Tabula rasa Posted January 8, 2021 Author Posted January 8, 2021 It has been a long hiatus from diaries but I'm back! Day 1/90 detox 31/12/2020 Thursday Play games / watch game related videos? No Workout? Yes (yoga) Study? Yes Duolingo? Yes Reading/podcast? No Meditate? No Sleep before 11:30pm? No (1:45am) This diary entry is for last Thursday. Slept fairly late since I was up watching live new years celebrations shows. Managed to study for a bit and sort of self discovered a technique which seems pretty obvious but was a moment of realisation for me as someone who has the traits of a perfectionist - rather than spending an exorbitant amount of time on a question or concept that is particularly difficult, it’s okay to skip it and come back to it later. This ensures that I don’t tunnel vision on one thing, where the time could better be spent studying other concepts and with additional knowledge, may assist with the problematic concept/question. This can be applied to any task really, to try and set a reasonable amount of time for each task and if it’s taking too long, to complete other tasks first and in that time, new perspectives could be gained. Not doing well for habits in the mental health department, like meditation and reading, however. Workouts have been quite consistent though. Day 2/90 detox 1/1/2020 Friday Play games / watch game related videos? No Workout? Yes (bushwalking) Study? No Duolingo? No Reading/podcast? No Meditate? No Sleep before 11:30pm? No (6:20am) This diary entry is for last Friday. I went out with friends to go bushwalking. What a great start to the year! I’ve really been meaning to go do some activities outdoors and this was the perfect opportunity to. I didn’t do any other dailies today however and I slept very, very late as there was some time sensitive finance related tasks I was looking into. They couldn’t really wait till the next morning. Day 0/90 detox 2/1/2020 Saturday Play games / watch game related videos? Yes Workout? No Study? No Duolingo? No Reading/podcast? No Meditate? No Sleep before 11:30pm? No (3:45am) This diary entry is for Saturday. I went to a friend’s place for a party and we played board games for the majority of the time. I’m pretty proud of myself for excusing myself near the end of the night after they decided they wanted to play Jackbox/console games next. However, this was a sort of a trigger for me since I wanted to understand more about how to play Katan (board game), since that was the first time I had played it. I watched a few hours of videos of gameplay online and so I’m once again resetting my days in the detox to 0. Day 1/90 detox 3/1/2020 Sunday Play games / watch game related videos? No Workout? Yes (push) Study? No Duolingo? No Reading/podcast? No Meditate? No Sleep before 11:30pm? No (8:05am) Refer to 7/1/2020 entry Day 2/90 detox 4/1/2020 Monday Play games / watch game related videos? No Workout? No Study? No Duolingo? No Reading/podcast? No Meditate? No Sleep before 11:30pm? No (8:20am) Refer to 7/1/2020 entry Day 3/90 detox 5/1/2020 Tuesday Play games / watch game related videos? No Workout? No Study? No Duolingo? No Reading/podcast? No Meditate? No Sleep before 11:30pm? No (5:40am) Refer to 7/1/2020 entry Day 4/90 detox 6/1/2020 Wednesday Play games / watch game related videos? No Workout? No Study? No Duolingo? Yes Reading/podcast? No Meditate? No Sleep before 11:30pm? No (5:07am) Refer to 7/1/2020 entry Day 5/90 detox 7/1/2020 Thursday Play games / watch game related videos? No Workout? No Study? No Duolingo? No Reading/podcast? No Meditate? No Sleep before 11:30pm? No (6:52am) This diary entry is for yesterday. Essentially, I have a finance related task that is fairly time sensitive and is ongoing in my life. It consumes a lot of my time and I lose track of and deprioritise my daily tasks for it. This diary entry along with the following few are pretty similar. I have since developed a plan to prevent the need for me to stay up late.
Tabula rasa Posted January 9, 2021 Author Posted January 9, 2021 Day 6/90 detox 8/1/2020 Friday Play games / watch game related videos? No Workout? Yes (running) Study? No Duolingo? Yes Reading/podcast? Yes Meditate? Yes Sleep before 11:30pm? No, 11:59pm This diary entry is for yesterday. Resetting my daily schedule is now on track. Most dailies were completed including sleeping before midnight and ideally pushing that to even earlier later. I went over my study materials but only briefly so I wouldn’t count that as actually studying.
