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This epic quest is about defeating my internet addiction. I'll be adding a review of how I'm going every couple of weeks. Anyone can join if you like. I have read many good books on the topic and can suggest or summarise if you like. To join, I suggest the following steps. 1: Honestly assess how much I’m using the internet and how it’s harming me. Think about the life I want without internet. 2: Decide when and how much and what kinds of internet I want to use. 3: Implement blocks and bans to assist with the plan. 4: Schedule regular reviews & update blocks as necessary, noting possible danger points and adding accountability mechanisms. 1. Harm & Benefit It’s hard to tell how much my screen use is harming me because I have no control condition, no life without internet to compare. But I strongly suspect that it is: greatly exacerbating my mental fatigue creating a sense of mental burnout crowding out more valuable activities reducing my tolerance for activities requiring focus and effort sedating me so that I’m less motivated to improve my life creating a baseline feeling of dissatisfaction that encourages reward seeking interfering with sleep increasing my baseline anxiety, depression, and agitation making me spend more money as I discover things I “need” crowding out quiet time without input that is needed for reflection shortcircuiting the normal progression from boredome to motivation to activity making me more sedentary making me more boring making me more impatient stuffing my brain with low quality input, which ruins creativity unbalancing my input/output ratio, which leads to an imbalanced mind and life I am looking forward to a life without anxiety where I have the mental energy to do a normal amount of work for the day. I hope to be working very consistently on the art, reading, and housework, and to make a lot of progress and feel pride and satisfaction. I hope that my avoidant moods will reduce and I will be more willing to go out instead of staying home and missing out on things. I hope increased outings and reading will lead to better conversations with people and make me feel less boring as a person. I hope that tuning out and having periods without constant input will create great calm and nurture my curiosity and interest in activity. I hope that I will experience greater levels of contentment which will spill over into greater restraint around other addictive behaviours like caffeine, food and alcohol. 2. Legitimate Use I want to be able to use the internet for boring utilities like banking and ordering cat food without restriction. I want to limit scrolling for entertainment (which includes shopping, news, forums, over-researching topics of interest, and other), or anything that encourages overuse or pointless checking. I want to limit the total time I spend to, let’s say 2 hours maximum. This gives me time to use nerd fitness and do anything else I want. I may cut down on this amount later. I have found that a total time limit alone is no good, however, because I can use it in minute-long blocks to check for replies on social media. I could, for example, check nerdfitness 120 times like a total psychopath. So I also want to limit non-utility use to evenings only, after 5pm but before 9. That way I have internet-free time for work and daytime activities, and an internet-free wind down before bed. I’m okay with recieving texts, emails and calls since I mostly just communicate with my brother and Mr Harriet, and my inbox is very boring. 3. Concrete Plan I have implemented blocks on my laptop and desktop using cold turkey. There is a whitelist with utilities which I can use any time, but everything else is blocked outside the hours of 5-9pm, and total use is limited to 2 hours per day. I will leave the blocks unlocked for two weeks so I can make necessary adjustment to the whitelists (one cannot think of everything in advance). On my phone I have set a 10 minute time limit for the browsers Firefox and safari, in case I need to look up anything on the go. On the iPad I have blocked all apps except for reading and art. I have locked these with a randomly chosen pin that I have written down and put in a drawer. 4. Review & Accountability I have asked my brother and husband to set recurring monthly dates to review with me (at alternating dates, so I check in with someone every two weeks). I have also set up a recurring transfer to a savings account. If I break my blocks or otherwise violate the spirit of my bans and restrictions, I will transfer half the monthly savings to my brother or Mr Harriet. To avoid perverse incentives, Mr Harriet’s review will trigger a transfer to my brother if I fail, and if I fail my brother’s review the transfer will go to Mr Harriet. Certainly they will not form a dastardly alliance and fail all my reviews, lol. Danger points for this two week period are: It is possible to download browsers other than Firefox and safari on my phone It is possible to take the pin out of the drawer and turn off the restrictions on my phone and iPad. It is possible to turn off the blocks on my laptop and desktop, as they are not yet locked. It is possible to add entertainment websites to the whitelists on my computer blocks. It may be possible to access internet on the television. ... “When we are not doing well, most of life slips away from us; when we are inactive, much of it—but when we are inattentive, we miss it all. Can you show me even one person who sets a price on his time, who knows the worth of a day, who realises that every day is a day when he is dying? In fact, we are wrong to think that death lies ahead: much of it has passed us by already, for all our past life is in the grip of death.” Seneca--Letters on Ethics.

