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Karabas's Journal: Part 2


karabas

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Day 64/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 2 (56/100) 
Sleep before 12am: 0 (longest streak: 17)

No phone in washroom 11/120
Umra resolutions: 2/90

Work Hours: 4:10

Sleep is still a major problem. Also this tax stuff is taking over my life. At least I've been able to get back on track with my spiritual resolutions, thank God.

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Day 65/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 2 (56/100) 
Sleep before 12am: 0 (longest streak: 17)

No phone in washroom 12/120
Umra resolutions: 3/90

Work Hours: 6:30 (10:40 this week, 2:40 behind schedule)

Same same. I'm happy that I'm overall staying productive, even if it's not to a 100%. It definitely feels like a leftover from the time I invested in myself last year. I'm starting class next week & it's going to bite me in the butt if I can't sort out my sleep. I also need to prepare for it this week.

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Day 70/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 2 (56/100) 
Sleep before 12am: 0 (longest streak: 17)

No phone in washroom 17/120
Umra resolutions: 8/90

30-min study: 1/90

Work Hours: 24:55

This has been my worst productivity week since this detox started going. I'm not beating myself up too much about it because it's largely been because of sleep, which has been poor for a number of reasons outside my control. We also had an unexpected guest over and that inevitably takes up time.

Another thing is that I feel like I'm getting back into videos. I've watched a few of my purchased videos in my YouTube app, without good reason. I'm also do a lot more of Facebook reading and I can literally feel the spiritual dirt accumulating from that. I hate FB.

And finally, another thing that's eating up my time is tax stuff. I'm trying to register a business in this country and figuring out how to do that while keeping international taxes in mind is messing up my brain. But it looks like there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Most of my research is done and it's time for paperwork and I'm offloading that to an accountant who knows what she's doing.

Guest should be leaving today and I'm hoping the sleep stuff will resolve too. I'll be better about keeping my phone in another room, which should solve the FB/YouTube issue (I have FB feed disabled on my desktop + YouTube blocked).

So I'm hoping this week will be different!

Oh, and forgot: I added a new "habit": 30 minutes of daily religious study. I've been feeling pretty crap about not doing more of it, so this should get me started. Plus, I'm starting up my classes with a teacher again - first class is tomorrow. So I'll need the little bit of study time to prepare for the class & review.

Edited by karabas
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  • 2 weeks later...

Day 78/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 2 (56/100) 
Sleep before 12am: 0 (longest streak: 17)

No phone in washroom 25/120
Umra resolutions: 0/90

30-minute study: 0/90

Work Hours: Dunno for last week

Ugh. My life hasn't been very stable lately. A lot of travels & other things happening. I still can't settle back into my solid routine that I had before traveling for the holidays. I'm squeezing out some work, but it hasn't been to the amount I wanted and it's becoming a problem. Very behind on several of my clients' projects + don't have time to pursue my business or new clients.

My spiritual resolutions are floundering: I do them sometimes and sometimes I don't. Same for studies.

Even my video restrictions have taken a battering. I've allowed myself a few videos & I'm struggling with getting off of FB, despite the fact that I see it as a really problematic medium.

A lot of this is down to instability in schedule + the hassle of incorporating in this country + bad sleep habits.

I need to stay in the sample for a month and just do my thing if I want to get back on track. Otherwise I'm afraid this detox might fall apart - and I don't want to go down THAT rabbit hole.

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Day 0/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 2 (56/100) 
Sleep before 12am: 0 (longest streak: 17)

No phone in washroom 26/120
Umra resolutions: 0/90

30-minute study: 0/90

Work Hours: 9:20 so far this week

Well, I guess that was expected. I relapsed on videos and watched 3 episodes of a show I used to like back in the day. I already broke the detox in the days before but as they were minor infractions, I decided to keep going. Can't really call 2+ hours of watching a show as "minor" though.

Not all is lost, however. I still have youtube, netflix, and the rest blocked on my computer. My only access to this stuff is via my phone. And I didn't stay up abysmally late, but cut myself off soon after finishing up my work.

This actually may be worse because if I don't see the harm of my relapse, I'm more likely to continue with it. But I'm hoping I can maintain my semi-productivity and get myself back in the detox.

Videos were going to be harder than games anyway, I've known that for a while.

In terms of what caused this... pretty clearly it's been the constant travel, disruption of my schedule, and lack of proper sleep. This led to increased FB usage and then slowly, relapse into videos, mostly due to lack of proper self-restraint due to poor sleep habits.

Sleep is my #1 priority in the coming days. If I can return to sleeping on time and staying up after morning prayer, things will turn around quickly (God willing).