Tabula rasa Posted January 10, 2021 Author Posted January 10, 2021 Day 7/90 detox 9/1/2020 Saturday Play games / watch game related videos? No Workout? Yes (pushups and pullups - ‘break’) Study? Yes (‘break’) Duolingo? Yes Reading/podcast? Yes Meditate? Yes Sleep before 11:30pm? No, 2:30am This diary entry is for yesterday. While I was listening to a Ted podcast, I came across a statement that was a little mind blowing for me: “Our ability to follow through on our best intentions, to get into a new habit, or to change our behaviour in any way, doesn’t depend on the reasons we might do it, or the depth of our convictions that we should do so. It doesn’t depend on our understanding of the benefits of a particular behaviour or even on the strength of our willpower. It depends on our willingness to be bad at our desired behaviour.” The speaker went on to explain how she got back into running after a long hiatus, not by creating a detailed, well defined, extravagant plan, but by simply setting a goal of running for 1 minute every day. Here is the source of the podcast and is very well worth the listen: https://www.ted.com/talks/christine_carter_the_1_minute_secret_to_forming_a_new_habit The above got me thinking the significance of ‘something’ over nothing especially with respect to daily habits. Therefore, I have begun to implement the same logic, by doing each task at least 1 minute every day and denoting this as a (‘break’) next to it if that was the case, but by doing this, will help with developing a routine in my subconscious of doing these tasks daily, regardless for how long. I slept late since I procrastinated through the day and didn’t do my tasks until late at night and essentially did all of them after I heard that podcast! @codepants - I'm trying the 1 minute strat for my workouts!
codepants Posted January 11, 2021 Posted January 11, 2021 On 1/10/2021 at 1:23 AM, Tabula rasa said: The above got me thinking the significance of ‘something’ over nothing especially with respect to daily habits. Therefore, I have begun to implement the same logic, by doing each task at least 1 minute every day and denoting this as a (‘break’) next to it if that was the case, but by doing this, will help with developing a routine in my subconscious of doing these tasks daily, regardless for how long. Curious to see how this turns out for you. Good luck and keep us posted. 1
Tabula rasa Posted January 13, 2021 Author Posted January 13, 2021 (edited) Day 8/90 detox 10/1/2020 Sunday Play games / watch game related videos? No Workout? Yes (pull) Study? Yes Duolingo? Yes Reading/podcast? Yes Meditate? Yes Sleep before 11:30pm? No, 2:50am This diary entry is for Sunday. Managed to do all dailies except for sleep. Might even add a streak if I do all dailies where sleep isn’t counted – 2. Day 9/90 detox 11/1/2020 Monday Dailies streak (excl sleep) - 3 Play games / watch game related videos? No Workout? Yes (yoga) Study? Yes Duolingo? Yes Reading/podcast? Yes Meditate? Yes (break) Sleep before 11:30pm? No, 1:30am This diary entry is for yesterday. Today was a work day. Started too late on my dailies. Bumping my alarm which reminds me to start prepping for sleep to 9pm now. Day 10/90 detox 12/1/2020 Tuesday Dailies streak (excl sleep) - 4 Play games / watch game related videos? No Workout? Yes (pushups and pullups - ‘break’) Study? Yes Duolingo? Yes Reading/podcast? Yes Meditate? Yes Sleep before 11:30pm? No, 12:35am This diary entry is for yesterday. Today was a work day. Started earlier on my dailies and winded by sleep time back 1 hr. Rest of dailies were done. Getting there! Edited January 13, 2021 by Tabula rasa
Tabula rasa Posted January 17, 2021 Author Posted January 17, 2021 Day 11/90 detox 13/1/2020 Wednesday Dailies streak (excl sleep) - 0 Play games / watch game related videos? No Workout? No Study? Yes Duolingo? Yes Reading/podcast? Yes Meditate? No Sleep before 11:30pm? No, 3:27am This diary entry is for Wednesday. Had work and didn’t manage to do all my dailies. Don’t really remember why I stayed up so late. Day 12/90 detox 14/1/2020 Thursday Dailies streak (excl sleep) - 1 Play games / watch game related videos? No Workout? Yes (yoga) Study? Yes Duolingo? Yes Reading/podcast? Yes Meditate? Yes Sleep before 11:30pm? No, 1:31 am This diary entry is for Thursday. Had work and managed to do all my dailies with the exception of sleep. Wasn’t disciplined enough to sleep before midnight and was procrastinating. Day 0/90 detox 15/1/2020 Friday Dailies streak (excl sleep) - 0 Play games / watch game related videos? Yes Workout? Yes (running) Study? No Duolingo? No Reading/podcast? No Meditate? No Sleep before 11:30pm? No, 5:41am This diary entry is