Hey there! I need your help with Media. I catch my self way too often checking apps I just looked at, downloading games to spend time, watching the suggested videos on youtube or just turning on the tv or even my xbox. While this behavior is not bad, on some days I do it too much instead of doing something productive, even productive activities that I do enjoy. So how do I attack this habit ? I thought about two ways. 1. Slow. Reduce the time spent on these devices more and more over the time until the point where I do it sometimes but not to kill time or procastinate but to have fun. 2. Fast: Delete said apps and games, unplug my tv and xbox, hide my controller and remote. Once I am confortable with eliminating everything, I can use them to have fun. Both have it's pro and cons, but I don't know which is the better way. No 1 is the "softer" way without so much "feelings of loss", but it it takes more time since I first have to track how long I use it, think about a good number to reduce it, track consistently etc. My thoughts will be often with the stuff + high risk of falling back because of the easy access. No 2 is the hard version, it will create a loss. But because of its "brutality" there is no more work than staying away. Low risk of falling back, reinstalling apps takes a lot of action and thougts. Is there a no3, an even better way? Thanks for reading through all this mess of my thougts, it would be awesome to hear your opinions. Are my thoughts about the ways wrong? If I find a way that works, I will add it in here ~Ikarus

Main Quest: Get below the obese weight range, and hit a 200 lb deadlift, 150 lb squat, 100 lb bench press, and 75 lb overhead press. Motivation: Move my body like I want to, and feel good about the way I look There are several things I want to do physically that are really difficult because of my size. I want to do eagle pose in yoga, but my thighs get in the way. I want to climb pikes peak and sprint really fast, but I feel like how heavy I am really slows me down and makes this more difficult. I want to do a pull-up, but my strength to weight ratio is not great enough. Most of these will be easier the stronger I am and the less fat I have. I also would really like to look good in cosplay sometime. Last Time on Adventures With Grizzy: New Home, New Habits Set up most of my living space in my new home! Cut out my soda habit once and (hopefully) for all! Exercised every single day! Approached my previous PRs on the deadlift, squat, bench press, and overhead press! Tried yoga and decided to make it part of my routine! Started tracking my food again! Started eating more vegetables! Lost 6 pounds! This Episode I'll be trying to surpass all of my previous PRs by at least 10% and weigh less than when I started the challenge. I would be pleased to drop under 200 pounds of bodyweight. I've gotten really close to the point where in previous cycles of lifting, I have stopped because it got really, really hard. I want to push through those walls and get stronger while continuing to drop some fat. So I'll be focusing on lifting, proper nutrition, and other exercise that doesn't inhibit my recovery. I would also like to keep up the good work from last time, so despite them not being part of this challenge, I'll report any slip-ups with soda and take measures to actively integrate vegetables into my life. Stats Sex: Female Height: 5'5" Weight: 204-ish; fluctuates Squat: 120 lbs, previous PR 130 lbs Deadlift: 160 lbs, previous PR 165 lbs Bench: 80 lbs, previous PR 85 lbs Overhead Press: 63 lbs, previous PR 65 lbs Goals Complete 10 or more lifting Sessions I can't get stronger if I don't make an effort to get stronger! Details: Starting Strength Allows for up to 2 days rest between each session Grading based on percentage out of 10 Strategy: The best days for me to lift are Monday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday due to fuller schedules other days of the week. So I'll start out doing Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. I've found recently that I occasionally need more than one rest day between sessions in order to have adequate energy and not injure myself, but beyond 2 rest days is normally just me getting lazy, so even if I'm busy I NEED to lift after 2 rest days. Loot: A punching bag for a grade of A A pull-up bar for a grade of B Track food, keeping a caloric deficit and a higher level of protein If I'm going to gain strength and lose weight at the same time, my diet should be tuned to support this. Currently I average 1548 calories a day, which could be a little higher for my height and weight, and 80g protein per day, which I want to increase. Details: Weekly caloric intake average of 1500-1750 Weekly protein average of at least 100g Grading based on average of % differences from goals Strategy: I really like big dinners, so I've been successful in lowering my calories limiting breakfast and lunch to less than half my daily caloric intake, which allows me to have a dinner which I find satisfying. I've been incorporating more protein-dense foods into my breakfasts to help with my protein intake. Yogurt or a green smoothie with