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Karabas's Journal: Part 2


karabas

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Day 25/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 1 (74/100)
Sleep before midnight x0 (longest streak: 3)
Spiritual Routine: 3/7

Sleep: 6:30am-12:30pm

Ok, I basically relapsed last night. Stayed up watching a bunch of nonsense. I gotta go back and read my journal from the beginning of this detox man. I am giving myself one more chance to do this right without restarting the detox because I was recovering from being sick and my schedule and self-control was all over the place.

It seems that I'm pretty much at 100% recovered now though, so no more excuses. I've gotta cut out the daydreaming crap where I watch videos about places I wanna live, etc. Essentially, new video rule: can't watch unless I need to (as opposed to want to or am curious about it or whatever else).

Today's the day to get back into my spiritual routine too. The problematic part is the evening half of it - I delay it too late and then I try to do it right before bed and it's like "oh, let me just waste some time before I do that" and suddenly I'm up past sunrise. Sigh.

As y'all can see, going to bed before midnight is harder for me than quitting games or videos.

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Day 0/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 1 (87/100)
Sleep before midnight x0 (longest streak: 3)
Spiritual Routine: 0/7

Sleep: 7:30am-2:00pm

Yeah, I relapsed on YT vids and Netflix shows bad. Still managed to be productive earlier in the day but now I'm waking up late. Don't really have a lot of conclusions at this point, unfortunately. I feel like this one's harder than gaming by a long shot (but still not as hard as going to bed early).

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Quitting Youtube videos and Netflix sounds incredibly difficult, so I don't blame you for relapsing, but I am going to call you out on your sleep schedule. You say you want to go to sleep before midnight, but you're missing that mark by such a hilariously large margin that it doesn't really seem like you're taking your own challenge seriously. Part of that reason might be that prayers aside you don't appear to have any morning commitments, so there isn't a real reason for you to wake up early (and thus no reason for you to sleep before midnight either). I'd try to fix that--sign up for a morning class, find a partner to hit the gym, etc.--and see if that helps you meet your desired sleep schedule.

Sometimes I have trouble sleeping early too, especially if there's a lot on my mind. When I first started my journal I had the literal worst sleeping schedule imaginable, and because of that I couldn't fall asleep even at 12:30 or 1 in the morning. Sleeping pills (I really like Doxylamine Succinate) really helped me to reset my sleep schedule and get the circadian rhythms back on track. You could try those too and see if it doesn't help.

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Day 0/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 1 (87/100)
Sleep before midnight x0 (longest streak: 3)
Spiritual Routine: 0/7

Sleep: 5:00am-6:30am, 7:00am - 3:00pm

Yesterday I was relapsed as hell. Today's starting out that way too. I binged watched 10 episodes of a new season of a show I really like on Netflix over yesterday and today. That's ~450 minutes of television or 7.5 hours.

So much for that "mental breakthrough" I spoke about earlier when I first was able to start the detox. It seems more like I was just so horrified by the repercussions of my addictive behavior that it shocked me into detoxing for some time. But eventually that wore off and here I am again.

However, I did finish the show. I don't really want to watch anything else right. I'm gonna try to go for it again. If I can do the rest of today with no video, I'll say I did one day, just to get myself going.

Also, I really do have to be more strict about videos I watch in the future.

11 hours ago, Deku said:

Quitting Youtube videos and Netflix sounds incredibly difficult, so I don't blame you for relapsing, but I am going to call you out on your sleep schedule. You say you want to go to sleep before midnight, but you're missing that mark by such a hilariously large margin that it doesn't really seem like you're taking your own challenge seriously. Part of that reason might be that prayers aside you don't appear to have any morning commitments, so there isn't a real reason for you to wake up early (and thus no reason for you to sleep before midnight either). I'd try to fix that--sign up for a morning class, find a partner to hit the gym, etc.--and see if that helps you meet your desired sleep schedule.

