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Things I did to reboot my life

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Re: Things I did to reboot my life

#41

Post by eevilspock »

akg_67 wrote: post #36
sakopov wrote: post #34

Having gone through a "reboot" myself, I've run into quite a few people in the tech industry seeking some kind of change in life. I don't see the same trend with friends and acquaintances working in other industries. I think this is very telling. Hell, I did a Crater Lake circumnavigation trip early this year with a group of 7. Coincidentally, all-in-all we had 4 software engineers and 1 mechanical engineer in the gr…

IMO, the problem still remains even after reboot or reset. You are still hamster on a wheel. You might decide that you are drifting off course and course correct through reboot/reset sooner and later you will drift again, course correct again, and keep repeating the cycle. You can't keep doing the same things and expect results to be different. You need to look inward and see what is causing the drift. Last night, I…

"> You need to look inward and see what is causing the drift."

I'm rather dismayed that the post, every single comment on this thread (as of my writing this, et least) as well as what appears to be the gist of Guy Spier's book is about "me, me and me".

I'm all for finding oneself and personal improvement. Please, please do take better care of yourself, both mentally and physically. But if that does not lead you to realizing the best path to improving your lot is to improve the lot of others, then that makes me and the whole world quite sad.

Re: Things I did to reboot my life

#42

Post by prawn »

DanBC wrote: post #12

This is a list of mostly nice advice. Some people aren't going to be able to maintain lots of change all at once. And inability to maintain it all creates feelings of hopelessness or despair or similar. It's important to remember that you don't have to change everything now. Just do one thing this month, and stick at it. When you've got that one thing working and maintainable you can change something else. There are…

We built an app around this exact line of thinking about amounts of change, and sticking at things. Its core is:

  - don't try to change too much at once
  - if failing, adjust rather than abandon
http://streaksapp.com/

We intentionally limit the number of daily tasks to six. And if you're continually nailing or failing a task, the app suggests you tweak your target.

I've managed to go from staying up late (working on projects when I'm fading) to knocking off tasks from 5-7am before the family wakes up (when I'm fresh and motivated). I leave less-essential tasks like watching movies for late at night when I'm getting distracted or tired.

When we started beta testing, I kept failing to find 30 minutes/day to read a book. I changed to 10 minutes which felt paltry, but it was something I managed to stick with and started making progress on my pile of unfinished books.

Re: Things I did to reboot my life

#43

Post by imrehg »

epalmer wrote: post #15
rayalez wrote: post #7

Yeah, it's harder than it sounds. I've made a simple list like that years ago, and I'm still struggling to stay on top of all items. Sometimes I succeed and I'm happy, but I keep failing regularly, it's a bummer. Here's my list: - Eat properly(no junk food, no coffee, no nootropics) - Information diet(only "healthy" information during the day, 20:00-22:00 I can do whatever I want. Basically it means no hn/reddit/yout…

I gave up coffee and sodas and feel so much better. My energy during the day is more level and I don't get headaches much anymore. I do drink green tea mostly and maybe 2 cups of black tea a week. I have had 3 cups of coffee in 4 months when I just needed to drive to the airport at 3 am and similar. My concentration is better but I still like a good nap mid day. At 62 years old, a nap is a great thing. I recommend gi…

I'm doing my 2nd round this year of "30 days without coffee & tea" now (7 days into it). I primarily do it because I feel my more frequent heartburns were because of that, and because after a while coffee gives me the jitters and makes me very impatient, instead of energize me.

Looking at all the comments, and thinking about the effects I feel during this 7 days (and the experience of the previous 30 days), I will definitely want to keep that coffee low, no matter how much I like cafes, the drinking, the flavour...

By the way, for me it took about 3 weeks after quitting coffee cold turkey to stop thinking like "I'm a grown-up goddamnit, I can have a coffee whenever I want!". The 4th week then was really-really good.