for Friday. I didn’t have work today and ended up playing an online Blackjack game. I can identify what the trigger was and it was to do with researching for board games to buy so that I can play with my family. Everyone is on their devices all the time so I thought it would be a good opportunity to ‘bring the family together’. However, one thing led to another, where I was researching which board game to buy, then my mum suggested one, then I decided to play the online version, then I ended up playing a different game I had never played before. This has led me to believe that I don’t think I can play board games without triggering a want to play games and thus I am scrapping that plan altogether and I’m not going to even give board games as presents in the future so that I can avoid having to look at this topic. It’s just a red zone for me now. This still leaves the question of parties and how it’s almost unavoidable playing board games. I think how I will approach parties is that I will only spectate and not play the board games, but only play casual games like ‘Cards against Humanity’, rather than the competitive games (where competitive seems to be the trigger). I slept very late because of that and I deleted the game account after, however, I do think I am understanding more about where to draw the lines in terms of how to avoid my triggers. Back on track we go! Day 1/90 detox 16/1/2020 Saturday Dailies streak (excl sleep) - 0 Play games / watch game related videos? No Workout? No (break) Study? No Duolingo? No Reading/podcast? No Meditate? No Sleep before 11:30pm? No, 4:30am This diary entry is for yesterday. I woke up very late due to my sleep time of the previous day. I was quite occupied today due to my ongoing finance related task. Due to changing circumstances, the plan that I developed to prevent the need for me to stay up late isn’t working too well, however, I have a revised plan that I will be testing. No dailies were done today.
Tabula rasa Posted January 18, 2021 Author Posted January 18, 2021 Day 2/90 detox 17/1/2020 Sunday Dailies streak (excl sleep) - 1 Play games / watch game related videos? No Workout? Yes (pushups and pullups - ‘break’) Study? Yes (break) Duolingo? Yes Reading/podcast? Yes Meditate? Yes Sleep before 11:30pm? No, 1:30am This diary entry is for yesterday. Managed to do all dailies and also attend a Toastmasters session. It really does wonders for self confidence and is a great socialising space. Sleep is still an issue.
Tabula rasa Posted January 19, 2021 Author Posted January 19, 2021 Day 3/90 detox 18/1/2020 Monday Dailies streak (excl sleep) - 0 Play games / watch game related videos? No Workout? Yes (pushups and pullups - ‘break’) Study? No Duolingo? Yes Reading/podcast? Yes Meditate? No Sleep before 11:30pm? No, 2:00am This diary entry is for yesterday. Had work, didn’t manage to do all dailies and sleep is still an issue. 1
BooksandTrees Posted January 23, 2021 Posted January 23, 2021 On 1/19/2021 at 8:00 AM, Tabula rasa said: Day 3/90 detox 18/1/2020 Monday Dailies streak (excl sleep) - 0 Play games / watch game related videos? No Workout? Yes (pushups and pullups - ‘break’) Study? No Duolingo? Yes Reading/podcast? Yes Meditate? No Sleep before 11:30pm? No, 2:00am This diary entry is for yesterday. Had work, didn’t manage to do all dailies and sleep is still an issue. I've found most people with these committed lists never stick to it because it makes "living" feel like work. Maybe there's a new way for you to just enjoy your days and being more in the moment? Instead of holding yourself to these schedules you can be more present. Say it's 4 PM you can say ok, I'm kind of hungry, let's meal prep. Or it's 7 PM, I kind of want to do a new hobby. This also lets you relax. I think when you have too many things to monitor and plan you just look for the first chance to take a break. It starts with only having time to breathe around bed time, but then you stay up late because you finally have time to relax. We can't be productive all day. I think quitting games makes people think they need to be productive all day long. I've been successful for 2 years because I just sit there and do nothing for certain periods of the day and relax my brain. It can be annoying sometimes, but overall I feel less stressed and have no triggers to relapse. 1
