, aussi la educatrice de mon enfant. Just learning past tense right now 😄 I have yet to do Duolingo; I seem to have a habit of keeping that for later in the day instead, which is fine by me, because I'd rather not get too distracted with it in the morning. I'll do that one tonight.

Journal (gratitude and reflection) - grateful for being able to work out in the morning before work, it makes a big difference to my productivity starting the day.

----

I'll be back with part 2 later today, with the 7 Habits workbook and the insights on the centers I talked with my wife about yesterday.

11 hours ago, Mohammad said:

could you please share the findings of your research regarding a phone that supports a stylus? 😄

I am pretty much into these things too

Hey Mohammad, thanks for your feedback on my mission statement summary.

For the phone; right now I have a Samsung Fold Z4, it's a foldable. Has a cover screen, and can open up with a bigger inside screen (basically turn into a tablet). It's a really expensive phone, despite that I chose it because of the ability to use a stylus and take notes with it.

The problem I've had with it, though, is that the inner screen is prone to breaking after about 3 years of constant use. It is not cheap to replace either! So I'm moving to the Samsung S24 Ultra instead, which is more like a traditional smartphone. It is still pricey, just not as pricey as the foldable, and still supports a stylus which is really the most important thing for me; even has a slot at the bottom to store the stylus inside the phone itself.

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Thanks for taking the time to write your diary. It's indeed quite insightful. I also like journaling, otherwise I wouldn't come here to write once a week for the last five years 😄 

On 10/22/2024 at 8:03 PM, D_Cozy said:

Mind you, Bluey is a children's show lol, but I love it; it appeals to adults too thanks to also having lessons like this one. This episode in particular, it reminds me that sometimes you'll just be bored and that's okay; being bored is still a valuable experience, it can be a great opportunity to check-in with yourself, or to notice or think about something new.

I found your profile image familiar, but I didn't know where was it from! I was once looking for nice cartoons for my students in the past and I came across Bluey. I wish it was 5 minutes long like Peppa Pig is 😄 

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Hello @D_Cozy,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts in this journal!  It's very meticulous with a lot of good detail and insight.  I'll continue reading along and try to catch up with what you've written over the past several months.  As you already know, I'm here as a casual gamer in that I reach for IRL hobbies first before I game.  It was interesting reading that you have ADHD and how this affects you when gaming.  I look forward to reading your future entries.  And I hope to write more about my own adventures in life going forwards and possibly leaving video games behind.  We'll see.

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Thu 10.24 (part 2)

7 Habits - Proactivity Test - day 8

Habit 2: Think with the End in Mind - Centers

Our Center is what is a concept for where our self-awareness, our conscience and compass in life. Whatever is at the center of our life is the source of our security, guidance, wisdom and power.

Security is our sense of worth; Guidance is our source of direction in life; Wisdom is our perspective on life; and Power is our capacity to act and accomplish something. These four factors are what underscore every other dimensions of our life, Covey states in the book.

With that, he starts talking about some of the different alternative centers that people have; this list is not limited to just these centers necessarily either.

Spouse Centeredness - although it may sound good to center around ones partner, Covey argues that too much weight on our spouse can cause us to become highly dependent on the relationship for our own sense of emotional worth.

Family Centeredness - similar to the spouse one, except the sense of personal worth is based on family traditions and reputation. Similarly, centering our decisions around family can make us vulnerable to any changes to tradition or culture, or any outside influences that would affect family reputation.

Money Centeredness - While it is important to take money into account, centering around money can cause people to put aside other priorities; like a good time out with family, or even regretting those times because of "how expensive" they were. This is what Covey argues.

Work Centeredness - I've absolutely fallen into work centeredness myself; I will introduce myself as my role, "I'm a software engineer", many times, unaware that I put too much weight about what I do for work as my identity. I've procrastinated before when the work got tough (with mobile games, social media, compulsive research...), and these cycles have then led to overworking myself after hours for 2 weeks straight. This is no way to live, because I am afraid of "failing" at the role I've been given constantly. Now to be clear, work is definitely important; but focusing only on work as the basis of my decisions has caused burnout in my case, and it is actually a trigger for my bottom lines (my addictions) as well.

Possession Centeredness - This is so much me. Possessions aren't just material things you can physically have, like a car or jewelry; but also intangible things like fame or social prominence. On my end, it's the latter immaterial things - such as being recognized in an online community for a game or for a fandom - where I've attached my sense of identity too strongly to. While it's good to take care of your things, it's not good to center all your security and decisions around possessions; because they can just as easily be lost as they are gained. It's definitely a reason why I'm so easily addicted to social media, same with mobile and online competitive games where I can "show off" my skill and knowledge.

Pleasure Centeredness - Innocent pleasures in moderation can provide relaxation and foster relationships; but there is no deep lasting fulfillment if we just engage in pleasures continually. So the pleasure-centered paradigm leads to being too soon bored with each succeeding level of "fun," on to the next new pleasure which has to be better, more exciting, with a bigger "high."

... kinda sounds familiar, doesn't it? 😉 I've definitely been guilty of centering my decisions and life around the next thing that could bring me the most pleasure.

Friend/Enemy Centeredness - these two were very common when I was a teen. I'd see a lot of my friends base their worth on where they were in the "social totem pole" (word-for-word I've heard one of my high school classmates say that). And similarly, a lot of bitter drama focused on one person, almost to the point of obsessing over someone you don't like and doing things because you know it would irk that enemy of yours. I've even seen it online, something which I've partly done too; things like "flaming" and "trolling" arise due to enemy centeredness, even if you have to go online to find an enemy. Personally, I've definitely fallen into the latter.

