Captain's Log ~ DM's Progress

[Dark_Mother]

Day 1

 

To start with, an admission of where I currently stand.

I've been mostly a potato for the past week or so having lost my job, and for the good of my present and future, I picked up some motivational books and thus landed here.

Time for some flava' text from Dante's Inferno! (I hope to continue adding flavor text to keep this log interesting for me and any potential readers)

 

 All Hope Abandon, You Who Enter Here.

These words in dim color I beheld

Inscribed on the lintel of an archway.

"Master," I said, "this saying's hard for me."

 

And he — as someone who understands — told me:

"Here you must give up all irresolution;

All cowardice must here be put to death."

 

And thus, the giving up of my irresolution and cowardice, or some progress thereof, is my first goal. I've created a quest list of my own that can track just how many items I complete each day. I'm still adding to the list, and it includes things from chores and personal goals to habits I'd like to wax or wane.

 

1. My first goal for myself is to complete any 10 tasks a day.

2. In addition, I must appear on here once a day even if only to post progress regarding this goal.

 

Wish me luck!

 

 

[Dark_Mother]

Day 1 (cont.)

 

So far I've checked off 21 items, so I think I'm going to calibrate up my daily count to 15 (since 21 may be a fluke).

Super motivated since joining up here!
Also, I think one hardly realizes how much they do in a day until it is tracked.

[Jean]

4 hours ago, Dark_Mother said:

Wish me luck!

 

Luck!

 

Go for it! There's more time in an hour than we usually realise.

[Dark_Mother]

Day 2

 

It is exactly 1:37 PM, and I've finished my 15 tasks for the day with the help of some new habits, and there is still much more which must be done and some more which can be done.

 

Already, my system seems exceedingly messy and hard to navigate as I add content to it. I'd normally stop and overhaul the whole thing, but if I let myself do that every time I find dissatisfaction, I'll never actually do any of the things on the list. I'm going to force myself to use whatever I have and allow myself to change it on the weekend only. My brain is sizzling with with the relatively infinite increase in demands upon myself. I'm no stranger to burnout, and I'd sure like to avoid it this time. Must.. persist... at least one week before changing anything big.

 

Buzz: [lands on the bed after his lucky acrobatic maneuver] Can!

Rex: [the toys applaud and whistle] Whoooa! Oh wow, you flew magnificently!

Bo Peep: I've found my moving buddy!

Buzz: [proudly] Thank... th-thank you all, thank you!

Woody: That wasn't flying! That was... falling with style!

 

I've included a habit for the "responsible" use of distraction. After 30 minutes, walk away from the distraction and do something productive. Yes, like all my other areas, this has a reward. My distraction (drug) of choice is gaming, and I'm allowing myself to cheat in rewards that are significantly more beneficial than had I just played straight through all day (once I hit the level up marker). I just need to get used to the idea of defeating the dreaded velcro seat (as SuperBetter puts it).

 

I feel like compared to others, this challenge is minuscule, but please understand that even only at day 2 it feels like the discipline version of mountain climbing. o__O

 

[Dark_Mother]

Day 3

 

Ahhh crap. I've burnt out. I'm down but I'm not out!

While I may be tapped today, I did spend some time reflecting on what the course correct may look like.

Whatever the case, it's clear that I'd rather be overburdened than not do anything with my day even if it is in the name of resting. Orz. Lesson learned!

 

(Umbrella advised - brainstorm ahead)

 

I may switch over to Habitica, stop rewarding the 30 minute break from a game and rather punish it if I don't instead. I'll create all of my potential habits as just a positive habit then introduce them to the daily section one by one as I get the hang of them and feel like they should be required. Though daily may be a bit harsh, especially for having so very many areas of interest; perhaps they'll each be required once a week, then anything extra is just a way to earn reward points. In that case, I could move them ALL over right away, because once a week should be real easy. It doesn't have the reminders of Todoist, but for anything time sensitive, I can set an alarm the prior evening. Okay, getting back up now. An overhaul seems necessary. Rewards though are an entirely separate matter. My plan was to gain a reward as a specific skill was used enough and leveled up; however... perhaps tags could be used to indicate the particular skill (with the lvl in the tag's name), and a challenge for each could be posed under tasks. Completing a challenge unlocks a reward which must then be purchased with the currency. Mhmm... mhm mhm mhm. This is sounding feasible suddenly.