Sometimes I have trouble sleeping early too, especially if there's a lot on my mind. When I first started my journal I had the literal worst sleeping schedule imaginable, and because of that I couldn't fall asleep even at 12:30 or 1 in the morning. Sleeping pills (I really like Doxylamine Succinate) really helped me to reset my sleep schedule and get the circadian rhythms back on track. You could try those too and see if it doesn't help.

I've had periods of my life where I have early morning appointments/responsibilities. It doesn't work. I still go to bed late, end up not sleeping enough, crash later in the day or sleep through. I seem to be almost allergic to going to bed early, I've had days where I have nothing to do, I've done all I need, I'm not wasting time or anything, but I just can't get myself to get up and go to bed, so I just sit in the chair staring out into space.

It's really weird in that sense. You're right in that some kind of medication might help. I'm super anti-medication unless it's a dire necessity (doctor prescribed me like 5 things when I got sick earlier this week, I didn't take anything and just let myself get better naturally), but I'd be OK with trying something natural like valerian. I wonder if they have it in this country - it's common where I'm from.

There must be some way that works... I've been trying the same thing and it just hasn't worked.

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17 hours ago, karabas said:

It's really weird in that sense. You're right in that some kind of medication might help. I'm super anti-medication unless it's a dire necessity (doctor prescribed me like 5 things when I got sick earlier this week, I didn't take anything and just let myself get better naturally), but I'd be OK with trying something natural like valerian. I wonder if they have it in this country - it's common where I'm from.

 

I only have experience with Melatonin, which is a natural hormone your body produces when you are in the dark, makes you a bit sleepy and improves the quality of sleep. When you stare at screens until the very end of the day like I do, it's a good idea to use it as a supplement, because your body is not gonna produce enough of it. That's how you should treat it - as a supplement, not medication. You will still need to exercise your will to go to sleep. The only medication that would completely put you down is dangerous and unhealthy in the longterm and will definitely not solve your problem. 

 

Anyways, I think there can be three reasons why you're not going to bed: You don't want the next day to start; you don't want the current day to end; you are deeply immersed in something and not present(movie, gaming, browsing..). Which one do you think it is?

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Day 0/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 1 (89/100)
Sleep before midnight x0 (longest streak: 3)
Spiritual Routine: 0/7

Sleep: 1:00am-6:45am, 7:15am-10:15am

Still watching videos, but it's a lot better. The other thing is that I told my wife about my problem with videos (didn't mention the gaming... but I'm hoping that's behind me) and she moved her desk to my office to help with it. So even though she's not here all the time, it helps me moderate myself. Last few days I had work that I absolutely had to finish and I was staying up late and that was bad because she'd go to bed and so I'd wile out and watch movies and stuff and stay up even later.

Now that stuff's done, so I should be able to go to bed at a decent hour and not stay up watching stuff. That's what happened yesterday - I was able to get myself into bed by 1am, which was the plan.

Overall I think the relapse is better now, I'm still watching stuff, but a lot less of it. I had a very good productive day yesterday despite waking up super late, so I think I'm on track for recovery and getting back into the detox again.

On 9/24/2018 at 1:10 PM, JustTom said:

I only have experience with Melatonin, which is a natural hormone your body produces when you are in the dark, makes you a bit sleepy and improves the quality of sleep. When you stare at screens until the very end of the day like I do, it's a good idea to use it as a supplement, because your body is not gonna produce enough of it. That's how you should treat it - as a supplement, not medication. You will still need to exercise your will to go to sleep. The only medication that would completely put you down is dangerous and unhealthy in the longterm and will definitely not solve your problem. 

 

Anyways, I think there can be three reasons why you're not going to bed: You don't want the next day to start; you don't want the current day to end; you are deeply immersed in something and not present(movie, gaming, browsing..). Which one do you think it is?

Yeah, I wonder if they have melatonin here...would be interesting to check out. I'm not willing to do anything more extreme than that. I was considering looking for valerian extract - it's very common in my home country for this kind of thing, but it's a plant extract.