Church Centeredness - I am not religious, but according to the author, this is when an individual bases their entire worth around the teachings of their religious faith. Now keep in mind this was written from the point of view of a Christian, so hence the name; the important thing to understand is the idea. And he argues that, while religion is great for leaning on a permanent sense of security and intrinsic worth, it is the principles they teach which do that, not the religious organization. It's another thing to center your decisions solely on what you think a community would prefer you to do, and make all your decisions based on that organization rather than the principles it teaches.

Self-Centeredness - this is basically selfishness, although I will say this could wrap around a lot of the above centers he has described. What I found most interesting about this one is that he highlighted how excessive reliance on independence is essentially self-centeredness; that you can only rely on yourself, and it leads to lack of collaboration and interdependent values.

The author also states that there are more alternative centers than this, but these are the most common ones; I'm guessing the most common ones he could identify. At a glance, I'll admit I can't think of others myself. He also states that it is possible to lean towards multiple of the above alternative centers too, so a combination is possible too.

Covey then introduces the concept of the Principle Center; specifically centering our lives on correct principles. This is the one Covey argues is where we can center our lives, to create a solid foundation for development of security, guidance, wisdom and power. All of the above, except for our power, are limitless; and our power is only truly limited by natural consequences of following or ignoring the principles. I briefly covered these principles on the October 10th post (linking also for my own reference), but they are the principles of growth and change which he talked about in the intro of the book: fairness, honesty and integrity, dignity, service and quality (personal growth).

====

Long part 2! But I did my best to summarize these as best as I could in my own words. Again, I do really recommend reading Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective People if you want to get more insight; it's really quite a good book with effective self-work exercises you can integrate into your daily activities and interactions.

Having read all this last night, and having typed it out here, I can now see what he means in terms of needing to review and revise your Mission Statement. I'll keep it in mind.

For tomorrow, my commitment is going to be to finish the Habit 2 chapter. I have about 25 pages left by my eyeballing.

I do see that I have other notifications, I'll reply to them tomorrow as well 🙂 Have a good night everyone!

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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.

Edited by D_Cozy
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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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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.

On 10/20/2024 at 8:15 PM, D_Cozy said:
  • Family: I would want them to say that I was a good father, caring husband; someone patient, trustworthy and present
  • Friend: I would want my best friends to remember me as a good listener, supportive of them and kind, and someone who could bring them joy
  • Colleague: I would want my coworkers to say that I was reliable, honest, knowledgeable, and overall a collaborative worker
  • Spiritual / Volunteer Community: Helpful and empathetic, as well as a hard worker (for the civic tech club for instance)

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:

Quote

Start a collection of notes, quotes and ideas you want to use as resource material in writing your personal mission statement

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.

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.

Good night everyone!

Edited by D_Cozy
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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:

Quote

Don't fool yourself that important things can be put off till tomorrow; they can be put off forever, or not at all.
--Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960

Do the hard jobs first. The easy jobs will take care of themselves.
--Dale Carnegie.

Those who make the worst use of their time are the first to complain of its brevity.
-- Jean de La Bruyère

Yesterday is a cancelled cheque. Tomorrow is a promissory note. Today is the only cash you have, so spend it wisely.
--Kim Lyons

What may be done at any time will be done at no time.
--Scottish Proverb

The secret of getting ahead is getting started.
--Sally Berger

There are a million ways to lose a work day, but not even a single way to get one back.
--Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister

Time wasted is existence; used is life.
-- Edward Young

Stop web-surfing. Start working.
--George Yang

It is an undoubted truth, that the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in.
--Earl of Chesterfield

Procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.
--Napoleon Hill

The greatest amount of wasted time is the time not getting started.
--Dawson Trotman

Until you value yourself, you will not value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.
-- M. Scott Peck

Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.
-- Abraham Lincoln

I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.
--Jerome K. Jerome (Three Men in a Boat, 1889).

The trouble is that you think you have time.
-- Jack Kornfield

In delay there lies no plenty.
--William Shakespeare

I'm going to stop putting things off, starting tomorrow!
--Sam Levenson.

Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy.
--Wayne Dyer

Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness; no laziness; no procrastination; never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
--Lord Chesterfield

Putting off an easy thing makes it hard. Putting off a hard thing makes it impossible.
--George Claude Lorimer

If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it.
--Olin Miller

The best way to get something done is to begin.
--Author Unknown

Listen carefully,
Neither the Vedas
Nor the Qur'an
Will teach you this:
Put the bit in its mouth,
The saddle on its back,
Your foot in the stirrup,
And ride your wild runaway mind
All the way to heaven.
-- Kabir

We shall never have more time. We have, and have always had, all the time there is. No object is served in waiting until next week or even until tomorrow. Keep going day in and day out. Concentrate on something useful. Having decided to achieve a task, achieve it at all costs.
--Arnold Bennett

You may delay, but time will not.
--Benjamin Franklin

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):

  1. Refactor the whole thing to remove the unnecessary duplication of code blocks
  2. Make a plan to move all of this report out of the old tenant and into a new one
  3. 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:

Quote

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.

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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hehe mon gars, je ne savais pas que tu etudiais le francais aussi 🙂

Je ne aime pas beaocup Dualingo, Il ne marche pas pour moi, mais, J'ai trouvé un method pour amerioler rapidement:

 

Step #1 = Tell a story for 5 minutes

Step #2 = Write down new words & sentences

Step #3 = Repeat Step 1 & 2

Step #4 = Repeat exercise with a new story

Step #5 = Study the words you've learned.

---

Great to read you are doing good without video games, inspiration for me to keep forward!

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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.

On 10/29/2024 at 4:25 AM, indie_rok said:

hehe mon gars, je ne savais pas que tu etudiais le francais aussi 🙂

Je ne aime pas beaocup Dualingo, Il ne marche pas pour moi, mais, J'ai trouvé un method pour amerioler rapidement:

 

Step #1 = Tell a story for 5 minutes

Step #2 = Write down new words & sentences

Step #3 = Repeat Step 1 & 2

Step #4 = Repeat exercise with a new story

Step #5 = Study the words you've learned.