 

(phew, the storm has cleared)

 

Alright guys. So after an entire day of R&R (reflection and repair, of course  ) I've found the dungeon compass, and I'm ready to get myself a map. Day 3 wasn't what I'd hoped it would be, but when I press continue tomorrow, I'll know more of the enemies' patterns, and I'm gonna slay it!

 

I get knocked down, but I get up again
You're never gonna keep me down

 

[Dark_Mother]

Day 4

 

I've completed everything on my list including fitness, creative, mindful, and worldly productive activities. A+ today - like a boss.  In total, it was fewer than 20, but I got a full range of things. I'm even beginning to wean off of some bad habits.  You'd probably guess them both in two to three tries. But I even got some extra credit with additional tasks that weren't necessarily marked for today just because I had time. It's funny that it took me all day when I probably could have accomplished it all in the course of 3 hours. I'll get there though. Baby steps. Don't want to try to beat Ruby Weapon before I've even mastered a single materia.  

 

Flava text circle back around to Day 2...

 

Woody: Buzz, you're flying!

Buzz Lightyear: This isn't flying, this is falling with style.

 

 

No challenges complete, but I designed them to be... well... challenging, so that's okay.

 

Watch out Day 5; I'm coming for ya!

[Dark_Mother]

Day 5

 

I only accomplished half of my Lvl Up list today. It was a tough day, so I flexed with it. Not much more to say than that. Tomorrow may bring about its own punches, and I'll likely take it easy tomorrow too, but I'll still be leveling up at least a little bit.

[Dark_Mother]

Orz Epic fail, guys. Just epic. I have got to find a way to get back on track, but if I'm being brutally honest, I think my issue is in lacking discipline itself. I admit this painfully and hesitantly BTW, so be gentle.  I'd like to find a way to cultivate discipline and willpower. I understand meditation can help with this.

 

Does anyone have any recommendations on how I can overpower my self-indulgent inner child to make progress towards leveling up?

[Dark_Mother]

Okay, I think I'm back on track.

 

 

It was my first Zombie Run this time, and I summoned the willpower to do it at night while it was raining with headphones that wouldn't stay in my phone. *Boom*
It seems like after one productive day, the next day there is a great resistance to continuing it. So far, I'm 2 or 2 with my latest reboot, and I'm doing things slightly different.

I actually scoured this site and Google for several hours trying to learn about reward systems, but everything failed to be suitable to my circumstance. I concocted something rather great though that I'd like to share now.

 

=========

My share

----------------

So it's no secret I use Habitica to give myself incentives. Unfortunately, there are 101 ways to set the darn thing up. Right now I'm focused on exercise, but I'm introducing chores little by little with the most urgent feeling first. So I've got morning checklists and other daily tasks in there, and getting gold is relatively easy to do. This time, my rewards do not include my vices at all. Rather, I've given myself a threat. "If you die in Habitica, you must go that entire day without entertainment. No video games, no TV, no anything. Just work and productive tasks." That's frightening! So for exercise, I've given myself a list in Evernote so I can quickly repopulate my exercise list with a single copy/paste. This list includes leg work, arm work, core work, and two cardio activities: Pokemon Go and Zombies Run. Once the list empties, I refill it with one of each, but I must exercise each day or I lose a lot of health which gets me closer to death and a full day without distraction. My rewards are things like "30 GP: Add 3 Zombies! Run sessions to exercise list,"' and "50 GP: Add 3 Pokemon Go! walks to the session list." (It's more expensive because it's easier.) So if I don't want to get stuck with situps and burpees and would rather go for a Poke walk instead, then I'd best be paying attention to how productive I am! Research led me to something sort of great for chores too. So like yesterday I emptied the kitchen trash and gave myself points for it. I now have a daily task of "check kitchen trash; take out if needed." This way, I get points for just hovering over the darn thing, and should it need to be changed, well I'm already standing right there, I might as well just tie it up and take it to the curb, else I'd lose points for not fulfilling the latter half of the daily.

 

------------------

End Share

==========

 

Who knows... maybe this system will fizzle out too.

