Jarric

Thanks guys! It's getting there slowly! Yeah man, that'd be fun. Will let you know if something comes up. Out of interest, when did you move? Because those prices sound scary cheap, but I'm guessing that that's because it was a few years ago? I love hearing about this stuff too - it's amazing how much prices vary. Then again, I found out yesterday that my friend's sister owned a house on the same road as me, exactly the same floorplan, and she just sold it for £285k. We bought ours for £253k. Thanks! I know what you mean, just voicing frustrations does help to let them go a bit. You are wise, brother. Every time I think of the list all at once I start to panic, when all I really need to do is one thing at a time. Thank you Wolfman.

Nah, this challenge is about life. Well done on dealing calmly with your neighbours, that's a difficult situation at the best of times.

I like the idea of your go with the flow challenge - sometimes that's just what you need. I am also deeply envious of Emma's space wall - I want one!

Oh, that's exciting that your weight set has arrived, and so nice that you get to share it with your son.

It bothers me that these have different loop lengths

Monday - week 1 day 1 Yesterday was a good day. In the morning I got up and worked out - Strength Protocol day 16: This wasn't too hard in all honesty, though I've been feeling it a bit in my lower back since. Work was busy and quite heavy on meetings. I was determined to get a couple of urgent things off my plate, so I ended up working until about 7pm. At that point I was knackered, but thankfully WW had very kindly cooked roast pork so I could just veg on the sofa and eat that while watching Critical Role. I did however do a little foam rolling in front of the TV, so I've made a start on that goal. Ended up going to be about half 10. Protein was had in the morning, and teeth were done morning and night. * * * Tuesday so far This morning I got up and got out for my run. It was much warmer than it has been (about 8*C/46*F), and the sun is rising earlier and earlier which is nice. Still glad I had the head torch for my first loop, but I didn't need it by the second lap. In the end I got 4.15 miles (~6.64km), with 8 x 0.25 mile (400m) tempo intervals spread throughout. Really felt like a strong run overall. When I got home I did Strength Protocol day 17: This was a lot tougher than yesterday! I can already feel it in my upper back and triceps - it was a good, quick workout. Work today has been ok. I'm significantly less stressed now that I got those big projects out of the way yesterday. People also seem to be taking my moaning about process inefficiencies to heart, so maybe (hopefully) that will give me some longer term improvements. Today is also pancake day, and Pathfinder day. My pancake batter is resting downstairs, so I'm about to go and make some pancakes and get ready for tonight's game The todo list so far: Replace locks front and back - some done, more at the weekend Fit cat flap Get wall ties checked - inspected, waiting on quote Get roof leak fixed Contact damp proofing people the see if any guarantees in place - e-mailed, apparently they didn't do the work? Contact structural engineer to see if structural works were done - e-mailed, await response Paint living room Paint bedroom Paint hall and stairs Carpet bedroom - WW waiting on call back Clean remaining carpets Sort wardrobes (doors and floor storage) Deep clean kitchen Get gas safety checked - Booked for 2nd March Get electrics safety checked - WW looking into Fit new lights in living room Replace lightbulbs throughout Get internet installed Run ethernet cable to top room Fit shelves in living room Sort workout gear storage Buy downstairs sofa Buy upstairs sofa bed Put balustrade in top room Gut outhouse and decide on re-fit plan Fit fire alarms - alarms ordered, arriving Thursday Get woodworm looked at - got quote, sorting inspection date

Yeah, absolutely. We do have a leak in the roof, and a wall that will fall down eventually if we do nothing about it, but we've budgeted for those things! We're not using a moving company at all, but then again we've got a couple of months to move stuff over so it's not a massive issue. Yeah, I'd expect Edinburgh to be more expensive. Sounds like there's some good options in Fife though.

Wow, I thought things your way would be about half the price, maybe a little less! I should say what we got was a steal as well; there is another house a couple of doors down, in better condition but the same floorplan, for £290k At least you can actually get the bonus cash out of the help to buy ISA anyway! Oh yeah, there's always something to do. To be fair most on my list is cosmetic, so I'm not too worried. Good luck with your new place! How did the move go? Hi! And thank you, that always helps!

Sorry you had a weird day; our heating went out a couple of months ago and it's so stressful knowing you can't turn it on if you wanted to. Hope you can get it fixed soon.

Oo, that's exciting! What's the house market like where you are? I know houses are massively cheaper (here we're paying £253k for a 2-up 2-down with a room in the roof), but I don't know how house prices correlate to wages? Yeah, I'd never thought of it before, but if we assume that challenge wraps are really important I think it makes to have them in the new challenge to refer to. Thanks! And no worries; if you can catch it before it gets too much then so much the better. Thanks, good to have you! I've never done a money challenge before (not money as a reward anyway), so this'll be interesting. Thanks man! Always glad to have you in my corner.