---

Great to read you are doing good without video games, inspiration for me to keep forward!

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! 

Edited by D_Cozy
updating the entry with what I did yesterday
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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.

Edited by D_Cozy
no part 2, feeling chills from covid and flu shots
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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.

Quote

First pumpkin:

828a6fb7-d876-4505-bf57-cb5988522e27.jpg

 

Quote

2nd Pumpkin:

f76f8830-4eea-4e50-a7a1-40610c4b9f94.jpg

 

Edited by D_Cozy
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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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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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Sat 11.02

Feliz Dia de Muertos ❤️

  • No compulsive social media use: 31 days
  • No compulsive research: 31 days
  • No passive screentime before bed, first thing in the mornings, or during work: 34 days (calls ok? details below for why I'm up so late still)

I'm up fairly late, but it's a weekend. Was up talking to our friend again, who is getting settled into his new place. He's going through a lot and there was quite a lot he wanted to discuss. He is seeing someone else, which surprised us! Due to how recent his split was from his previous partner (it was earlier this year!) I'm really hoping he is making good decisions.

But well, I'm not here to judge, though concerned still I am cuz I care about him; we listened to him, and his whole day during his move and getting settled in his new place. Technically I'm posting this at 12:17am on Sunday... yeah I shouldn't do this often. I'll forgive myself because it was a Saturday, and well there was evidently a lot to keep me thinking tonight... but only because of that. Tomorrow it's to bed by 10pm.

I caught up on Cams' emails earlier today, and the one which stood out to me was "the surprising truth." This is the one in which he says he has been working on a big project, how he spent 15 hours a day working; 7am to 10pm. As someone who struggles heavily with overworking themselves -> procrastinating -> overworking, my first reaction was concern reading this. He even details how he questioned himself, if he was just transferring one addiction with another; because this intense focus reminded him of his time spent gaming 16h straight. However, the key difference that Cam notes is that when gaming, nothing else mattered; but when working, he would be able to still look after his health, relationship, and nutrition. Even despite the long hours he was focusing his energy on; and when the project ended, he was able to return to his regular routine. This email was eye-opening to me, because I can relate and empathize, even if my experience is different.

I know from my own experience that addiction transference has been a big problem for me. I went from playing fighting games competitively, and when I realized I wasn't good enough to make it pro, I focused on school and my girlfriend at the time. But to my own detriment, I gave up a lot of my other hobbies, started instead to also play mobile games on my off-time throughout this period. At first it was not to the point of affecting my grades, but I wasn't very present in a lot of other situations; my only focuses were school, my girlfriend at the time (my wife now) and the game. That's it! And it got worse from here with mobile games, which became the number 1 priority for me and my schedule. Fast-forward, but after I sobered myself from mobile games, and when I started "focusing" a my job a lot... I still didn't feel like I was hitting my production capability and potential. It has been a journey for me to realized that I was still stressed with work, procrastinating when things got hard, and then overworking myself to "catch up." My procrastination up to a few months ago was led by browsing social media and editing random articles that caught my interest, sometimes for the entire work day.

So all that to say, that is why I became concerned and then curious about Cams email. Personally, mobile games and a few other types get me like this, where nothing else matters to me and they are the priority. That said, if I stay away from those, this is where I split off; other games, specially on a dedicated device, I'm able to schedule in time blocks and maintain a regular routine after putting them down. I am aware that everyone is unique, and I recognize that this uniqueness is real through my work on the sobriety worksheet; discovering the things I stay away from (my bottom lines), the things I can do with caution (my middle lines) and the things that I aspire to do and be (my top lines). I'm able to empathize as a result, even in spite of the differences.

One other thing that I detected from Cam's email was that it sounded like he had a solid plan for balancing his day, even in-spite of the long work hours. He'd make sure to eat meals with his girlfriend. He'd make sure to still look after his health. These are crucial things that I neglected myself when I would overwork myself -> procrastinate -> overwork myself, and so forth the cycle goes. These are the crucial things that I'm now making a point to pay attention to; my physical health, my mental and spiritual wellbeing, and my social and emotional fulfillment.

Things I will do to stay healthy

Sleep around 8h - I went to bed at 10pm last night and the baby woke up at 11:30am. From there I read some Hemingway short stories (his stories about Nick, a character of his), and then fell asleep by 12:30am. Then woke up at 6:30am; so a decent sleep overall by my estimations. Tonight... maybe not as good. It's past midnight now 😛 Well see above.

Stretch - yessir, right after getting up to be with all kids and let my wife sleep in this morning.

Meditate + deep breaths - I took some deep breaths in the morning, but I slacked on meditation. Weekends seem to be the tougher days for me to make time, so I will make an effort tomorrow to discuss this with my partner; even just 10min where I can focus on it.

Go for walks / Exercise - brought all of the kiddos to the park, wagon ride + stroller push lol. I say that's a workout.

Drink Water - I could've had more, but I did remember later in the day after my kids swimming lessons.

Wash body + face - d'oh, I realized I totally deleted this part from my template by accident yesterday. Yes, I do review my posts 😛 Okay, I am fairly certain I did do these two things yesterday afternoon after the cardio workout (before my work meet). As for today, if midnight counts, well I will hop in the shower right after this post. Get back on track.

Nutrition:
* Breakfast; fruit salad
* lunch; meatball sandwich (meatballs from yesterdays leftovers)
* dinner; take-out, since my wife and I (mostly her) made the cake. There was leftover batter and she directed me with helping make cupcakes with said batter, which was fun. My decoration skills definitely could use some work though.

Talk to my partner - Yes, and we spent a large amount of time together at night.