I'm trying to march forward with baby steps instead of "Today's the day I turn my life around," schemes. I'm super proud of my Zombie Run I'll only get faster at it no doubt. Yesterday I did 15 solid minutes of various weight lifting techniques while watching Netflix.  Who says exercise has to be a chore, yeah?  

 

[Dark_Mother]

Phew, I made it. I thought today was going to be a fail-today-pickup-tomorrow kind of day, but right before dinner, I went and killed it. I got everything on my list done including a core workout using a Jillian Michaels video (she has an app too; who knew?), and I'm sitting at 100% complete for the day.  That's 3 for 3 now.

 

 

I see the challenges start tomorrow. I'd love to find a challenging yet realistic goal for that using my setup. I'll have to think of something. But yay, this has been the most successful so far with 3 days in a row. My muscles are sore, but I kind of like it. I'm drinking a lot of water in case of the acid issue. I almost forgot to mention a super important item. I've been having a hard time sleeping which leads to low energy which leads to a difficult time engaging tasks especially physically demanding ones. Since becoming unemployed (which I hopefully have a shot at something on Tuesday even if it's not ideal), I think I'd been vaping too much, and in a burst of resolution, I threw it away last night, so today was not only day 3 of 3 for exercise, but it's day 1 of 1 for quitting nicotine. I know I've got a bumpy road ahead of me, but I think if I can get this licked, I'll be able to propel myself forward at a faster rate. Go me!

 

[Dark_Mother]

Well, I caved in to the nicotine thing. I didn't realize how much I was taking on at once with:

• Battle depression
• Find a job
• Save the house and pets and car
• trade coffee for tea
• exercise

and then adding the cold turkey nicotine thing was just too damn much. I need to be more respectful and compassionate towards myself and my limits while being tough on myself with my reasonable standards. Having another slow start to my day today. If I can get everything done by 4 PM, that'll be a new high score for me.  

Yet another example of being prepared before challenging tougher bosses.

[Dark_Mother]

I did not exercise yesterday.

Phew, got the hardest part out of the way. I was actually up until 11:30 PM trying to will myself to finish my homework. It can be tough.

Related to exercise specifically, my legs were still sore from my Zombie Run, and my remaining two options were actually both leg related. I didn't realize that walking, running, and leg strength training might be a bit much for my legs in one week. My goal was also to exercise a little every day, but I can see how rest days might be beneficial. Perhaps it was silly of me not to include rest days. Maybe something less intensive might even be good as rest day activities like yoga; stretching out the muscles instead of causing them stress might be an ideal way to both recover and still get exercise. I'm not throwing the baby out with the bath water. I'm just going to tweak the system ever so slightly. I'm going to remove leg strength training since I have two leg-focused exercises already. Next, I'm going to find 3 active rest sessions, even if they're all yoga, to work in as restful options.

I decided not to start the challenge this time around since I'm still getting a sustainable system into place and the added stress may be detrimental rather than encouraging.

I did get everything else on my list done yesterday though, so it wasn't a complete failure of a day. I'm calling yesterday a rest day, still knocking off points for not exercising, and I'll get my system tweaked and get back on track with exercise today. Motivation can be rude sometimes.

 

[Dark_Mother]

Ooookay, this reboot has been long overdue. I've been experimenting with some things that might help me to set enjoyable goals that carry my leveling up with it. More on that to follow. I will post tomorrow. (Commitments keep me accountable).

[Dark_Mother]

Hello reset button. I wish I could say long time no see, but I could pretty much get to you without looking at my screen at this point.

 

 

That's right, Habitica. I'm back in the Danger Zone.

 

 

Aptly named by the way, because this is the moment when I create so many rules and habits that I can't possibly succeed, and one day of low motivation kills my character. Then at that point, I figure: "Might as well just stay dead then and play video games all day."

 

 

Even when I know this is what happens and I set out not to do that, I still seem to do exactly that. The struggle... it's real. I do something like say, "Okay, I have to spend coins to play video games," but then I don't. Aha! 