I can see you making the best of it - you're much craftier than I am. Hopefully I'll get to hear about you doing up a house sometime

Thanks for the info. I'm probably not going to go down that route at this stage, mainly because I feel that a lot of the problem is external to me. By sorting out my workload at work, as well as actually taking some holiday, I'm hoping to solve the problem. Ultimately I have a stressful job, and there's nothing wrong with that per se, but I've been too stressed for too long and it's now starting effect me in a burnout way. Today I cleared a couple of very big jobs, which I'm hoping will let me wind down a bit before my week off. Also, if I'm honest, I don't want to be the asterisk. Yeah, I thought you'd appreciate a project like this. I grew up in what was basically a building site, and that's not an experience I'm eager to repeat, but I'm hoping here we'll be able to get most of the big work done before we move in. And thanks So the music thing is a secret project, but it's also probably not something I'm going to share on here when it's done. I might send you a link depending on how it turns out, but just for privacy reasons it's probably not for the forums. And yeah, I agree, this is a good place to get stuff done but also a very good place to rest.

Zero week recap What happened last week? Well I'm not sure, but I remember some stuff: On Tuesday I went to my new house - officially to pick up a microphone from Hopalong, but also so I could show him round the new place. Not really allowed in our current lockdown, but I would have had to see him anyway to get the mic so that's how I rationalise it. It was amazing to see him after a month and a half apart; it's been so weird to barely see him in the last year. I think it was Wednesday I've checked, and it was Tuesday afternoon I had a bit of a breakdown. I didn't even realised how stressed I'd been getting about work, until WW came home in the middle of the day with some boxes and I snapped at her about it. After she left I was fucking livid about cardboard boxes taking up space in the house. Ripping things up and slamming them about and just generally not in control. After I'd calmed down I was able to acknowledge that that wasn't an entirely rational reaction to a rather minor problem, and that I probably wasn't ok. In the evening, after I got back from seeing Hopalong, I profusely and repeatedly apologised to WW about how I'd acted earlier. She was fine about it, but I felt very guilty. On Wednesday morning I saw a link that @Tanktimus the Encourager shared with me about burnout, and it resonated with me in a worryingly accurate way (this one, for anyone interested: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/pressure-proof/201503/9-warning-signs-burnout). I've been thinking on that a lot since, and trying to work out what steps I can take to improve it, but even just being aware of the problem helps. The first thing I did, after a few minutes of getting over myself enough to do it, was to share it with WW to try and give her some context on how I was feeling. The other thing I've done it book the first week of March off work - I'll be painting the house but it'll still be a very welcome break from work stress. On Friday WW and I recorded some music for a thing we promised to do - I recorded a bass line and we both recorded vocal parts, and videoed ourselves recording as well. It was really fun, though I was knackered from a ridiculous work week when we started and pretty checked out by the time we'd finished. It was also really humbling - I don't know if I've got worse at bass having not played for a few years or whether it's just that hearing a bassline on its own highlights every tiny mistake, but man it sounded ropey! Hopefully it'll sound better in the mix. When we finished recording I had a few beers, and was quite drunk by the time I uploaded all 2 GB of audio and video to the guy who bringing it together. On Saturday I did my long run in the morning (only 10 miles as it's a deload week). In the afternoon I went over to the house with my dad and helped him start fitting the new locks. I say I helped, it's not really a two man job, so what I mostly did was watch and make tea. Dad had to leave early to get his vaccine; very grateful that he's had that. Yesterday (Sunday) was valentines day. WW's a florist, so I went to work with her and spent the day in a van delivering flowers to people. It was a really nice change to be able to get out and about, and deliver things that people were generally happy to receive. If only they'd pay me 3 times what that job is worth I'd quite like to do it permanently! Other things that happened: I bought a new phone! A Nokia 8.3; it's very shiny and a significant upgrade on what I had before. Not the best time to be buying stuff, but my old phone is getting more and more temperamental with not charging, and I can't cope with the thought of even a couple of days without a phone when I can't physically go and see people. I've stuck with the running, but between it being a deload week and having Sunday off to go delivery driving I only hit about 18 miles. So it might be a light month for the running goal. I've also stuck with Strength Protocol, though I only got 3 sessions in last week. That's not the end of the world, it just means I take longer to get through it, and quite frankly I don't have the energy to stress about missing stuff. Played online poker with Hopalong and The Captain Saturday night, it was really nice to see them and have a virtual drink with them

Yeah, I think I've missed some stuff now I look back at it. And of course those jobs will obviously lead to more jobs. Ah well, it'll be rewarding when it's done. Thanks! Me too! Thank you! Though probably don't follow my example, it's very haphazard! I'll have to make sure to get those photos then!

Hey Terra! I've not heard of noom before - will be interested to see how you get on with it.

Good call on speaking to the doctor before pushing on with your run - definitely the right choice in the long run. Long run pun not intended. Out of interest what part of your back is it that hurts?

Oh thank you! Yeah, it's taken a while to get there, but I've definitely come a long way on pulling strength over the last 4-5 years. I 100% support the idea of you doing more running. Obviously build up slowly and pull back if it starts to hurt, but it would be so cool if you could run again!