Talk with kids + play with them - Yes, I gave them that trip to the park and later at night I was in charge of getting them ready for bed. Twas a fun night, although they did go to bed late and I think it's due to the candy rush from Halloween. It's already challenging for me to not eat the candy either (I do want to stay healthy) but it's even tougher to make sure the kids don't go nuts on it. I caught my middle one sneaking under the table to eat a chocolate lol.

Read a book - While waiting for swimming lessons to be done, I did work on more of the Habits workbook and read it some more too. Last night I ended up reading some Hemingway short stories

Practice French - Yes, this morning and talking with my wife too (mutual practice of Spanish <-> French conversations)

Journal - I'm going to shower and then bed 😛

7 habits - proactivity test - day 15

My commitments:

  • Make the Skull cake with my wife

Yes, it was fun but laborious. So many dishes to wash afterwards too! I enjoyed it though. I felt like I earned my relaxation time afterwards.

  • Do at least 2 more workbook exercise for the 2nd Habit (a for sure this time)

What do I keep gravitating towards? Is it different from what I am currently doing?

I suppose it is in a way, yeah. I do like database engineering, but I did find myself excited to get to this point and write my journal entry. Also I noted I was excited about the idea of writing my own book at some point. Or even a blog honestly.

In fact, this is very likely why I find social media and compulsive research to be pretty addictive. I just like writing! But it's a matter of directing it in the right direction instead. Not just in social posts or message boards. Obviously this forum is the exception because I am finding the journaling process to be beneficial; this realization for instance. The act of writing these thoughts down made me realize that I should go into writing.

Now that said, I do think I can do this without necessarily giving up my job in database work. I do get to "write" in this work too, in a sense; coding, documentation and technical writing. I do still like those things too. So nothing says I can't give a try to creative writing on the side either.

What did I like to do as a child? Do those things still bring me satisfaction?

My main satisfaction in play as a child came from being mentally and physically active, from what I remember. Going to the park and climbing the monkey bars, pulling myself up (learning pull-ups) and playing some sports. I do still like being active, and have been getting better at making it a routine for me; although I am a bit big for the park's playground, I get that wake-up call every time I play on it with my kids haha.

In the mental aspect, I did learn how to work a computer at the age of 7yo, and learned Basic programming at 9. So obviously yes, that still does bring me satisfaction because it helped me become the person I am career-wise. I also still like doing puzzles (jigsaw puzzles) and building things (blocks, legos). But I've definitely neglected these latter ones in adulthood for myself. It is tough to find time for these things with kids; maybe a good idea would be to invest in a craft table though, one which lets us hide in-progress puzzles when the kids are up (for e.g.)

What interests me the most right now?

Actually I'm fired up about the creative writing aspect. So I'm going to make that my commitment tomorrow:
* Brainstorm ideas with my wife about some possible book topics

3 exercises, which is more than I had committed to.

Night everyone! Or whatever time it is where you all live 😄

Edited by D_Cozy
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11 hours ago, D_Cozy said:

One other thing that I detected from Cam's email was that it sounded like he had a solid plan for balancing his day, even in-spite of the long work hours. He'd make sure to eat meals with his girlfriend. He'd make sure to still look after his health. These are crucial things that I neglected myself when I would overwork myself -> procrastinate -> overwork myself, and so forth the cycle goes. These are the crucial things that I'm now making a point to pay attention to; my physical health, my mental and spiritual wellbeing, and my social and emotional fulfillment.

I'm always in shock when realizing how many things and priorities are there to be handled and balanced. If you could (or maybe you can already, I don't know), would you cut your employment time to give yourself more time in other areas?

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Sun 11.03

  • No compulsive social media use: 32 days
  • No compulsive research: 32 days
  • No passive screentime before bed, first thing in the mornings, or during work: 35 days

 Things I will do to stay healthy

Sleep around 8h - So funny thing about this. I did actually get a good nights sleep! Went to bed at 12:45am, the baby woke up at 5:30am, then I stayed up until 6:30am with him; my wife took over at that point and let me sleep until 8:15am.

Now if you did the math, you might be thinking that looks awful. Well, there's also daylight savings time ending today! Yeah, I completely forgot about that! 😄 So I got 7.5h altogether. That worked out! 

Stretch - I woke up to my kids being noisy, stretched out, let my dogs out later. I've been moving a lot today too.

Meditate + deep breaths - Okay, later today I have to focus on this. It hasn't been a very stressful day, but I will be doing some meditation after dinner.

Go for walks / Exercise - We went to a farm today, and got family pictures done. The kids loved it, there was a Santa Claus which gave each a gift; a tree ornament for each! Fair amount of walking as well, as we took a tour through it and saw some animals out. Nice way to start the morning.

Drink Water - I did bring a water bottle for the drive, which I was glad about. In the afternoon I've made sure to also keep it filled up, because we've been rearranging the kids room (as I said in an earlier entry, this is something my wife wanted to do). I'm taking a break now myself.

Wash body + face - Technically I did after midnight... yeah okay, just joking 😉 I will have a shower + wash my face tonight, at an earlier time.

Nutrition:

  • Breakfast; leftover muffins from yesterdays cake
  • lunch; we went to a really nice breakfast place on the way back from the farm, it was an early lunch so they were still serving.
  • dinner; pizza is in the oven, awaiting it to finish cooking.

Talk to my partner - On the road, we actually brainstormed the ideas for writing a story together. She has some really good ones; she likes horror, and I like sci-fi. I'm thinking we'll be putting together the ideas on a whiteboard or board of some kind. Personally I find it easier to start "zoomed out" first before I even write, to arrange the key events and get an idea of how characters relate to each other. We're excited to start!

Also, we cleaned our kids room, and moved their furniture. Talked throughout that process.

Talk with kids + play with them - Yes, fun at the farm, and also fun cleaning their room. They did help... to an extent. My middle child mostly just wanted to play, but he did copy us putting their books away.