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Well, it's been crap. I've watched like two seasons of shows in one day (although I rescued some time by finishing them off via recaps instead of watching). This is right at the time where I had a couple of tight deadlines, which I obviously missed. On top of that, a high-paying client of mine paused my contract... it happens regularly and I was expecting it to happen, but I could've fit in a few more hours of work by now if I wasn't procrastinating and earned a good amount of money. Not a big deal in the long run, but just sucks to trip myself up this way. 

I really, really hate myself when I'm like this. 

Dunno what the plan is. I have a lot to do tomorrow and I know I'm really mad at myself now, but it always wears off after sleep. Plus it's late and I'll be tired tomorrow, which means even less self-control.

I need to pray. Can't do this thing myself - I never have been able to, except when He's picked me up. So it's all good. It's just a reminder about the real state of things. Hopefully I'm so invested in the stuff I'm doing right now that it'll hurt to keep procrastinating enough for me to get back on track.

Resolving to leave all this nonsense again tomorrow.

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Day 1/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 2 (56/100) 
Sleep before 12am: 0 (longest streak: 17)

No phone in washroom 27/120
Umra resolutions (50%): 1/30
30-minute study: 1/90

Work Hours: 15:10 this week

I'm sorta back on track. Haven't watched any more shows. I decided to cut my spiritual resolutions down by 50% (like I did when I was traveling). Hopefully after a month of doing this, I'll raise it back up to 100%.

Still need to sort out my sleep. Slowly getting there...

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Day 0/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 2 (56/100) 
Sleep before 12am: 0 (longest streak: 17)

No phone in washroom 32/120
Umra resolutions (50%): 3/30
30-minute study: 1/90

Work Hours: 9:20 this week

Meh. I keep falling into watching random stuff. I'm not even that into it, I think I'm just really tired. I definitely feel that way.

It's not super bad right now. I'm managing to be mostly productive so I'm wasting maybe an hour or so a day on vids. It's not optimal, but I don't have the willpower to get myself to re-commit to the detox at the moment. I think it's down to my irregular sleep. Need to reign it in.

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Day 4/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 2 (56/100) 
Sleep before 12am: 0 (longest streak: 17)

No phone in washroom 36/120
Umra resolutions (50%): 7/30
30-minute study: 5/90

Work Hours: 28:05 this week (5:15 behind schedule)

It's been somewhat better last few days. I haven't relapsed mostly because I've been too busy. But that's good I guess?

I'm also having some pretty strong gaming cravings, for the first time since August when I last gamed. That's worrying me more than my struggles with this video detox. I am NOT going back to gaming man. I just can't.

To be fair, the thought of having to pay for games again (since I deleted my Steam account) does sound like a huge hassle & waste of money, so I'm hoping I'll just ride it out that way.

Sleep has also been better. Last two nights I've slept at around 1am (instead of the usual 2-3am) and yesterday I was ready for bed before midnight, but my wife wanted to discuss something important so we ended up staying up a bit.

Yesterday was also the first day I stayed up after morning prayer until I went to bed at night and it reminded me of just how much I can get done if I can just get my sleep straight... gotta work on that.

The 50% goal for my spiritual routine has been working well also. It's not difficult to do and is not time consuming, so I have fewer excuses to put it off.

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Day 6/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 2 (56/100) 
Sleep before 12am: 2 (longest streak: 17)

No phone in washroom 38/120
Umra resolutions (50%): 9/30
30-minute study: 7/90

Work Hours: 3:10

Well, yesterday was a crazy day where I ended up starting work at something like 8pm. Not at all my fault, so I'm not worrying about it.

On the plus side, I've gone to bed early the past couple of days! Honestly, once I tasted what it's like to stay up after morning prayer and how much I can get done in one day, it's really hard for me to not want to do that every day. There's just no comparison with my late-night sessions.

I have another non-work obligation today, but hopefully the rest of the week will be productive.

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Day 7/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 2 (56/100) 
Sleep before 12am: 3ish (longest streak: 17)

No phone in washroom 39/120
Umra resolutions (50%): 10/30
30-minute study: 8/90

Work Hours: 6:00 (9:10 this week)

Ok. Went to sleep slightly past midnight. This is a second night in a row I'm counting it as a win, so tonight I gotta get to sleep before midnight or I'm restarting that counter.

Everything else going OK. I have a ton of work and super behind on all my clients' stuff, primarily because of the relapses.

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Day 10/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 2 (56/100) 
Sleep before 12am: 0 (longest streak: 17)

No phone in washroom 42/120
Umra resolutions (50%): 13/30
30-minute study: 0/90

Work Hours: 27:45 this week (I'm ahead!)