I think usually I'm staying up either because I don't want the day to end (because I'm trying to be productive and want to get more stuff done... usually because I wasted time earlier and now in panic mode) or because I'm too immersed in movies/browsing. I don't really know what to do with that information.

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Day 0/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 1 (90/100)
Sleep before midnight x0 (longest streak: 3)
Spiritual Routine: 0/7

Sleep: 5:00am-6:45am, 7:15am-2:15pm

Yep, still relapsed on vids. Mostly Netflix. @JustTom, how do you block websites? I'd love to be able to block it permanently... like there's absolutely no need for me to ever use Netflix (as opposed to YouTube).

I just looked, it's a been a week since I relapsed. On one hand it doesn't feel like that long, but on another, it feels like too much time to spend wasting away watching movies & shows (especially since I almost never find anything I like). I'm going to try to stop today and I'll count today as a detox day if I can get to bed without watching anything - even though I just spent an hour+ watching nonsense.

Edited by karabas
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Alright here are the options(I'm assuming you're on PC, but should be the same for MACs):

  1. Browser extensions(browser-level block) - I use BlockSite and StayFocusd on chrome, but if you google for website blocking extensions, you will find a bunch for all browsers
    • It used to be possible to setup StayFocusd such that you wouldn't even be able to open the chrome extension menu and therefore you couldn't disable the extension. In this scenario, the only way to unblock your procrastination website is to reinstall the browser. However, the latest chrome update made this not work anymore, though there might still be some other way.
    • BlockSite can be used to ban certain WORDS from your URL bar - any time the word appears anywhere in the url, it gets blocked. I am using this to ban specific subreddits and in the past even youtubers. Let's say you procrastinate on pewdiepie, you can ban all iterations of "pewdiepie, pew die pie, pewdie pie" and others, so that you aren't even able to search for his name on the internet.
  2. Edit the hosts file(OS-level block): https://www.quora.com/How-can-I-block-websites-on-my-computer
  3. Edit the wifi router settings(network-level block): https://www.wikihow.com/Block-Unwanted-Site-From-Your-Router

The latter two make it quite inconvenient to unblock. Now that I think about it, I should make it one of my future projects to develop a fool-proof way to block channels of procrastination.

Edited by JustTom
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Day 0/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 1 (90/100)
Sleep before midnight x0 (longest streak: 3)
Spiritual Routine: 0/7

Sleep: 4:00am-7am, 7:45am-1:20pm

Stayed up late watching netflix. It's so stupid, I can't stand 99% of TV and movies nowadays anyway. I know what plot devices are being used, what psychological tricks are being implemented to retain your interest/attention and I catch plot holes all the time. And yet somehow I still waste my time away on this nonsense instead of doing work.

Really hoping for a different day today. 

17 hours ago, JustTom said:

Alright here are the options(I'm assuming you're on PC, but should be the same for MACs):

  1. Browser extensions(browser-level block) - I use BlockSite and StayFocusd on chrome, but if you google for website blocking extensions, you will find a bunch for all browsers
    • It used to be possible to setup StayFocusd such that you wouldn't even be able to open the chrome extension menu and therefore you couldn't disable the extension. In this scenario, the only way to unblock your procrastination website is to reinstall the browser. However, the latest chrome update made this not work anymore, though there might still be some other way.
    • BlockSite can be used to ban certain WORDS from your URL bar - any time the word appears anywhere in the url, it gets blocked. I am using this to ban specific subreddits and in the past even youtubers. Let's say you procrastinate on pewdiepie, you can ban all iterations of "pewdiepie, pew die pie, pewdie pie" and others, so that you aren't even able to search for his name on the internet.
  2. Edit the hosts file(OS-level block): https://www.quora.com/How-can-I-block-websites-on-my-computer
  3. Edit the wifi router settings(network-level block): https://www.wikihow.com/Block-Unwanted-Site-From-Your-Router

The latter two make it quite inconvenient to unblock. Now that I think about it, I should make it one of my future projects to develop a fool-proof way to block channels of procrastination.