Read a book - Tonight I'll do more 7 Habits workbook exercises, which I will post tomorrow. That'll be part of my proactivity test.

Practice French - Yes, this afternoon I did some French lessons with the green owl. I've also been talking with my kids and wife in French when the opportunity arises.

Journal - Exhausting but fulfilling day overall.

7 habits - proactivity test - day 16

My commitment yesterday was to brainstorm ideas with my wife, which we did in the car. I'm not going to share our ideas here, because we do want to give publishing them a try when they are ready. Can't be too careful posting online. But I will be sharing the process, as how I did above, when we do work on them.

After dinner, I'll actually put them in my whiteboard, to ease that "zoomed out" perspective for laying out the story. It will at least be a start to the process. We're not putting pressure or deadlines into this necessarily, it's something we want to do for fun. Aside having a Computer Science major, I also have an English Language major; this somewhat unique thinking style is why I probably excel at technical writing. I will admit that my wife has some really high creative potential though, and were it not for her ideas, I don't think we'd have as solid of a starting point.

7 hours ago, Ikar said:

I'm always in shock when realizing how many things and priorities are there to be handled and balanced. If you could (or maybe you can already, I don't know), would you cut your employment time to give yourself more time in other areas?

Good question! My personal and short answer is no, I wouldn't take that option, because I don't want to.

The detailed answer; I am able to cut my hours if I want to, but I don't want to do that because of these reasons:

  1. My company would handle it as reduced hours; which means I would be paid less. I do have to think of my family costs and needs.
  2. Money aside, I also like the 8h work-day; as someone with ADHD, it gives me structure. I can plan my wake-up routine, gym time, meals, hobbies, social life, bedtime routine, etcetera around my work schedule. And it makes weekends something special to look forward to with my family.
  3. As much as I like the balance, I do also like to do my job; the problems are tough but rewarding, and I feel fulfilled by it. During covid lockdowns, the company I worked for back then reduced my hours to save money; it felt like I could barely get anything done, and I felt unfulfilled. To be honest, I think that actually contributed to my mobile gaming addiction back then. So reducing my hours would, as a whole, probably just make me feel like I am not accomplishing much.

I think this is where journaling has been very helpful; I probably spend a lot more time journaling here than the average user, I do recognize that, but I don't see it as a waste because it has helped me with reflecting on how I spend my time, and focusing on the positive stuff.

All this to say, that I think it's better to look at cutting out the time wasters first, before considering things like my work hours. And I believe this is what Habit 3 also focuses on from the book; Put First Things First.

I'll be posting more tomorrow, but I did review my screen time apps today. My passive screen time has significantly taken a turn for the better, and that is just from one month of working on the 7 Habits, journaling daily, and abstaining from my most compulsive and addictive tech uses. So that will be my commitment tomorrow; share my reflection on my screen time from the previous month of October.

---

Commitments for tomorrow's proactivity test:

  • Post more 7 Habits workbook exercises here
  • Share reflection on my screen time summary from last month (October)

 

Edited by D_Cozy
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17 hours ago, D_Cozy said:

Good question! My personal and short answer is no, I wouldn't take that option, because I don't want to.

The detailed answer; I am able to cut my hours if I want to, but I don't want to do that because of these reasons:

  1. My company would handle it as reduced hours; which means I would be paid less. I do have to think of my family costs and needs.
  2. Money aside, I also like the 8h work-day; as someone with ADHD, it gives me structure. I can plan my wake-up routine, gym time, meals, hobbies, social life, bedtime routine, etcetera around my work schedule. And it makes weekends something special to look forward to with my family.
  3. As much as I like the balance, I do also like to do my job; the problems are tough but rewarding, and I feel fulfilled by it. During covid lockdowns, the company I worked for back then reduced my hours to save money; it felt like I could barely get anything done, and I felt unfulfilled. To be honest, I think that actually contributed to my mobile gaming addiction back then. So reducing my hours would, as a whole, probably just make me feel like I am not accomplishing much.

I think this is where journaling has been very helpful; I probably spend a lot more time journaling here than the average user, I do recognize that, but I don't see it as a waste because it has helped me with reflecting on how I spend my time, and focusing on the positive stuff.

All this to say, that I think it's better to look at cutting out the time wasters first, before considering things like my work hours. And I believe this is what Habit 3 also focuses on from the book; Put First Things First.

I'll be posting more tomorrow, but I did review my screen time apps today. My passive screen time has significantly taken a turn for the better, and that is just from one month of working on the 7 Habits, journaling daily, and abstaining from my most compulsive and addictive tech uses. So that will be my commitment tomorrow; share my reflection on my screen time from the previous month of October.

I managed to save up money throughout the past few years, so even though I am not in the same situation, I understand the first argument. I'm by no means rich, but if I wanted to, I wouldn't have to work for years and I can afford reasonable holidays easily as well. It gives me peace of mind and prevents me from taking bad deals just to make a penny. Plus I'm EU based, meaning generally "free" healthcare, strong social welfare and a stable job market. (Perhaps too much, because the EU seems quite stagnant, but we'll see in the future.) I don't want to sleep on getting better though, just because times are good now, the students are nice and the money is coming in, it doesn't mean it will last forever.

I get the second one as well. In fact, I think having a relatively fixed schedule of lessons is good for me as well. I'll see in a few years whether I'll want to make my schedule more rigid (now I have lessons anywhere between 8 and 8, but normally only in two blocks, so I usually have a good amount of free time in the middle of the day). Plus I also take the weekends off, or it's at least left for planning my business, remembering, thinking about my students' lessons and other creative stuff.