I have something going in my life right now that's taking a LOT of time out of my schedule. Don't really want to share at the moment - will do later, God willing.

So the fact that after spending most of Friday working, I'm actually ahead of schedule in terms of work hours is huge!

To be fair, I had to decrease my spiritual resolutions by 50% and the study thing has not been happening (also had no class this week, and that's a good 8 hours or so out of my week), but at least the work is happening.

I'm super behind on a lot of client work, but it looks like I'm slowly digging myself out of the hole. It's also not a bad hole to be in: I have a LOT of work. The only downside is that my business is once again on semi-hold. But I'm within shooting range now, I need maybe another 5 hours to start SOME stuff going.

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On 2/21/2019 at 11:38 AM, JustTom said:

I always find it strange that you call watching videos a 'relapse' ha. I completely understand, but in the context of this forum it always strikes me eyes. 

lol yeah. i realize my journal is now a bit outside of the main gamequitters territory ? i'm hoping gaming is no longer a thing for me (although I've had the urge to game recently, which is a concern), but i also don't see a lot of difference between being hooked on games and being hooked on videos. the process for getting rid of both is definitely the same and I enjoy the community. it'd be kinda lame to have to go look for a "videoquitters" community, if that even exists lol.

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Day 12/120 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 2 (56/100) 
Sleep before 12am: 0 (longest streak: 17)

No phone in washroom 44/120
Umra resolutions (50%): 15/30
30-minute study: 0/90

Work Hours: 41:35 over the last week!

Pretty much the same. Very happy about having being able to put the work hours in, although it's still eating into my other activities.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/5/2019 at 11:25 PM, JustTom said:

How is it going my man?

Thanks for checking in man.

I'm actually overall OK productivity-wise. I've been struggling with the video detox somewhat. I keep off for a few days, then come back to it. But I don't relapse in the sense of non-stop binge-watching, so it's not SUPER damaging. But it still manages to waste an hour or two a day and I need those hours!

I can finally talk about this (didn't want to before), but the biggest thing that happened recently is that my wife got pregnant. We were super excited (we've been married for a long time and are in a good place to have a kid overall), but unfortunately it turned into a miscarriage. We just got back from the hospital yesterday after the procedure to remove the embryo.

Productivity-wise, it was a tough period. She really wasn't feeling well, so I had to take over pretty much everything in the household + take care of her. I was happy to do it, but obviously it ate into my work hours & sleep. I slept like 16 hours last night to make up for it. I don't think I've slept this long since college.

Emotionally, it was a roller coaster. You look at life completely differently when you realize you might be a father. There were certain things about myself that I felt like were absolutely necessary to fix before the kid is born. My tech addiction is one thing. Being overweight is another (I gained weight in the last year of college and haven't gotten rid of it ever since). I started working out and have been pretty consistent with it for over 2 weeks now. Another thing is being established financially: it's something that I've been working on primarily over the past year or so, but I guess it gave me an even stronger impetus to do so.

Once we found out the baby wasn't going to come, it was difficult. But at the same time, we both realize that all of this is from God anyway. We prayed a lot when in Mecca & Medina for children when the time is right and only if they'd grow up (and we'd be able to fulfill their rights). So we're happy to not have children if these things wouldn't align.

Overall, I'm just exhausted physically and emotionally. Unfortunately, most of my routines went out the window last several weeks. I'm going to try to get back into them, but we're traveling in a month, so it looks like I'm in for a disruption again. *sigh*

Will do my best to start updating more regularly from now on.

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pretty much a fail all around so far. i have a new fad: podcasts. I started listening to them as I was helping my wife around the house, making meals, etc. I found some really interesting ones and now I'm listening to them in the bathroom and staying up late because I want to finish an episode.

sleep has been a major problem for me. going to try to focus on once again getting off the tit of the phone, whether visual or aural, and getting to bed on time. these are key for me right now if i want to get back to being productive.

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i'm struggling. binge-watched 2 seasons of show a few days back, lost a whole day's worth of work.

i've started watching gaming vids and the desire to game is pretty strong. the thing that's stopping me at the moment is that I'd need to fork over $200+ for the game that I want to play and all the DLCs that go with it.

And to top all that, I'm not really feeling like doing any work on myself, re-starting the detox, etc. I don't even feel like working or launching my business (SO close).

Sigh...

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Sleep before 12am: 1 (longest streak: 17)
No phone in washroom 1/120
Umra resolutions (50%): 1/30
30-minute study: 1/90

Work Hours: 9:10 so far

I've really made an effort (with the help of the wife) to sleep earlier. Stayed up after morning prayer yesterday and today and have had overall productive days. Trying to get back into my spiritual habits & study, as well as not using the phone in a washroom (a huge time suck for me!).

