I'm using the template I used the last time. 13/6/26 - 16/7/26
"L" will stand for the (last) plan/notes for this term. "T" will stand for done this term.
I added "Future goals/direction" to better reflect on the things I am trying to do and to add specificity. I will copy it and stick it somewhere where I can see it to remind myself whenever I feel aimless. I will also use different colors: blue for newly added goals/habits, green for completed/successful, orange for ongoing/some progress and red for ones I haven't worked on in that period.
Books/Reading articles/Learning:
L: I've been reading (financial, but not only) blogs by Financial Samurai and Derek Hagen. I've also started a book recommended to me by my girlfriend on the lack and discrepancy of data on women from a feminist perspective, but I'm having a better time reading the financial blogs still.
T: I've grown a bit tired of reading financial blogs, so I picked up the book again. I'd like to get back to reading daily.
Possible direction/goals/habits:
(Borrow) and read one book until the next monthly report.
Read daily (a few times a week). Reading (and crosswords) are a good way for me to relax.
Drop a book whenever I don't look forward to reading it. CHECK HERE EVERY MONTH.
(While this is technically just a hobby, I like to keep it separate, because it's a big one.)
Family:
L: So my grandma was (finally and thankfully) hospitalized about a month ago. During one of the "routine" emergency ambulance visits, one of the medics noticed that her legs are in really bad condition, mostly due to poor hygiene. No surprise there, because I had called the emergency back in January because of her legs. She had a surgery in the hospital and they pumped antibiotics into her, but it seems that it's just a matter of time when they're gonna have to amputate her leg. She also had undiagnosed/untreated diabetes for a very long time, which doesn't help. She still delusionally insists that she's doing okay and looking forward to being home in her flat again...
I met my brother yesterday for lunch and we had a good talk about his job and other stuff.
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I had two visits to my grandma in the hospital, both with my parents. I'm happy that now she has daily care, though of course the bad news is that it's unlikely it'll ever get substantially better.
On a brighter note, my parents and my girlfriend's met for the first time and it seemed to me they had a pretty good time together.
T: I visited my grandma at the hospital, my mom at her spa retreat and I'm meeting my brother tomorrow over sushi. Nothing much happening otherwise.
NOT: I don't want to get alienated from my family.
Possible direction/goals:
Work on getting the new kitchen for my grandma.
Continue work on maintaining the relationships with my family. Keep in contact at least once a month.
Business/English/Army:
L: In the end, I got contacted by the company I sent the offer to, so something did in fact come out of it. I updated the price offer asked for a really premium rate this time, because I need to travel to get there.
The outlook is good, I have more than enough work at this point. I'll have to make some price increases to reflect that.
I also made a partial analysis of the rate of return on the website. I compared the performance of the last 8 months of the old website and 8 months of the new website. The old website "generated" 5 students and the new one "generated" 5 students as well. I also have three active inquiries now. I guess I was expecting more, but granted I also raised the prices and have enough work as it is, I'm not really bothered by that.
I had a few army activities in April, including a SERE theory course.
I'm still in contact with the "price offer" company. If it works out, great, I'll have extra 5-7 hours of work per week for a great rate. If not, I'll have more free time for myself. I win either way! I also sent out the questionnaire for this semester. Nothing else otherwise.
T: So I managed to strike the deal at the company with the conditions being pretty much what I wanted. That's pretty good, as it's a lot of work for a lot of money.
I also had some physical army testing and I managed to run longer, do more push-ups and sit-ups too.
NOT: I don't want to have a job that I don't enjoy. I don't want to have a job that is not well paid.
Past projects: Copied to a Google Doc to keep this less cluttered.
Current projects I'm working on:
Website improvement project - since August 2024 - finished August 2025 with some small upgrades in autumn 2025
lecturer trainings - ENG business February-May 2025
55 minutes F2F lessons (+ online reminder too); pricing updates
I and one of my FIRE friends organized a teacher/lecturer meeting.
Find more teachers/colleagues to share workload with (with or without commission).
Areas to work on continually:
English table update - check every now and then for improvements.
Keep classes at around 15-20 hours a week.
Keep asking for reviews or recommendations from students.
CELTA colleagues calls.
Go through "lecturer academy" + CELTA materials + lecturer course.
Exercise/Movement/Health + 10-13 break:
L: I had the army tests just two days after writing the last report. I passed, but I want to improve on my result, so I'm going again in two days. Managed to exercise 17/20 of my 10-13 breaks. I also dug up my run competition results from the last three years; I'm getting better, bit by bit.
T: I did the army test and I managed to run longer, do more push-ups and sit-ups too.
As for the breaks, by getting the new client, I effectively made it impossible to have a break on Tuesdays. I was thinking of going there on bike, but it's a bit too far for me (around 60 kilometers total). I allocate two hours to (paid) travel there and back even in the car. I'll count these days out for the future.
That means I hit 15/16 of working days, out of the grand total of 24 working days. 8 days were not possible due to traveling and work. This might warrant some future thinking whether I actually don't want to change this to make time for exercise on Tuesday afternoon.