Tabula rasa Posted February 18, 2021 Author Posted February 18, 2021 (edited) Day 33/90 detox 17/02/2021 Wednesday Play games / watch game related videos? No Workout? Yes (pushups and situps) Study? No Duolingo? Yes Reading/podcast? Yes Meditate? Yes Sleep before 11:30pm? No, 1:20am This diary entry is for yesterday. I’m back after a long hiatus of not recording diary entries. Since my last entry, I have not played games (pretty much didn’t even think about it) and have been working. The finance related activity that I have been doing occupied a lot of my daily time and had been eating into my sleep to the point where I can’t really afford to continue like this (extremely tired during the day). I also have my studies starting soon so I have deprioritised the finance activity for now. @BooksandTrees I have this list mainly because I read a book called ‘The Slight Edge’ and it’s about how consistently doing habits daily will result in the benefits gradually building up over time to the point where it becomes noticeably obvious versus someone who doesn’t do them. E.g. exercise, taking care of your body/mental health, learning, etc. These habits are always in the back of my mind now so whenever I don't do them for a period of time, I start actually craving to do them or 'get back on track'. I think the streak system I made might be pushing it too much though so I have removed that! It sounds like you do something similar to meditation where you don’t do anything for certain periods of the day. I personally find it very hard to do nothing unless I am meditating and will instead use my time procrastinating and watching random videos so I feel like I am required to be doing something if not resting/sleeping. Edited February 18, 2021 by Tabula rasa 1
Tabula rasa Posted February 21, 2021 Author Posted February 21, 2021 Day 34/90 detox 18/02/2021 Thursday Play games / watch game related videos? No Workout? Yes (pushups and pullups - ‘break’) Study? No Duolingo? Yes Reading/podcast? Yes Meditate? Yes Sleep before 11:30pm? No, 1:40am Had work, didn’t manage to do all dailies and sleep is still an issue. Day 35/90 detox 19/02/2021 Friday Play games / watch game related videos? No Workout? No (break) Study? No Duolingo? No Reading/podcast? No Meditate? No Sleep before 11:30pm? No, 7:10am Day 36/90 detox 20/02/2021 Saturday Play games / watch game related videos? No Workout? No Study? No Duolingo? No Reading/podcast? No Meditate? No Sleep before 11:30pm? No, 3:20am Not doing well in terms of habits. 1
Tabula rasa Posted March 12, 2021 Author Posted March 12, 2021 Day 56/90 detox 12/03/21 Friday Play games / watch game related videos? No Workout? No Study? No I'm thinking about cutting down my list to only the essentials as above. Taking a bit of what @BooksandTrees's said to make it feel less like living is 'work'. 1
Tabula rasa Posted April 10, 2021 Author Posted April 10, 2021 Day 85/90 detox 10/04/21 Saturday Just checking in. Life is going good and ended up dropping the list above but always being mindful of regularly exercising and studying daily. Really busy recently with exams coming up along with work. 2
Tabula rasa Posted June 23, 2021 Author Posted June 23, 2021 Day 0/90 detox 23/06/21 Wednesday It's been a while since I have posted. I fell back into old habits of playing games. It may have been because of the increased stress of my finals coming up. Starting the detox again.
Oxanasayuri Posted June 23, 2021 Posted June 23, 2021 (edited) Hi! The path is rarely without some mistakes and failures. Accept it and go on 🙂 You can do it! Edited June 23, 2021 by Oxanasayuri 1
Tabula rasa Posted July 27, 2021 Author Posted July 27, 2021 Day 0/90 detox 27/07/21 Tuesday Once again, I fell off the path. Uni has started so my short term goal is posting every day regardless of if I managed to keep my detox streak or not, as well as studying daily. Starting the detox again. 1
Pochatok Posted July 28, 2021 Posted July 28, 2021 12 hours ago, Tabula rasa said: Day 0/90 detox 27/07/21 Tuesday Once again, I fell off the path. Uni has started so my short term goal is posting every day regardless of if I managed to keep my detox streak or not, as well as studying daily. Starting the detox again. Glad you're getting back on the path so quickly! Good luck, uni can be stressful at first.
Tabula rasa Posted October 31, 2021 Author Posted October 31, 2021 01/11/2021 Checking in. It's been ages. I tried to start my detox yesterday but the next day (today) I immediately fell back into old habits of gaming. Final exams are coming up and I think that is the trigger. The least I can do is be accountable for it so my short term goal is to start the detox again and to report in daily. 0/90 days 1
Tabula rasa Posted November 2, 2021 Author Posted November 2, 2021 02/11/2021 Had an exam today that had been stressing me out for a while. Still played games today but it didn't take over the entire day. Went for a run which was great and also did some study. 0/90 day detox. 1
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