protein powder mixed in is usually what I've been going for, and on occasion I'll have some kind of eggs. I'm working on cuttin out more grains from lunch and dinner in order to make room for more protein. This has involved slowly developing an appreciation of salads over sandwiches or lettuce wraps over buns or zucchini noodles over penne. Loot: A new pair of pants for an A. A new t-shirt for a B. Active recovery with walking and yoga To burn more calories and get better recovery, I want to do some exercise everyday that won't detract from my lifts. Details: Do either the morning mile or at least 20 minutes of yoga daily Grading based on percent of days I did at least one of these Strategy: I'll do one of these in the morning before work, while my SO is in the shower. The timing works out really well, since all of them take 20 minutes. Loot: A craigslist treadmill or yoga mat and yoga towel for a grade of A. A new pair of sneakers for a grade of B. Life Goals Finish 4 books I have an overall goal of finishing 52 books this year, and I've been slacking on my reading the last month or so. But I love reading! So it's time to pick it back up. Details: The New Evolution Diet by Arthur De Vany Deadline by Mira Grant The Book Theif by Markus Zusak Bands of Mourning by Brandon Sanderson Grading based on % of books finished Strategy: Deadline is an audiobook, which I've been listening to whenever I go for a walk alone and frequently at work when I have something mind-numbing to do. Finishing this won't be a struggle. I'm less than 100 pages from finishing The New Evolution Diet, and I can finish it off with just a few reading sessions during breaks at work. I actually will probably be done with this before the official start-of-challenge. I'll need to put more effort into finishing the last two, just because they are longer and I'm not far into them. If I can set aside 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes at night, I think I can finish both of them by the end of the challenge. Loot: A new comic book collection book for an A. A new single issue comic book for a C. Break the Reddit/Imgur habit I'm sad to say I'm addicted to Reddit and Imgur, and I don't derive much enjoyment from it. I want to quit. Details: Every time I open a reddit or imgur tab out of habit, I should quit out immediately and record that I went to the website. If I decide not to quit out, I need to record the time I start, when I stop, and the number of pages/posts I look at. This will be pretty hard to record accurately, which I'm hoping will motivate me to avoid it just so that I don't have as much to track. Loot: A movie date if I have stopped visiting both sites by the end of the challenge. Mini-Quests Schedule a consultation for my wisdom teeth Do registration for the cars Walk or bike over to my friend's house Take some progress photos and find previous photos for comparison Finish 30 days of yoga from Yoga With Adriene Finish the 30 day squat challenge Do 50 consecutive squats Go a full day without using the internet Clean out my home office Try one class each of these kinds of yoga: Mindful Resilience, Mat Pilates, Restorative

My main goal is to have a more healthy & productive lifestyle. I have failed challenges in the past, mostly because I am so "entrenched/addicted" to the internet....that I never get anything done. and of course my body is not going to feel like doing anything if I have spent so long being sedentary. 1. Limit time spent on the computer(during the week...weekends are free days) For a long time I have spent way too much time on the computer; computer/internet use has become the center of my life, for too long Keep track of time used online using chrome app. One thing the app changed that I like is you can now see when you last reset the timer. I will post the top 5 sites each night. Will also keep track of/limit tv time(& any online gaming like lotro). It will not mean anything if I simply switch out the internet time with tv/gaming. Daily grade for computer use A. 3 hours or less B. 4 hours C. 5 hours D. 6 hours F. 7 or more hours 2. Exercise. I need to be more active, so walking every day and/or workout A. 1 hour or more B. 30 minutes C. 20 minutes D. 15 minutes F. none 3. Food log; will post food each night 4. Cpap use; wear cpap each night

This will be my challenge for the next challenge...but I do not know what I can add or is it good the way it is?. Maybe this is why I fail challenges a lot, I always want more..I feel like "this is not enough". The internet is a wonderful thing, there are many resources for anything you would want to find but unfortunately it can become a distraction & addiction. It can take your time away from things you should be doing. My goal is to not waste my time on the internet. 1. Keep track of time used online using chrome app. One thing the app changed that I like is you can now see when you last reset the timer. I will post the top sites each night. 2. No computer before 5:00 pm each day, Monday-Friday. 3. Keep track of/limit tv time(& any online gaming like lotro). It will not mean anything if I simply switch out the internet time with tv/gaming.