Really? That's seriously impressive. I'd assumed it was measuring output per man hour, rather than total output. That's a really good arrangement. The only danger being that your boss is likely to keeping increasing your target until you're there until half 5 (I'm assuming that didn't happen to TH?). I used to work with a guy who'd give himself the day off if he closed on a big account. Not that he had any agreement with anyone that he was allowed to do so, but he was a complete knob and given that he was bringing in accounts that paid 10x his annual salary no-one argued.

Following along, of course, man. Looking forward to seeing you smash this challenge like you did the last one, and intrigued to hear more about this RPG.

I suppose in order to get traction with a lot of companies, the idea needs to demonstrate at least a 25% productivity increase (so that more than 5 days work are done in 4 days). That's from a point of view of pure work output. But then companies that want to attract better talent by offering certain benefits (in the way that trendy tech companies are very keen to do), it might be acceptable to only have a 20% productivity increase, or even lower. That's if they feel they are getting both similar output and better people.

I love this set up, can't wait to see those 'achievement unlocked' tags starting to appear. And your bujo looks so awesome too! I can assure you, this is not the worst thing ever. It's not ideal, but there's definitely much worse ways to cope with things. And a new challenge starts tomorrow (or today if you're turning to the dark side and starting on a Sunday ? ), so you've had a more relaxed zero week and now you can get back on it.

Hey NTB, good to see you! If you're worried about lack of exercise triggers, is it worth taking a few minutes on day per week (maybe a Sunday) to set phone reminders for all of your walks. Hopefully you'll know your schedule for the week by that point, so you can make sure walks are in places that fit. Granted you might still need a weekly trigger to remind you to set the alarms, but that might be easier as it's at the same time each week?

This sounds intriguing, I'll be playing along.

Thank you! I will upload some pictures at some point. I have a new phone now which might take less shit photos, so that's a start. Photo quality will also improve once we get some better lighting! I'm glad to play fun vs responsibility with you too! Thank you again for the idea, it's the first time I've seen a challenge reward system that I think will actually work for me. Usually for challenge rewards seem so pointless, because it's all my money anyway, but this makes sense.

Homemaking Ok, to start with, I always feel a bit bad for challenge wrap-ups; they're really important but they turn up right as everyone it leaving a challenge. So here was mine from last challenge: With that said, the goals won't be changing that much time time round. What is changing is that I'm stealing an idea from @deftona to incentivise the goals. Every week I will have £50 available. Based on the percentage completion of goals that week, I'll divert that money to either my new computer fund (for successful completion), or to overpaying my mortgage (for missing goals) This way my money is always going to my benefit, but one option is a lot more fun than the other. Run 116 miles - 10XP Same as last challenge here - my goal is to run 1,202 miles in 2021, which equates to just under 116 miles in a 5 week period. As long as I hit all of my planned runs this should be fine. Foam rolling - 10XP (+5XP bonus) Foam roll 3 times per week, for a total of 15 times this challenge. I need to be doing this, because my legs hurt if I don't! It didn't go well last challenge, so lets thrash out the plan a little more. I should generally be able to do this Monday, Wednesday, and Friday evenings, and on weekend evenings. Tuesdays and Thursdays will only happen if I don't have a D&D game. To try and push this, for any week where I get 5 sessions in I get a bonus 1XP. The hope is by aiming for 5 it'll be easier to hit the baseline 3. Only the basic 3 are part of the money side of this challenge though. Teeth - 10XP Brush my teeth twice daily, including interdental cleaning in the evening. Half marks available for any day where I miss the morning, to give me a reason to still do the evening. This is one of those baseline self-care things that is really indicative of my mental state. Whether hitting this goal actually has a positive impact on my mind set I don't know, but at least if I do it my teeth might not fall out! Protein - 5XP Have my protein shakes every day. I'm currently in the middle of a Darebee hypertrophy programme called Strength Protocol, which will take me through until at least week 3. After that I'll be going back to my previous programming, which has more of a strength focus rather than a size focus, but I'll still need to make sure my protein levels are good. Todo List - 10XP I've just bought a house, and I'm hoping to move into it around the start of next challenge. Between now and then there's a lot of stuff that needs doing, so I want to scratch off as much of this todo list as possible. As this isn't a weekly goal it won't count towards the money side of this challenge. Here's the list: Replace locks front and back Fit cat flap Get wall ties checked Get roof leak fixed Contact damp proofing people the see if any guarantees in place Contact structural engineer to see if structural works were done Paint living room Paint bedroom Paint hall and stairs Carpet bedroom Clean remaining carpets Sort wardrobes (doors and floor storage) Deep clean kitchen Get gas safety checked Get electrics safety checked Fit new lights in living room Replace lightbulbs throughout Get internet installed Run ethernet cable to top room Fit shelves in living room Sort workout gear storage Buy downstairs sofa Buy upstairs sofa bed Put balustrade in top room Gut outhouse and decide on re-fit plan I think that's everything? If I do extra stuff I'll ad it to the list already crossed off, to give me a sense on achievement!