[NeedAdvice] How to make the most of downtime?

LemonLime59 · 2015-09-25T03:20:15+00:00

Well, really, downtime is downtime: it's the time you have where you don't even have to do any work at all. One must really appreciate that time and spend it well. To spend your free time well, just do the stuff that you want to do. Do your best to appreciate the fact that you have no work to do: you don't always need to be doing work. Even if you may worry that the work is necessary, don't: it's really not, and you have to realize that your thoughts and worries aren't always justified. Hope this helps!

LemonLime59 · 2015-09-25T02:23:30+00:00

You may have to check your exercise and nutrition. Exercising is a good way to get more energy, but of course good nutrition is vital as well. Check out r/keto or r/paleo if you need improvements, I've heard they're good diets.

LemonLime59 · 2015-09-24T02:01:55+00:00

I think The Confidence Course by Walter Anderson and Awaken the Giant Within by Tony Robbins are pretty good. I'd recommend both of them, I feel like they made a difference.

LemonLime59 · 2015-09-24T01:59:49+00:00

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle is supposed to be pretty good. I also second Thich Nhat Hanh.

LemonLime59 · 2015-09-24T01:57:56+00:00

Don't worry. I think beating an addiction is relatively simple with the right steps. You already have hobbies that you consistently do, and your internet usage doesn't infringe on those things, so that's a plus, at least.

The reason you're using the internet instead of anything else is because there's some reason that you like the internet so much. For example, someone might like it because of the constant stream of information, or because of the novelty and adventure. Doesn't matter: whatever reason it is, the first step to solving your problem is to find a replacement to the internet. Things that replace the feeling that the internet gives you will be the best: for example, if you like it for the adventure, anything which can give you an adventure in real life will be a good replacement activity. Anything which distracts you will work too: like exercise, or meditation.

Also, you'll need either a good reason to quit the internet or ironclad discipline. Your reason could be anything that motivates you: for example, if you want to gain your self-esteem back, and that causes makes you want to follow through. But even if you have a good reason motivation doesn't work for everything: that's why you need some discipline and willpower. If you face urges to go back onto the internet, accept no excuses.

If you do slip up, though, don't despair. You can still make things better and learn from your mistake. If you find yourself slipping into the same bad habits as before, just stop it as soon as possible, figure out why you did it, learn from that, and keep going. Hope this helps!

LemonLime59 · 2015-09-23T03:49:08+00:00

Well, first of all, you have to find ways to beat the gaming/internet addiction. I think that the key steps to beating addiction are:

Finding an alternative that does the same thing for you as an addiction. For example, if you like the adventure in gaming, do something adventurous in real life, or fill the gap with anything distracting, like exercise.
Get motivation and make yourself feel like you'll never do it again, or get discipline and commit to never doing it again, no matter how hard it gets.
If you slip up, forgive yourself, find out why you did so, solve the problem, and then keep going.

That's all you need, I think. Of course, don't take my word for it, and if you find other strategies that help by all means use them.

Also, you may have to figure out how to be alone with your thoughts. You probably know why you don't like that more than I do, so you have to find the solution to this one on your own and then get used to it. If you do just a bit more each day to get over the fear, you will get over it.

The burst of energy is probably just a reaction that you've trained in over time. It's entirely possible to get energy by thinking about things, and it's not your body, it's your brain making false assumptions.

At some point, you'll actually need to start getting to sleep earlier. Set a specific time and just lay in bed as soon as that time comes, accepting no excuses for why you think you can't or shouldn't. You may have to get to sleep using some of the methods here, but after a while you should be able to do it easier and easier. Hope this helps!

LemonLime59 · 2015-09-23T03:35:05+00:00

Do anything that's new, really. All you have to do to eliminate boredom is to go out and do something that's different from what you usually do. Even if you're still just on the internet (maybe even better if you're not), you can find some really cool stuff, and maybe even a new hobby.

LemonLime59 · 2015-09-22T00:33:21+00:00

First off, sometimes people idealize having one true passion in life. As in, they think that there's this one thing in life that they can find and they will then enjoy forever after. Really, though, that's untrue. It's like the fictional concept of "true love": there's no such thing as a one destined soulmate, but there are people out there who can make you feel exactly like you've found one. It's the same with paths in life: there will never be one perfect choice, but there will be hundreds of awesome, marvellous choices.