 

 

Is it because I run out of coins? Is it because something is particularly riveting that I just can't pull myself away from? Nah, alas, it's that the life I'm trying to convince myself to return to is like the lost forest in Zelda, and eventually like Chris above, I just sit down and eat my Twinkie, and then RIP. So what can I do differently, I ask myself. I need a backup plan. Yes, that means planning for failure sort of, but more like planning for low motivation and deciding a way to compromise so I don't fall all the way off the wagon.

 

 

Yeah Rick, I know, but if Morty never planned on you getting drunk, there'd be a lot more neutrino bombs going off, yeah?

 

So I guess step one is going to be waking up before the sun. Here we go. Level 1.

 

 

Restriction #1 - Playing an hour of games will cost 1 Gold.
--- Reason: This way, I'll be doing at least as much work as I am sitting on my butt.

 

Habit #1 - Wake up early.

- Incentive: Any game time prior to 8 AM is free.

--- Reason: I just read that in order to introduce a habit and keep it, there has to be a rewarding reason to continue it. Checking emails and such will just make me abandon the habit, but getting up early for me time, well that should make things easier.

- Incentive: Any good habits executed prior to 8 AM (rather than entertainment) will earn bonus points.

--- Reason: The whole point of getting up early is to give myself more time in the day and break the habit of sleeping in a ton. So by doubling my points, certainly I'm doubling my gaming potential; however, by getting up early, I'm also extending the day thereby diluting how long one hour of gaming is compared to the full day ahead of me. Also, good habits like kickboxing exercises first thing in the morning will get my heart pumping and make me more inclined to get more done even if I don't have to for the games.

 

Backup Plan #1 - You snooze, you loose.

For every 10 minutes I mash that snooze button, I will lose health. Of course that means if I sleep in for 3 hours, I'll be losing health 18 times. That might mean I'm dead, but I'll lose experience which will be evidently important when I get to the accountability step.  

 

Backup Plan #2 - Blood Magic

So if I don't have enough to play a game, it will be a hard habit in Habitica (negative, of course) to play half an hour of games without paying. Again, dead, see accountability.

 

Accountability (Finally) - Here, of course

I pledge to reach lvl 10 in Habitica before February. That way, I will have to earn extra gold to buy equipment to lvl faster which takes away from my game time. 20 days for 10 levels shouldn't be too hard.

- Incentive: If I do, I get not one, but two, totally free days to do as I please without spending the cash for it.

--- Reason: This way, I get a rest period.

- Incentive: If I complete any work or good habits on those free days, I get bonus points.

--- Reason: I don't want to feel compelled to be a potato on those rest days, and I want to keep the momentum up if I so choose while also enjoying rewards.

 

~Fin~

 

That's probably enough planning especially around a single habit. As inspired by the app Fabulous Me (it actually is fairly fabulous), I'll complete this habit 3 days before adding more obligation to my list. So waking up early will be punishable, and while I might add other habits, they will be completely extra. I'll be off to a rocky start tomorrow with having taken a 2 hour nap earlier today (sleep habits have been fubar lately), but I'll be ready. I'll have mechanisms set up like easy coffee or easy breakfast ready to go.

 

Okay, I'm ready for some action. Watch out Level 10! I'm coming for ya!

 

[Dark_Mother]

Day 1 of waking up early.

 

 

So not great.  I slept in the 3 hours I predicted, and alas, my character is quite injured.

 

On the other hand, I am 1/3 of the way to lvl 2 already with all that I did accomplish so far. If needed, I could heal myself with a potion, but I'd rather keep pushing towards better gear, so maybe tomorrow will be better? (say that with more confidence). Tomorrow will be better!! I just had one heck of a time sleeping last night, so I needed the extra hours. I had a stressful endeavor planned for today, but I got credit for the time I put into that as well as for completing today's step. 

 

I also have a weekend with increased responsibility ahead of me, but that's okay, because with great responsibility comes great power.  Yes, I know it's backwards, but it's true! Especially in regard to my reward system.

 

Tomorrow I'm gonna get it! This rocket is being rebuilt! I will wake up at 5 AM!

 

 

Maybe my Pandora alarm will actually work this time and I'll be awakened by the sound of glitch hop blaring from the opposite end of my room. haha

[Dark_Mother]

 

So I have my kid every other week, it's a split custody agreement, and ho-lee-crap I did not realize how many tasks I did for said kiddo in one day. Heck, this was just one evening that pushed me from lvl 1.33 to past lvl 2. I'm exhausted, but I'm leveling like a boss, and me time in the morning is calling to me reeeeeeal loud. I think I got this.