Tea is works a lot better, and I'm lucky here in Taiwan for the awesome teas available. But have to be careful about that, a strong oolong (that I like a lot) just as a hammer-hit to the head as a cup of coffee sometimes....

Re: Things I did to reboot my life

#44

Post by devonkim »

I'm going to go with the opposite in many respects to change consumption patterns - movies can be the same kind of mental junk food as tabloid magazines. But keeping yourself inspired and positive however you may do it is the goal that matters for creative professionals and avoiding burnout. But it's also important to keep trying something new and getting out of your comfort zone sometimes, and this doesn't mean trying some fancy new restaurant especially when you already eat out a lot.

Most of the mentally exhausting problems I have is most of the problems are outside my control and are how I start my day. I'm woken up either randomly by my cats or by my phone due to a production outage I have little power over. Each of these attempts to "reset" are quickly squashed due to the choices others made (I never wanted pets but I inherited them in a way, prod goes out due to services I have no control over and monitoring other people's services is both infeasible and encourages others to sit back while I do what should have been their basic duties).

So for some people, I reckon simply quitting work and purposefully not looking to work until you're ready and itching to do so again is worth trying. Much easier said than done for those not earning handsome salaries, but there are degrees to a full-blown resignation possible for most jobs I believe.

Re: Things I did to reboot my life

#45

Post by rbinv »

nefitty wrote: post #22
Kiro wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What Nootropics are you using?

Right now my daily stack is a caffeine & creatine preworkout supplement (hot coffee took way too long to consume, giving me time to get lost in the internet abyss), theacrine (chemical structurally similar to caffeine), adrafinil (modafinil prodrug), noopept + choline, lion's mane mushroom extract, centrophenoxine and occasionally forskolin extract. I built this stack to sharpen focus and motivation, which are my big…

You consume all of those EVERY DAY? Jesus. That's a lot.

Re: Things I did to reboot my life

#46

Post by Killswitch »

wgx wrote: post #6
Killswitch wrote: post #2

I've been working on rebooting my life, it's hard, especially trying to get out of a long rut. Eating better, exercising, all of that is fucking tough. I've had a gym membership for behind my apartment for 2 months now. Tomorrow will be my first day going. I got the membership to remind myself that I have to do it. It's working.

Get a personal trainer at the gym, pay up front and book the sessions in. Trust me, it'll work.

Yeah paying for a gym membership is cheaper on the pocketbook, I've got more important things to pay for than a personal trainer. Like supporting my two daughters and fiancee. Sorry.

Re: Things I did to reboot my life

#47

Post by jrk_ »

The real hard part comes after the initial novelty and the quick progress fade away: Staying motivated to do regular workouts without getting faster or lifting more weights every week.

This also applies to healthy eating habits. Once you've reached your target weight and the novelty wears off, it's much harder to eat clean. Personally, I like pizza once per week, usually on Friday, as celebration and reward that it's finally weekend.

For exercise it boils down to discipline. At least for me. Plus, I feel really, really bad and get in a terrible mood if I cannot physically exert myself every day.

Re: Things I did to reboot my life

#49

Post by bikeshack »

The problem with itemizing specific things to avoid or cut down, is they are too specific and end up becoming habits. Instead it is more suitable to form an over-arching doctrine. So instead of "Drink less beer", it should become "Avoid mood changing substances".

The reason for a more general approach is because the moment things are calcified like this, they are very difficult to uproot and change. Think of this as a recipe where the ingredients can be swapped out. The recipe doesn't change, but the ingredients do, and not so drastically that the recipe is destroyed.

Re: Things I did to reboot my life

#50

Post by sotojuan »

novaleaf wrote: post #48

I'm personally quite surprised that "watch more movies" is a priority on someone's life-changing plan!

It's weird, but I get it. I don't know if this is what the author meant, but I started watching more films to get exposed to more culture and explore films of different countries and genres. To me a good film is just as enriching as a good book.

Like I said, I am not sure if the author meant this, but making the choice of watching better films has paid off for me.

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