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Nate's Daily Journal


Nate B

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3/13/16 - Day One. Trying to stay away from gaming, as well as gaming videos/news i.e. youtube, reddit, surrender@20, etc. Also, I need to look at dealing with the four principles that gaming fulfills that Cam mentioned and figuring out how each of these should play out outside of gaming:

-a challenge
-constant measurable growth
-temporary escape
-social aspect

For myself, the next thing to focus on is setting goals for the following areas from my introduction and finding people/sites that will help me improve in these areas:

1. Improving my studies - Thomas Frank, TED talks

2. Improving my physical fitness - Stronglifts 5x5, NerdFitness?

3. Improving my writing skills - College courses

4. Learning piano - Campus lessons?

If you guys have any people, sites, resources, or the like to offer in improving these areas, feel free to let me know!

 

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Welcome, Nate!

Awesome, it looks like you're already planning out a great goal-oriented path towards a healthier life.  I don't have any resources to help you, but if I do come across one, I'll send the information to you.  I just wanted to comment that journal writing on a daily basis will help you stay on track with your goals, and it will also help you see pattern behavior over time.  If you are doing the 90 day detox Respawn, that's great too.  I have found that reading other people's journals and their progress has helped me pave my own pathway.  There are lots of people in this forum who are fitness enthusiasts, and have written about healthy recipes, fitness goals, and how they've overcome mental obstacles in order to achieve those goals.  Perhaps you can start a new thread asking others on this forum for input about physical fitness? 

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Hey Nate, welcome to the forums! Best of luck in completing your goals! I recently started the detox as well. I'm on day 4 and I've been away from home for a while so it hasn't been difficult to avoid gaming. So this coming week is going to be particularly challenging. But I know that there are great people on the forums that will be glad to help. And I hope that I can be one as well.

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Setting goals in those areas is great. The next step you want to take is to create specific goals in each. For physical fitness, what is a goal you could set? Is there a certain weight you want to get to? A six-pack for the summer? Run a half-marathon? Having a specific goal will help a lot. :)

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Hey welcome, good job on having an idea on what you need to do. I wrote an Article a while ago on in-depth goal setting if you want to be super efficient in everything. Link is below.

http://falkysolutions.com/how-to-set-your-goals/

If you need help with writing, just shout. I write article and books for a living, so do other people here.

Good luck and all the best with the detox mate! It gets so much easier down the line. 

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3/14/16 - Day Two. Thanks for the warm welcome guys! So far, I'm working on some ideas for specific goals for each of my objectives, but I'm still open to refinement. I also had to laugh at the irony that my roommate brought a PS3 to school after he got back from break, so I walked in to that sitting on his desk next to the door last night, lol. Now for the potential goals:

Study Goals: Have all B's or better by the end of the semester. (End of Semester is May 6th.)
Fitness Goals: Complete at least 15/18 possible Stronglifts 5x5 sessions by April 29th. (3 days a week for 6 weeks, MWF, starting 3/21/16, taking the time to re-learn proper form first, it's been a year since my last workout in this program)
Writing Goals: Complete a chapter of fantasy fiction work (from a concept that I shelved a while ago) or create structured layout for my comedy book idea by April 1st.
Piano Goals: Memorize standard notes on the treble clef (C4-G5) & memorize what notes correspond to which keys on a piano by May 1st.

Like I mentioned in the original post, if you guys know any resources that might be helpful, say for piano or writing specifically, feel free to let me know! Thanks!

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Awesome! Those goals are great. Now the next step is to identify a consistent time each day/week that you can work on each of those. What time generally will you workout? What about write? Having a consistent time makes a world of difference to actually do them. :)

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3/15/16 - Day Three. Today has been mainly spent on classwork, but also on reading about improving my fiction writing, as well as looking into how I'm going to slot out my time. 

Thanks to my habit of keeping classes and events on my Google calendar, I have started making time slots for each day once classes are done and have begun working on regulating my sleep schedule, as it has been all over the place until now. I have also been getting better at managing homework tasks thanks to Todoist, which is an app that was recommended by Thomas Frank, who I've mentioned before. 

Workouts: MWF, after classes until campus dinner time
Reading/Piano: Tues/Thurs Afternoon after classes until campus dinner time (hopefully going to try to slot formal piano lessons sometime here after I check into them) 
Writing/HW: After dinner until night each weeknight.

Weekends are still tentative for ideas, but I am going to try to sort out what those might look like as the week goes on. As for gaming, I haven't thought about it much lately, so things have been going well. I hope to keep up the progress as I get further into the detox. :)

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3/16/16 - Day Four. The main portion of the day so far has been spent on classes and reading a ton on how to improve my writing. I am still working on some ideas for how to be able to relax during weekends while also still being productive, but I have a feeling that I will want to get a good start on writing my novel this weekend, so I'm excited for that. 

Otherwise, I'll keep things up to date on here as best I can. Thanks for all the encouragement so far guys! It's meant a lot. :)

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3/16/16 - Day Four. The main portion of the day so far has been spent on classes and reading a ton on how to improve my writing. I am still working on some ideas for how to be able to relax during weekends while also still being productive, but I have a feeling that I will want to get a good start on writing my novel this weekend, so I'm excited for that. 

Otherwise, I'll keep things up to date on here as best I can. Thanks for all the encouragement so far guys! It's meant a lot. :)

I normally watch Netflix, Write or D.I.Y to relax now. A lot of people tend to exercise and meditate to relax too. But writing for me now is my main relaxer, perhaps start a blog or something?