Dang, that's a solid breakdown. Thanks, man! I'll definitely use this. Router settings sound interesting. I wonder if it can even block the netflix app from my phone from working...

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10 hours ago, karabas said:

Dang, that's a solid breakdown. Thanks, man! I'll definitely use this. Router settings sound interesting. I wonder if it can even block the netflix app from my phone from working...

Maybe not right off the get-go, but it is 100% possible to set up. What the router block does is it blocks incoming packets coming from a certain IP address. So even if the IP address that is communicating with the phone app is different than the one communicating with your browser netflix, there is one and it can be blocked. I haven't looked if there is an easy way to do this, but theoretically, it's possible. 

Edited by JustTom
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Day 1/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 1 (98/100)
Sleep before midnight x1 (longest streak: 3)
Spiritual Routine: 1/7

Sleep: 12:10am - 7:00am, 12:30pm-3pm

I'm back on the horse! Great day yesterday - woke up late, but got a good amount of productive hours in, didn't watch videos, and went to sleep at midnight. Yes, it was slightly after 12, but I'm struggling with this habit so I'm going to count it to give myself some momentum.

I'll probably take a nap later in the day, 7 hours isn't enough for me (and I didn't fall asleep probably until closer to 1am). EDIT: yeah, that was a bit of a longer nap than planned. Felt good though!

15 hours ago, JustTom said:

Maybe not right off the get-go, but it is 100% possible to set up. What the router block does is it blocks incoming packets coming from a certain IP address. So even if the IP address that is communicating with the phone app is different than the one communicating with your browser netflix, there is one and it can be blocked. I haven't looked if there is an easy way to do this, but theoretically, it's possible. 

Makes sense. I might give it a try in the next few days.

Edited by karabas
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6 hours ago, Xiryts said:

Y are you counting to 120 tho isn't it 90 : /

90's a suggestion. I've already done a 90-day gaming detox. Cam talks about increasing number of detox days and decreasing number of relapse days, so 120 is part of that "stretch" to go even longer without consuming crap.

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15 hours ago, karabas said:

I'm back on the horse! Great day yesterday - woke up late, but got a good amount of productive hours in, didn't watch videos, and went to sleep at midnight. Yes, it was slightly after 12, but I'm struggling with this habit so I'm going to count it to give myself some momentum.

 

Good job, congrats!

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Day 2/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 2 (0/100)
Sleep before midnight x2 (longest streak: 3)
Spiritual Routine: 2/7

Sleep: 12:00am - 6:45am, 12:40pm - 2:05pm

Another good, productive day, and I was in bed at 12:00 sharp. I know it's not perfect - I should be sleeping at 11, but one thing at a time. I'll continue my long naps during the day - I'll definitely need them, especially since my body's not used to sleeping this early and it takes me time to fall asleep and I wake up in the middle of the night on occasion.

I got 6 work hours in today, plus other productive stuff, which is really what my goal has been. I'd like to be able to fit workouts and a few other things, but for the time being this is good. If I can keep this up, I'll be able to take a weekend day off (or at least work less), which I think I need. My desk is a mess and it'd be nice to clean it, plus I need to do a bunch of other stuff like get a haircut, file some belated taxes, etc.

Finally crossed the 100 pomodorros line today, will start today at a new level. I kinda wanted to move slowly & incrementally to 21 mins work, 9 mins rest, but my app does work in 5 minute segments. So I guess I'll be doing 25-10 for now.

Edited by karabas
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Day 3/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 2 (7/100)
Sleep before midnight x3 (longest streak: 3)
Spiritual Routine: 3/7

Sleep: 12:10am - 6:50am, 1-3pm

Another awesome day, super productive. So far all 3 days I've wasted a lot of time right after my nap, not sure what that's about. I gotta figure out some kind of habit that'll get me back into productivity after waking up.