Overall, I'm feeling pretty good. But my video consumption is still pretty bad. I've been watching let's play videos of my favorite game and the only thing that's stopping me is the $200+ cost of the game with all its DLCs (and I wouldn't be able to enjoy it without the DLCs).

I did even play 5 minutes of an old 1990s game, but it quickly felt stupid and I quit.

I'm hoping I can build up enough energy & motivation to finally stop consuming these videos and get away from my looming gaming relapse. I think the biggest factor for me has been my sleep routine and level of fatigue. If I feel rested, I do just fine. It's when I'm constantly sleeping late that this nonsense starts.

So I need to take better care of my sleep and hopefully recover from all of this, God willing.

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Meh. Back to crap again. Yesterday had ridiculous cravings for games and spent half the day watching gaming vids. Literally the only thing stopping me so far has been the price tag of the game. Tried playing a few old DOS games online, but dosbox doesn't work very well on a Mac. Yet another reason to have a mac if you're a gaming addict!

Today has been "better" in that I binge-watched 3 seasons of a show (ok, to be fair, I skipped around a lot). Went from 8am to 4pm straight and then wasted the rest of the day pretty much. But no gaming cravings and I actually feel like being productive tomorrow (I think), which would be a change.

So I guess let's see?

I've asked my wife to help with going to bed early and I'm hoping that'll help me in the long term.

Sigh. This is probably the crappiest I've been since August...

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Day 0/30 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pomodorro Lvl 2 (56/100) 
Sleep before 12am: 0 (longest streak: 17)

No phone in washroom 0/30
Umra resolutions (50%): 1/30
30-minute study: 2/30

Ok, clearly 120 days is a bit beyond me right now. I need a smaller, more realistic target. I can try going for 30 days, that seems more doable.

A show I really like is coming out in that time period. If it gets really bad, I'll try to content myself with reading episode summaries. That has helped me in the past.

At least gaming cravings seem to have died down significantly. I just need to deal with my video watching. Spent most of the day doing that today.

I think partially it's the fact that I'm in my office alone most of the day, but it's not all of it.

Cravings to watch something or to game can be so strong sometimes, it's overwhelming. I try to push through and end up caving, because I'm so worried about productivity. I think I need to bite the bullet and get out of the house in those circumstances. Long-term gain, hopefully?

I need to think about this more and pay attention. I've gotten lazy with journaling here...

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8 hours ago, karabas said:

A show I really like is coming out in that time period. I

Is it game of thrones season 8? ?

Besides that, going out of the house to a dedicated work place is key, some coffee shop can be good too, but you already know this. What I'm going to recommend that you might not have thought about is co-working spaces. The offices of my internship are at a co-working space and it's AMAZING. The absolute best thing ever for small companies and entrepreneurs(such as you!). At WeWork, you can get a solo spot for just 175e per month and you get unlimited free coffee, all kinds of office facilities such as kitchens, meeting rooms etc., lightning-fast internet and most importantly, the community of hard-working and motivated people. I live in an expensive city so it might be a lot cheaper depending where you live. In most countries, you can consider this monthly payment as office costs for taxation purposes, so you can write it off as expenses even as a solo entrepreneur. 

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2 minutes ago, JustTom said:

Is it game of thrones season 8? ?

Guilty as charged. I should put an asterisk on the word "like", though. I like the books. The show was good until it passed the books. Now I just want to know how it all ends since it's going to be another 10 years or more until GRRM finishes everything up. ?

4 minutes ago, JustTom said:

What I'm going to recommend that you might not have thought about is co-working spaces

There must be a space somewhere in this city (although the major co-working space in the country isn't available), but I see two problems with it:

1) It'll probably be a daily commute, which is time & money consuming.

2) I'm still sort of "alone" in a coworking space. If I start gaming on watching vids, nobody's going to look at me weird there. Whereas at home, I prefer not to do it in front of my wife... so the social pressure is greater at home.

So I dunno if it's actually better in my case...

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I think number 2 is not true, if you get just the cheapest open spot. If it helps you being in a caffee, this will help much more. Especially after you get to know some people over coffee-machine or water-cooler chats. And commuting for me is a great way to get my audiobook time in! hehe

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Yeah, maybe. I googled it, there are two places (that I could easily find) that offer ~$90/month (less if you pay monthly), although taxis will cost me another $80/month or so.

That's quite pricey by local standards, but overall not bad. And yeah, I could count it as a business expense. Let's see. I might try it out. Taxi-ing every day is a bit annoying - that's really what's the biggest barrier for me, I think.

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