I think journaling is great too! Just writing a comment like this makes me feel like I've done some good thinking and writing. As for time wasting, I avoided some today by sorting my priorities. Working on priority 5 is better than working on priority 20 and that's what I did today 😄 

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 Mon 11.04

  • No compulsive social media use: 33 days
  • No compulsive research: 33 days
  • No passive screentime before bed, first thing in the mornings, or during work: 36 days

Didn't think that this was an issue until last night, but I'm going through cravings for candy! Yeah, I found myself quite restless yesterday night; I only had 2 cups of coffee at the breakfast restaurant, but maybe the sugar from the skull (cup)cake kept me wired.

And hey, eating candy should get added to my Lines too. I didn't even think about that (chocolate mainly) being a compulsive bad habit of mine at the time of going through that worksheet.

Something else too... elections in the USA are coming tomorrow. And I'm in Canada, I can't even vote there! So this is very much so a Circle of Concern item for me; I cannot influence what happens. So I'm calling it out now, because obsessively checking the news is a compulsive behavior. So I'm making a strategy to not check the news at all tomorrow. I will be focusing on my circle of Influence; the things I can do and control, the things over which I can make a difference in.

 Things I will do to stay healthy

Sleep around 8h - I really tried going to bed at 10:30pm, but I was mostly just tossing in bed. So I got up, paced to the kitchen, and realized I kept reaching for candy frequently. I stopped myself and used deep breathing followed by meditation to process why the heck I was getting candy cravings, of all things.

I ate well yesterday from the pizza, so I wasn't hungry. I became aware of that through meditation. I also think that I was seeking comfort food due to being awake and feeling like I had to be doing something with my time. So after meditating and mulling these thoughts, I started doing workbook exercises for the 7 Habits in order to keep busy; and that greatly helped with the cravings.

... not so much with the sleep part, because I went to sleep at midnight instead. I woke up at 6:40am this morning. So not really that close to 8h, a bit less than 7h of sleep in fact. And I'm feeling it today; that said, I know it could be worse from past experience, if I had ate candy or gone on my phone. So I'm also recognizing the positive of not indulging in my bottom lines.

Stretch - Upon waking up and before my workout. Also through my standing breaks.

Meditate + deep breaths - After my work meetings (Monday is always busy like that) I will do some meditation to refocus. I'm always mentally worn from these consecutive meetings, most of the time I'm just doing chores while listening and chiming in when my work is involved. I have a headset that can flip the microphone down to unmute myself, which is convenient.

only do multitasking like that while in these general meetings too, just to be clear. I recognize the value of these team-wide meetings, but I also do not need to be in front of my computer all the time to get what I need to get from them.

Go for walks / Exercise - Gym with my wife, we did chest, biceps and triceps today. I really like the walking lunges that wheatbuscuit suggested, they are very effective at making me sweat.

Drink Water - Right, I should drink some more. I had quite a bit during my workout but I am feeling parched now; been a bit since I drank water last. Good reminder.

Wash body + face - Yes, after the workout.

Nutrition:

  • Breakfast; fruit bowl
  • lunch; sandwich nice and quick
  • dinner; tbd

Talk to my partner - during the workout, she is volunteering tomorrow for my kids daycare. Going to a field trip to a jungle gym. Tomorrow I'll have to workout at the gym by myself, either earlier (before 8am) or during lunch (sometime around 12:30pm), due to the field trip she's going to.

Talk with kids + play with them - Will do after work. The kids love their new room though! Both beds are now opposite of each other in the room, and the dresser moved against the wall where one of their beds previously was. This made the room feel a lot bigger now! And there's no way for the kids jumping back-and-forth between their beds, so that's a safety issue removed too. A win-win!

Read a book - I'll do more 7 Habits tonight, I'm feeling pumped about the exercises.

Practice French - This morning before bringing my middle kid to daycare and after the workout. I've been hopping between English -> French and Spanish -> French lessons on Duolingo, and I've found I am actually learning more with the app by doing it this way. I've already highlighted this in a previous entry, but you do get some different phrases in the app by doing this, even words that you don't normally get in the English -> <language> course.

Journal - grateful for prioritizing first things first better! Saw a lot of improvement from last month. See below.

7 habits - proactivity test - day 17

Commitments for todays proactivity test:

==== Post more 7 Habits workbook exercises here =====

What fills my soul?

  • helping others
  • being a loving husband and a role model for my kids
  • Spending time at my job
  • Staying fit at the gym
  • Expressing myself through creative (poetic, narrative, rhyme, etc), technical (analytical, logical, etc) writing

After answering this question, I actually looked up how to sign up for a creative writing course with continuing studies. They aren't offering any at my university, but I did sign up for their mailing list.

What can I do well? What are my unique traits & strengths?

  • I think I am quite good at writing, even the senior engineers at my workplace have highlighted that for me. Some of them being very appreciative about my code comments, detailed pages, and diagrams for systems
    • This covers the technical writing I mentioned above
  • I do have a fairly rare skillset, being a double major in Computer Science and English. And I am also unique in how I read, write, think and imagine things. I am going to embrace that.

The next section has me go through guiding questions, using the answers from the previous section "Checking your Vision" to apply what I wrote to my Mission Statement. So what I'm going to do tonight is write the answers from those on paper (I'll be reviewing my last few posts here), which will help me with readability outside of screens.

==== Share reflection on my screen time summary from last month (October) ====

I did this for September last month, and it turned out to be a really good exercise for my own self-reflection and improvement. For my previous reflection, refer to the October 2nd post.

I post these stats for my own accountability only; to stay healthy, mindful and intentional about how I use my passive screen time. For those reading, I do crop the images, since they do include casual console games (I'm not going to mention any either). If you want more details for my bottom, middle and top lines, you can read my Sobriety Worksheet that I posted on the October 2nd entry (linked above)

To condense the readability of the post, I have put all the screenshots in quote blocks.