I also remember that I did manage to have about 2 weeks like this half a year ago and I remember being on this high where I thought that I cracked the code and that I'll super productive like this for the rest of my life... and then I relapsed on games hard. So I'm also kinda nervous about losing this awesome track record. I think the key is to monitor my energy levels... if I find that I'm getting too tired, I need to rest more. I'm pretty sure last time I just wore myself out.

Anyway, so far going well, but I just have this anxiety in the back of my mind about losing this productivity streak. Hopefully this time it's different, since I think one of the main reasons I'm doing a lot better is that my wife's in the same room as me and this forces me to be semi-productive at minimum.

Edited by karabas
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Day 4/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 2 (12/100)
Sleep before midnight x4 (longest streak: 3)
Spiritual Routine: 4/7

Sleep: 12:20-4:30am, 5:30-10:30am

Yesterday was a bit messed up. I watched some videos at the beginning of the day because this stupid song from a video was stuck in my head on repeat for the last week and I thought that maybe listening to it would help get rid of it. No chance, not making that mistake again. I still had a productive day, got a lot of stuff done. I've been putting in a lot of work hours - feels pretty good!

Went to bed a bit late because wife is dealing with some stuff and she wanted to talk about it. She was up late and I randomly woke up at night to use the washroom and we talked some more. Hence my weird sleep routine last night.

Today's probably not going to be a 100% day, but I'm going to try to make the best of it. 

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Day 0/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 2 (15/100)
Sleep before midnight x0 (longest streak: 4)
Spiritual Routine: 0/7

Sleep: 1:30-7:00am, 7:30-11:00am

I had a hiccup over the last couple of days. That day of my last post, I found out my Qur'an teacher's wife is in the hospital. He's a sweet old man who spends his day teaching the Qur'an and nothing else, he's dirt poor but doesn't mind. The problem is that public health insurance here sucks - it only covers about 50% and you still have to pay the full sum up front and you get the money back later. And the hospitalization cost was what he makes in a year.

Thankfully, this is a "developing" country and for a Westerner, the cost isn't all that much. I posted about it on Facebook, some friends of mine who know the teacher shared, and we raised the full amount (and more) overnight. I was able to give him the cash the next day. Gotta love Muslims and their generosity (average donation was $80 and somebody sent $500... and vast majority of donors don't know my teacher and don't live in this country).

So overall great news, but the downside for me personally was that I stayed up late handling this fundraising stuff, woke up early to give the teacher the money, and was super tired... and you know what happens when you're tired. I totally relapsed, rewatched a favorite TV show of mine, stayed up late. That Khabib vs McGregor fight didn't help, although I didn't watch it live at least (very happy that McGregor got his butt handed to him after all the vile crap that he said to Khabib... also, who the hell tries to pull that with a Dagestani?).

Anyway, hoping that today will go better. I went to bed late, but not crazy late, got decent rest, and I feel like I can get back on the horse. So let's hope this was just a short blip. I got 3 more weeks until I'm traveling again and that's probably going to mess up my routine, so it'd be great if I squeezed everything I can from the next 21 days.

Edited by karabas
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That's amazing man. I don't think there is a downside in what you did for the man. I'm not religious, but I do believe in karma and what you did will come back in the future.

Focus on your targets and crush those next 21 days! 

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Day 1/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 2 (20/100)
Sleep before midnight x0 (longest streak: 4)
Spiritual Routine: 0/7

Sleep: 1:30-7:00am, 7:45-11:45am

Back on track (almost), although I didn't get to bed on time. Pushed too much stuff off until close to bedtime because I was trying to squeeze enough work in. But no videos!