 

BTW - if I hit lvl 10 before February, I intend to just take my reward and then sink my grappling hook into a new ledge to climb towards.

 

 

^

This level of exhaustion right here. lol

[Dark_Mother]

Day 2 of waking up early. Slaaaaaaayed it!

 

 

Woke up at 4 and enjoyed a warm puppy in a warm bed for 20 minutes, 'cause it's me time darn it, so why not? I'm yawning like a Snorlax over here, but I'm up, and it feels victorious.

 

[Dark_Mother]

Day 3 of trying to wake up early, succeeded for the 2nd time in a row. Tomorrow I'll be adding a next habit for first thing in the morning. I decided not to be an overachiever, and I got up right at 5. I'm almost lvl 3, so I'm thinking I'll get to finish early. Woot!

 

Yesterday being the first successful early day, I thought I was gonna collapse around noon, but some salty snacks brought me back to life. Not ideal, but hey, one thing at a time.

 

Time now for some coffee!

[Dark_Mother]

 

Day 4 of this reboot. Today I slept in a little waking at 6:40 rather than 5:00, so it's not great, but it's better than sleeping in until 8!

 

 

I'm initiating an easy version of morning habits. When I wake, I am to do any amount of core exercises in bed (not one, obviously - I do it until I can't), then I am to get up and drink any amount of water immediately, start a pot of coffee, and get myself in the shower (instead of waiting until 3 PM). 

--- My intention with these are to wake myself up properly with movement, hydration, the incentive of caffeine, and the refreshing splash of water and cleanliness (fun fact - the cleanliness habits are called Godliness in my dailies)  Also, as with the military concept of making your bed, I'm hoping successful productivity right away will inspire me for the day.

 

 

In the meantime, I have got to hack the source code on my sleeping, because if I'm not well rested, I'm going to fail (especially with a challenge like this).

 

 

Golly, let's try the first thing that pops into mind. No caffeine after 12 PM. We'll see if that has any effect and go from there.

 

[Dark_Mother]

So today has been particularly challenging. So much so that it required a midday nap, and I'm heading to bed with a headache. After the soul crushing challenges, coming from several directions at once, I kinda feel like saying F(orget) it!

 

 

Spoon deficit, lack of passion for these habits, and a strong urge to just coast, but it's exactly that behavior which brought me to want to build good habits.

 

 

I post this because I'm losing now from the inside, and I don't want to, so I'm hoping declaring my struggle and danger will harden my resolve.

 

 

Hopefully I'll be on tomorrow with habit accomplishments to share. I must say this morning went smoother than any other morning has so far, and it's all because I got up early, had some time to relax, and got everything moving early. That was a real eye opener.

 

[Dark_Mother]

Hit snooze twice today, but still got up at 5:20.

As for the morning routine, I get 3 out of 4 items executed right away.

I give myself a B. (Yawn)

I seemed to sleep okay. Guess I'll stay on track with no caffeine after noon. We'll see what happens.

[Dark_Mother]

Woke up at 6, not 5. Not bad. Still an hour earlier than I absolutely had to for my day to be successful.
Got all 4 of my morning routine things knocked out, so that's pretty great. I really didn't want to, but I still did it.

Habitica is getting a little cumbersome, and the more I add to it, the easier it gets to lvl up which is actually a complaint I have. I'm thinking about subletting routines to other gamified apps and earning points based on their progress. Only thinking about it mind you, as it doesn't seem like that would necessarily simplify things.

[Dark_Mother]

Alright, this was a TLDR post, but the short version is, I fell all the way off the wagon, and I'm rebooting.

 

Back to challenge #1. Sleep and waking. I got this app called Good Morning that can apparently track the quality of my sleep even without a fitbit. Amazing, if it works as alleged. I was able to see that though I scheduled for myself 8 hours, I only actually got 6 hours with poor sleep quality. No wonder I've not only been sleeping in before the challenge but struggling to stay awake once it began. I'll have to tweak my sleeping conditions next.