== Computer screen time ==

Stay Free - covers my phone, my work computer, and my browsers (both on computer and mobile). I do exclude some work applications (my coding IDEs, the Edge browser which I only use for work). My overall personal time went up this month, although my passive screen time is down; no more Reddit at the top 5, since I started abstaining from it and other social media.

| Month | Top 5 Most used Apps |
|--------|:-------:|
| September 2024  | Notepad++ , Reddit, New York Times, Duolingo, Messenger (Facebook) |
| October 2024    | Gamequitters forum, Notepad++, Facebook Messenger, Zoom, New York Times |

There is more in-depth functionality I've discovered. Included in screenshots below, with a reflection that follows.

Quote

Oct_2024.thumb.png.548887045c4c8610c42b59894ba72586.png

Oct_2024_1.thumb.png.c5bc82aae209422b73c57cf198d410c6.pngOct_2024_2.thumb.png.a2b3ca231107a87f6c83be63a3ccd622.pngOct_2024_3.thumb.png.603b5818c8261af52b78ab8ecc6c9871.pngOct_2024_4.thumb.png.9188b17dcd68830b0d331edaec51812e.pngOct_2024_5.thumb.png.eac81b2ec4a22fae3f2c1a94b102f928.png

1. This forum (Gamequitters)

Good things

Journaling is a great thing for me, it has led to some really helpful reflection periods and realizations. I didn't even know that I was so excited about writing, hindsight it seems obvious given these posts (lol). But there you go, sometimes it's a lot easier to analyze others than yourself.

How can I be better?

My time overall increased since last month, specifically time spent on the computer overall. I still don't necessarily think it was a bad month though, but I could instead be journaling on paper and THEN transfer it to the computer. Or at least journal on my Notepad app (not the Notepad++ one, but the Windows default one) to be separate from the web browser.

The reason why I mention this is because I am suspecting that my cravings are partly coming from being on the web more, even if it's not me engaging on bottom line behavior. I do still "browse around" sometimes in this forum when I get notifications; not that I'm discouraging that, but it's more of a me thing to stay focused on my writing. Write my first, then check after.

As for the Notepad program, it is to separate my personal typing time from my work time. One will be for personal use (Notepad) and the other for work (++).

Also, the most important thing, I really should just NOT increase my time and stick to my limit. Some days I felt it necessary to get the points I wanted to get across. So what should help with this is the above; paper journaling ideally, but Notepad is a backup option too when I type it out.

I'm also going to say that I wrote most of this on Notepad today, to stay accountable.

2. Notepad++

Good things:

As mentioned earlier, this is m work pad. I have some coding language extensions and plugins to help me with work.

How can I be better?

I do still want to separate it though, as I did use it for personal use in the past month. So I'm splitting the personal stuff to the basic Notepad included in Windows. Also something which I mentioned above.

3. & 4. Google Messages / Messenger

Good things:

Most of my time on these two comes from calls, not all of it is spent sending messages. The calls I make are with friends, on group chats we have. This is how I've been staying in touch with them during the nights that I've mentioned. I also stay in touch with my wife.

Oh and with the Google Messages app, I also schedule texts to send at a later date. It helps my ADHD when I remember I want to talk to someone about a topic, but realize halfway through that the topic could probably wait until later in the day or week 😄

How can I be better?

Muting chats when I find them too distracting during work hours. I've realized that late in October, but noting it here to keep improvement going.

5. The New York Times

Good things:

I can tell the times I helped cook and find recipes lol 😄

How can I be better?

I should think about getting the specific apps for the behaviors I engage in which are not news browsing. Otherwise, it's hard for me to tell if the "Web" time is also cooking time or not; for all I know it is probably the wordle, crossword and sudokus.

But the usage overall is pretty low, so this is a minor improvement.

== Console screen time ==

Quote

crop_Oct2024_days.thumb.jpg.da1828d107859f017d2742653a4147c1.jpgcrop_Oct2024_time.thumb.jpg.8ed231b25bf144f18be6d2a180fd204d.jpg

| Month | Average time per day | Days played | Days over 2h |
|--------|:-------|-------:|:------:|
| September 2024  | 1h 35m  | 20  | 6  |
| October 2024    | 1h 05m  | 13  | 2  |

Good things

The average amount of time is significantly lower in October than September. Natural drop as I started doing the "things I will do everyday to stay health," reading and practicing Covey's 7 Habits, attending ITAA meetings, and journaling all about those here. In the words of Stephen Covey; "Innocent pleasures in moderation can provide relaxation for the body and mind and can foster family and other relationships. But pleasure, per se, fosters no deep, lasting satisfaction or sense of fulfillment."

As I have mentioned at the very beginning of this journal, I know this isn't a typical "gamequitters" objective; it's something I've been truthful about since I started writing. I am keeping myself accountable with this screen time app though; in fact, I do owe this site a lot of credit for this. Even though the site is called "gamequitters" there are a lot of good articles on the main site about just getting gaming under control. I've been following up on a lot of the advice in those articles, in terms of keeping gaming a hobby. This drop in screen time is partly also attributed to the great advice found here.

I am also staying away from any competitive games, and no games on my phone at all either (you would be able to tell in the StayFree section if I was overindulging on them)

Improvement

One thing I remember calling out was to avoid playing on weekdays. Well I'm mostly sticking to that, but I am not being super strict in the sense that I do see it being okay with some exceptions; when I'm doing a treadmill walk, or when I'm playing socially with friends and family.

That said, I can tell that a few of those days (specially near the end of the month), I just turned on the system out of boredom, not even playing for that long either. This is behavior I do want to avoid, as it's a slippery slope for me to isolation. Now, none if that happened during inappropriate times; I am still strict about not playing before bed, first thing in the mornings, and during work. But I will make an effort to do something else instead, I could for instance have read more of the books I'm currently reading.