Managed to cycle, hike and go to the gym with my girlfriend a few times at the weekend too. Attended a running competition/army test and marked down the results in the table.
NOT: I don't want to become fat.
Possible direction/goals:
Keep in shape by exercising at least twice a week for 30-60 minutes.
Have a session every weekday from January.
Start flossing regularly.
Incorporate balance and spine exercises.
Keep on using the Oura ring to track vitals.
Keep having the 1000-1300 break.
Social + Personal Hobbies + Free Time (cool things I've done):
L: Had another FIRE meeting, met my friend a few times and attended a pub quiz with a few other friends. We also watched the hockey championship. I also watched a few action and finance films when my girlfriend was away with her family for the weekend.
T: I had yet another another FIRE meeting, met my best friend a few times, went to a pub quiz and attended a friend's birthday party. It was actually nice to see some old friends in a while.
Possible direction/goals:
Keep in touch with my friend groups (FIRE, quiz, best friends...).
Relationship with my girlfriend:
L: Since I've been off porn for a month, I have to say that we have better sex. I overall think the relationship is in a better place too. We also went to a funny talk show.
T: Spent time together, went for a trip to a different city too. Visited her family. I even thought of how and when to get married.
Possible direction/goals:
Make time to talk every day.
Keep on working on strengthening our relationship via common activities.
Others:
L: I felt a bit clueless as we were coming back home from the holiday last week, as if I had no priorities and no goals. This week proved me wrong. I actually felt quite beat-up at the end week, as I plunged from my active holiday of 10 days straight back into work. I have more than enough stuff to do and to work on that are meaningful - it's just that for a day, I felt that nothing was going on.
This year, so far I've managed to sock away about 35% of what I made this year, after taxes. I've debated myself on whether I should take more holidays, but come to the conclusion: What would I take holidays from? There's not much point in doing so if I already do what I want and what I need. I've read something on living an international lifestyle - changing countries every few months to avoid personal taxes, but I guess it's not something that would interest me at the moment.
Last but not least, I'll circle back to porn. It's been kind of back and forth for the last few weeks, but even months and years. I had some limited success of longer streaks of no porn in 2022 for a few months, no porn in 2024 for a month before the CELTA course (it was very insightful, but also very stressful). I obviously don't do it in social settings and sometimes I'm busy enough to not think of it for days or even weeks. It's not even that I watch porn for nudity and some depictions of sex, I think there's something else at play. After about a week of abstinence, I also feel my natural libido coming back. The issue is, I don't know how to help myself with it. I'm planning to do some research again on how to understand myself better soon.
Continuing on my musings with money, considering what I've saved up through my work, I feel like I might start giving the money more purpose and intent. I might use it to give myself more free time, but I don't feel like overloading myself or neglecting an important area of my life. Just the balance and spine exercises and flossing come to my mind at the moment. I need to give myself some more time to think about this.
@Heretic666 As I wrote above, my relationship with my girlfriend got better after about a month off porn. It's not that I've completely stopped thinking about it, but it's not even been that hard to abstain. In fact, I even managed to masturbate on my own (without porn), which is something I haven't done in a long time. I also feel more energy overall, so I might be getting better sports results. As a side note, my girlfriend and I went to a fertility clinic to check if we're both able to have a baby and the results were positive for both of us. As for battling the company that refused to refund me for tickets for a concert after it was canceled, I got a court order in my favor, so it's going well.
T: Now I'm at 8 weeks of no porn. I'm going through an online course slowly and steadily at least a few times per week. I just don't need porn if I take care of myself; and that's easier to do if I have more control over my time.
Week 27 (June/July week) was tough. It was very stressful (a surprising amount of work), as I didn't have time for myself, on top of a heatwave. Our flat is really exposed to sun, so it was a major pain. Despite that, I managed to not watch porn and I was grounded. Good job (just saying that to myself).
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Still thinking about new quality-of-life improvements, related to work, money and time. The 10-13 break every day is good. What's next? No work after X p.m.? Hard limits on the number of lessons? No work with "bad" clients? I don't know really. It's actually quite difficult to responsibly manage more than 25 hours per week due to the nature of my work. Even then, I feel like I have much to do besides work anyway, which I (still) don't do for example, using the inter-dental toothbrush, do balance exercise to fix my posture etc. How do I limit my workload with some intent and thought and maximizing the purpose I get from my work? It's a good problem to have, but I still want to solve it in a way that makes sense.
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For thought:
Maybe I should just learn to plan better, though just the thought of having some hours of my day scheduled makes me cringe. Oddly enough, I don't get this feeling while planning lessons of my students, normally in bigger blocks. Maybe I should rethink that belief to make me happier. This might change with the late morning exercise lessons. 10-13 change works well.
I've had this recurring thought every now and then that I am often somehow prevented from what I want to do in my free time; basically whenever I am not with students or sleeping.
No, I just need to stop reading and learning all the time and start doing things. Imperfect action yields results. Information alone is useless.
I like these reports, because they take me back in the calendar and let me see if there's something I've missed or something I need to check on again.
By
Ikar ·