 

Then for an alarm, I tried a few different neat alarms. One makes you play a game to shut it off, but the game was too easy (despite setting it to Hard difficulty) and I was able to return to sleep afterwards. Then I tried this one that seemed boring in comparison called Shake It Alarm with cute animals. It actually did wake me up. There's also a great idea for chat so you can communicate with others who are trying to wake up, but there's a serious spam problem that makes it excessively frustrating. I think if I had a game that I was only allowed to play while waking up, I could see myself being interested enough to stay awake.

 

As for the morning routine, I'm thinking about using Kingelf Habit to plop my items into there. Hey! That could be the wake up game! Lol. Deconstructing those though, I realize that was actually 4 habits all at once. I'll be reducing that down to drink water straight away, and the rest of the habits can come throughout the day whenever they come. I'll be seeking apps that make every single habit or task more enjoyable though. Habitica was just getting a little out of control for me.

[Jean]

We seem to have comparable struggles and focuses, inheritig from bad habits, while building good habits tkes quite some time. I'm interested to see how your approach to waking up early goes. I'm mainly trying to tackle it the other way around and go to bed early: I tend to wake up on my own and this allows it to be early enough... when I do it. The temptation to stay awake late in the night is always very strong.

 

I like the way you're going at it slowly. Keep at it and you'll go far. I also love the gaming references and pics. Hacks and gamification are where success and the fun is, hope that'll work out for you.

[Dark_Mother]

5 hours ago, Jean said:

We seem to have comparable struggles and focuses, inheritig from bad habits, while building good habits tkes quite some time. I'm interested to see how your approach to waking up early goes. I'm mainly trying to tackle it the other way around and go to bed early: I tend to wake up on my own and this allows it to be early enough... when I do it. The temptation to stay awake late in the night is always very strong.

 

I like the way you're going at it slowly. Keep at it and you'll go far. I also love the gaming references and pics. Hacks and gamification are where success and the fun is, hope that'll work out for you.

 

Thank you for your encouragement. I did approach it quite the opposite way. I found that getting up early forces me to go to sleep early lest I collapse of exhaustion.

 

I successfully woke up at 5 this morning. I almost went back to sleep, but the shake alarm takes so much shaking to deactivate that I was half awake already.

 

  

 

I checked the Good Morning app to see if my tweak of turning on a fan to drown out noise had produced better results, and it did! Also as you can see from the chart, my body expects to wake up around 5 now. I'm whipping it into shape.  Did I mention how handy it is that it tracks sleep quality (allegedly) without needing a fitbit?

 

 

Contemplating whether or not I wanted to care today, I thought, "Well... let's at least give the plan a shot," (yep, I think to myself in terms of 'we' and 'you' - it seems to make my internal dialogue more effective) and I loaded up Devil Downloader on my phone (I love Shin Megami Tensai games) and found myself awake before I could argue with it. I started fresh, and I am only allowed to enjoy this game when waking up on time.

 

 

So I've been awake for a couple of hours now enjoying D3 S16

With the help of some friendly reminders from Drink Water Aquarium, I'm keeping hydrated so far.

 

 

The other components are still works in progress, but these things seem to be working for me right now anyway. I did so, so much yesterday that I was extra exhausted. That might have made all the difference in my sleep quality itself. I'll have to experiment and see. Between Fitness RPG, Fitness Pets, and Pokemon Go, I exceeded my step goal in an enjoyable way. 

Oh yeah! I did something awesome with the kiddo to get the living room cleaned using gamification!! We have Monopoly gamer, right? So I pulled out the board and a character for each of us and grabbed my 7-deadly-sins-themed DnD dice. We'd roll a 6-sided, and whatever number appeared, we had to pick up that many things from the living room, but we also got to move that many spaces. Positive squares let us roll a smaller die (4-sided) for an easier turn while negative had the opposite effect (10-sided). If one of us passed go, we got to roll all 3 dice and add the numbers as minutes for a break to take. On her break, we did whatever she wanted, and we built a Lego Pokemon. On my break, we'd veg a bit. It was so successful that she was asking to play it when I'd already given up internally. Orz But at least we have a system that not only gets the house clean in an enjoyable way with frequent breaks, but it also allows us to share quality time without compromising how we'd like to do it.