Mind you, it's not like I lost a ton of time, I'm also aware of that. This is a small improvement in the grand scheme, but a small improvement is good nonetheless. Otherwise, I will be happy if I see my dashboard look similar next month for November.

---

Once a month, I'll allow myself more time to make this monthly reflection. It's highly valuable for me, because I have a ton of action items to cover.

For commitments tonight and tomorrow;

  • Work on the Personal Mission Statement questions from the workbook
    • Review my journal posts here to aid me
  • Commit to writing my next entry on paper
  • NOT check the news for election stuff tomorrow (I will be strong, and I will live!)
Edited by D_Cozy
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Oh my goodness!  The candy cravings!  I can relate!  Yesterday night, I was reaching for chocolate Hershey Kisses!  I ate 10 of them all at once before bed.

I wonder if the changing weather prompts our bodies to reach for sugar-stimulating foods?  Junk food tends to give us a short sugar rush before we come crashing down.  Perhaps it's healthy fats that we are missing?  Or even Vitamin D?  So I will experiment with taking Omega -3 fish oil x2 per night, and also Vitamin D.  We are Vitamin D deficient especially during Fall/Winter time when we don't get enough sunlight.  I hope this helps.  I'll be experimenting x 1 week to see if I feel any better and my carb cravings diminish.

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Tue 11.05 (part 1)

  • No compulsive social media use: 34 days
  • No compulsive research: 34 days
  • No passive screentime before bed, first thing in the mornings, or during work: 37 days

Early part 1 post because I need to get something out which has been frustrating me since the morning... couldn't focus on work much. Journaling is one of those things that helps me though.

Things I will do to stay healthy

Sleep around 8h - I slept better last night; to bed at 11pm, and woke up at 6:30am. The baby also slept through, which surprised me because he was asleep at 7:30pm last night (quite early). So he's got great sleep too.

Stretch - morning and before workout. Also after workout; I found I had some tightness around my right shoulder. Today my wife's brothers girlfriend, who is a physiotherapist, told me that I should always stretch before and after workouts; active stretches before working out (movement focused), and static stretches afterwards (standing still). I noticed that my shoulder was not in pain afterwards, so I'll keep in mind to stretch after working out.

Meditate + deep breaths - Short meditation in the morning. I will do another after posting this to refocus on work.

Go for walks / Exercise - good workout by myself today, as my wife is volunteering at my kids daycare field trip today. Standing bicep rows, shoulder press lunges, overhead press, dips and vertical knee raise (for abs).

Drink Water - reminder for myself to keep this close to me during work. It's easy to forget, but that's why I like doing my journal in bits throughout the day.

Shower + wash face - after meditation.

Nutrition:

  • Breakfast; cereal
  • lunch; sandwich probably
  • dinner; tbd, I'll check-in with my wife to see if we just do takeout or cook something easy

Talk to my partner - okay... venting time here. My wife and I are fine, firstly. It's not her, it's her brother.

So him and his family had said several weeks ago that they would be making the trip here for my oldest kids birthday. Well last night, they cancelled; and we didn't even hear this from him, but from my mother in-law instead. Hence our frustration. I found this out after my journal entry was posted yesterday.

Writing this now, I am still peeved about it. My mother in-law was going on about how they have busy lives with their courses that they are doing, how they also have two young kids themselves. And I mean, yeah I can relate, but I am not satisfied by that; we're busy too! Myself with my job, which can be very demanding - sometimes requiring me to be on alert during weekends to fix crucial system issues - and I volunteer once a week online with the civic tech club. My wife too, even being on maternity leave, has been doing quite a bit to help my in-laws when they travel up to her great-uncles place to get it cleaned out; and yeah, this is the same great-uncle who passed away about 3 weeks now, he hoarded a lot of stuff! That's why it's still going on. And on top of all that, we also have 3 kids ourselves. We've also made efforts to go see my nieces dance recital, and we've attended both their kids birthdays this past year. Pretty disappointing that they aren't reciprocating the same efforts we've made.

The worst though, is that they could have at least sent a text directly to us, saying they would not make it; not to find out through my mother in-law.

All of this makes me just not want to make any more efforts with him and his family ... *sigh* well anyway. As disappointing as it all is, it's not within my control. They can make their choices, as I can make my choices too. I can focus on the good things; my oldest kid is still getting a very fun birthday party, a lot of his friends from school have already confirmed their attendance. He'll have fun, which is what matters. I am definitely glad I wrote about this though, I needed to vent; but I will not hang on to this, and will focus on what I can do and influence instead. With that in mind, I'll talk with my wife some more after this entry, and focus on the excitement coming this weekend for my oldest kid.

Talk with kids + play with them - Last night, I read to my kids a few books, some in English and some in French. However I completely forgot about using indie_rok's suggestion! So I'm going to revisit these books again tonight. This time, I've copied and pasted the steps into my digital notepad, which I'll be writing in my physical notepad later.

Read a book - In the afternoon yesterday, I did my workbook exercises. I will post them later today.

Last night, I read a short story by Joe Hill, called "Ushers." It has some fantasy elements, it's about a suspect who is interviewed by two cops, because he avoided two major catastrophes that he knew about in advance. It takes quite a good turn towards the end of the story. I won't spoil much more 🙂 

Practice French - As per the kids entry, I'll focus on French later.

Journal - I feel a lot less stressed now after writing that, like I can focus on the things that matter instead of hanging on to anger.

------

After work, I'll post my 7 Habits and follow up on yesterdays commitments:* Work on the Personal Mission Statement questions from the workbook
    * Review my journal posts here to aid me
* Commit to writing my next entry on paper
* NOT check the news for election stuff tomorrow

I have been staying off the news, btw, and plan on continuing that. Not much good is going to come out of me just obsessively refreshing any campaign pages.

Edited by D_Cozy
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