Also, got an email that my Steam account is deleted. $500 worth of games gone (couldn't sell it because it's against their terms of use, plus most of my games are actually old, so they weren't worth that much). It's been 57 days since I last gamed and aside from an occasional pang of a craving, I don't really miss them. I'm definitely still struggling with YouTube, TV shows, etc, but I'm hopeful that gaming is behind me. Of course, I still gotta be careful about triggers: once an addict, always an addict.

My spiritual routine isn't completely broken, by the way. I've maintained reading Qur'an in the mornings, it's the evening part that I've been missing out on. I leave it until too late and then I'm sleep and I just go to bed.

On 10/8/2018 at 1:17 PM, Robin said:

That's amazing man. I don't think there is a downside in what you did for the man. I'm not religious, but I do believe in karma and what you did will come back in the future.

Thanks, man. Yeah, I don't mind overall. I'm back on track today, so it was just a small hiccup for me, but hopefully it was a big help for him.

Edited by karabas
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Day 2/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 2 (25/100)
Sleep before midnight x0 (longest streak: 4)
Spiritual Routine: 1/7

Sleep: 1:30-7:00am

Better, although I had some "life admin" tasks (like booking flights and hotels and the like) that I had to do that ended up taking up half my day. But once again, no videos and fairly productive.

Went to bed late still yesterday and talked in bed with my wife for a while too, so I'm pretty exhausted. Hopefully staying up today will help me get back to my early-to-bed schedule.

Edited by karabas
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Day 4/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 2 (40/100)
Sleep before midnight x2 (longest streak: 4)
Spiritual Routine: 3/7

Sleep: 12:35am-7:05am

Staying up two days ago did help me reset the schedule... but for some reason I couldn't sleep at night despite the exhaustion and only fell asleep around 3:30am, despite going to bed at 12. Last night was bad too, I woke up maybe 4 times during the night. Still, feeling a lot more rested today, will take a nap again in a few hours, so hopefully this will be a productive day. My body is probably just confused by my going to sleep earlier than I'm used to. Might take a few days to adjust.

And yeah, I was late to bed by 35 minutes last night, but that was out of my control. I stopped working at 11 sharp, so I'm counting it as an early sleep day, partially just to give myself some momentum.

My productivity isn't as great as it was last week, but I'd say it's at about 80%. It's definitely hella better than when I was hardcore gaming or binging Netflix shows. And I'm now on day 60 of no games! So a lot to be thankful for.

Videos are still a problem... not that I binge watch or stay up late, but I do watch stuff on occasion. I don't generally watch "random" stuff, I end up reading something online and wanting to watch a video about it. And I started reading news websites again and they also have some videos, so I occasionally watch those. Gah, I hate the news. And it looks I'm replacing my video habits with reading news. As much as I hate it, it's probably a healthier habit than video, so one thing at a time. 

Oh and one more piece of good news: I've been taking ~25 minutes a day to work on my business idea. It's not a lot, but it's actually yielding some results, which is a welcome change. My goal right now is to try to finish up marketing materials before the new year. That was I can actually register the business in 2019 (to avoid doing taxes for 2018), build the website, launch a beta of my product, and then plugin the ready marketing. It's still a ton of work. I've dropped the ball a lot of times (I started working on this idea at the beginning of this year and was hoping to launch in the summer originally), likely I'll drop it again. But the feeling of actually working towards it is good. I've spent my life daydreaming about stuff I'd do in the future. I've started projects many a time, but I never finished any of them. Actually accomplishing something would be a gigantic milestone in my life, even if the business idea itself fails.

Anyway, my job is to try. God is the One who grants success (or doesn't). I'm OK with either, as long as I don't stop trying

Edited by karabas
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Day 5/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 2 (42/100)
Sleep before midnight x0 (longest streak: 4)
Spiritual Routine: 4/7

Sleep: 1:20am-7:05am, 2pm-4pm

I ended up not napping during the day yesterday, which made me really tired towards the evening. And you know how being tired affects decision-making. I stayed up late for absolutely no reason.

At least I got a ton of work done.

Edited by karabas
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