Anyways keep up the great work! :)

 

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3/17/16 - Day Five. Today has been fairly productive, with my classes going well. I'm getting caught up to speed with most of my classes, and I only have a few late assignments to catch up on, plus it helps that I don't seem to have an intense workload this weekend. 

Speaking of this weekend, my tentative plans are going to involve getting started on my novel idea and also trying to catch up to where I used to be with my Duolingo studies (currently working on Spanish, got to 33% fluency or so before I had to stop to focus on school last semester.) Other ideas include finally getting caught up with schoolwork and just hanging out and doing some reading in my campus coffee shop.

I'm also beginning to look at what this summer is going to be like and start getting some goals together for then. Time is going to be way less structured then, and I feel like that will be the toughest point that I will have to face.

At any rate, I'll keep you guys posted! 

P.S. - Special thanks to Falky for some ideas for how to spend my weekends, as well as his goal-setting post, and to Cam for asking the right questions to help guide me!

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Hey seems like you get many things done right now what is awesome. But be carefull not to overdo it and watch your emotions. Dooing too much is as dangerous as doing to less. Make sure that you have some fun escapes wich don't have to be productive. Keep in mind that the main point is consistency. There will be phases where things get harder and your motivation will be down. It is a good idea to prepare now for them with implementing things wich are fun and relax you into your life.

Your doing fine and I am looking forward to read about your further experiences!

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3/17/16 - Day Five. Today has been fairly productive, with my classes going well. I'm getting caught up to speed with most of my classes, and I only have a few late assignments to catch up on, plus it helps that I don't seem to have an intense workload this weekend. 

Speaking of this weekend, my tentative plans are going to involve getting started on my novel idea and also trying to catch up to where I used to be with my Duolingo studies (currently working on Spanish, got to 33% fluency or so before I had to stop to focus on school last semester.) Other ideas include finally getting caught up with schoolwork and just hanging out and doing some reading in my campus coffee shop.

I'm also beginning to look at what this summer is going to be like and start getting some goals together for then. Time is going to be way less structured then, and I feel like that will be the toughest point that I will have to face.

At any rate, I'll keep you guys posted! 

P.S. - Special thanks to Falky for some ideas for how to spend my weekends, as well as his goal-setting post, and to Cam for asking the right questions to help guide me!

No problemo mate...we're in this together here. :) 

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3/18/16 - Day Six. Today was pretty simple with classes, some homework, and a bit of reading. 

I also found Cam's videos about how to spend summer break, and so that has given me a few adventurous ideas for things to do, but that's still a ways off. As for this weekend, I'm planning on some homework, a decent amount of relaxing in the campus cafe, and a whole lot of reading, mostly for fun. 

So far so good! 

P.S. - Thanks to WorkInProgress for reminding me to not be a workaholic :)  

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3/19/16 - Day Seven. Today was pretty good, with a relaxing afternoon and some homework and reading done in the evening. I have spent today looking into a lot of future reading material, a mix of a lot of different stuff. 

I have also been looking into formal piano lessons, and chances are I won't pick them until over the summer, or even next school year to start them. For now, I'll just be looking to teach myself some of the basics.

Plus, I'm going to be jumping back into my old workout routine this Monday, and it'll be interesting to see how I do after being away from it for a little over a year.

One week in and so far, so good!

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3/20/16 - Day Eight. Today was good, with a lot of relaxation and a decent amount of homework later on the day. So far this week has felt far more productive than past weeks, and I'm starting to learn what life is like without video games taking up huge chunks of my time.
 
The next big thing to prepare for is next weekend, as I'm going to have a four day weekend for Easter, and I know it's going to be tough to be home and still ignore gaming. The thing is, most of my old systems and my "gaming rig" (an office computer with an expensive graphics card thrown into it) are there. This is because I didn't want to game too much while I was at school, but despite that, I still gamed or at least watched or read a lot of stuff about gaming while at school. I probably won't start to get rid of all those things until summer because it will be easier to handle selling them later on when I have more time, but I am concerned about this weekend. 

Hopefully, I can implement some of the ideas from Cam's "Holiday" video, but I'll have the rest of the week to prepare for all that. 

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3/21/16 - Day Nine. Today was a good day, with classes going as normal, save for one being canceled, and the rest of the day has been spent fairly productively.

Up to this point, I have forgotten to mention my involvement in a karate class on campus, which I have been enjoying a lot lately, not to mention helping me to stay somewhat fit. I was also supposed to start my Stronglifts 5x5 program today, but due to an event on Wednesday and either being home or traveling on Friday and Monday, I've decided to hold off on the workouts for now.

My updated goal for Stronglift 5x5 is this: Complete 13/14 sessions by April 29th.

As for going home for break, I am going to be ambitious and have a goal of reading through four or more books over break, and that's if I don't spend a good amount of time out of the house.

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3/22/16 - Day Ten. Today went well. Classes were normal, I chipped away at some work, and I made it out to a senior violin recital on campus, which was a nice change of pace.

I have also found some great resources for learning piano, and I think it's going to help immensely in getting started, so I'm really excited about that.

I'm also much less nervous for break thanks to some ideas from Cam's videos, so we'll see how things go!

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3/23/16 - Day Eleven. Classes went as normal, and then I spent most of the day off campus, which was pretty refreshing. 

I have plans to leave for break tomorrow night once classes are done and I get some things wrapped up on campus, so I'm excited to spend some time home and enjoy life.

All without gaming, of course :)  

P.S. Sure thing Cam, my detox has gotten some of my friends curious, especially my gaming friends, so I'll try to show things around!

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