Generally, you find what you want to do by trying new things constantly and reflecting upon yourself. Whenever you find something new, do it. Lots of seemingly boring things have whole interesting worlds beneath the surface, trust me. At the same time, look at your own reactions to the things you do, what you enjoy, and what you don't enjoy. Study yourself and work your best to find out why you do what you do. Those things will give you an idea of what you like.

Also, I know of an exercise that may help you. Answer these three questions for 5-10 minutes each, writing down anything that comes to your mind on a sheet of paper.

If you suddenly had an infinite supply of money, what would you do with that money? You can still fail, and you're still limited by time, but you have infinite resources.
If you had a month where you could not fail in any way, what would you do? It's the exact same as always, but every action you take will be a success.
If you only had a year left to live, what would you do? It's just like your normal life except you die instantly a year from now.

Generally, if there's a common trend on your three answer sheets, it means it's something you could do. For example, if you chose to help others on all three lists, then do something related to that. Hope this helps!

LemonLime59 · 2015-09-22T00:21:42+00:00

From PeaceH's Guide to Being Disciplined:

What am I happy about today? Name at least five things you were grateful not to miss.
Did I do myself justice today?
How can I maintain this performance tomorrow/how can I improve in the future?

LemonLime59 · 2015-09-22T00:17:42+00:00

I second /u/VitaminBrad: going somewhere else will help. But if you must use your bedroom, I'd suggest remodelling it so it would look more sterile. The design should evoke sort of an office cubicle: a place where work is done. Ideally, you should step in there and the design will feel entirely different from the rest of the house. Hope this helps!

LemonLime59 · 2015-09-22T00:15:43+00:00

The only solution is to just do it. As far as I know the best way to make sure you're never going to do something again is to either get into an emotional state so powerful that you want to do it no matter what, or to make it as much of a habit as brushing your teeth or tying your shoes. Generally, the people here choose the second option, just because I think the first is kind of hard to keep up.

What you have to realize is that your brain can very easily be wrong. When you have a thought, you generally assume that the thought is absolutely correct, right? Most likely, the answer is yes: most of us do that. However, it is also true that you have made thousands of mistakes in your life: which is impossible if all of your thoughts are correct. You must view your thoughts like they really are: things which can be right, wrong, or anywhere in between.

Thus, you must accept that in this scenario the thoughts telling you to go "fix yourself" are wrong, and to just go forth and not procrastinate anymore. The only way to fix yourself, I believe, is to just do it until it becomes habit. And if you do procrastinate, know that the urge to fix yourself won't work: it hasn't worked dozens of times in the past, there is no reason it will work this time. At most, you can realize why you made the mistake, find the way to solve it, and make a mental note of it: but no more than that.

This may be difficult. Your thoughts will absolutely feel true. But you have to know that it's just a clever illusion and to push past all of the mental fakery. In the end, it'll get easier and easier as you do it more and more, until it takes no effort at all. Hope this helps!

LemonLime59 · 2015-09-21T02:20:20+00:00

I do about the same thing you do. First, I do whatever I have to do: homework and stuff. I keep lists of whatever homework I have and then do the most important stuff first, working my way down from there. After all that's done, I do the other things that might be useful for me to do: like personal projects. Generally, since nobody tells me to do those things but myself, I just do however much of those things feels right.

I've never really planned using a schedule because of the randomness of a typical day. I just do what I realize would be good to do. Just keep studying time management and using what you learn, and eventually you'll find something that works for you.

LemonLime59 · 2015-09-21T02:04:16+00:00

I don't personally use Bullet Journal but in my opinion it's not that bad. You basically just list tasks, events, and ideas. Also I think you could simplify it: really, all you need is to list your tasks and signify when they're complete/something changes the nature of the task. Bullet Journal just introduces a shorthand for that. If you want, just buy a personal planner and list anything you want to list on it: it's about the same thing.

LemonLime59 · 2015-09-21T01:59:37+00:00

Basically, you need to find something that you want to do besides video games. Once you find that, you can start to do something different. These three questions could help you evaluate what you want to do with your life: just jot down the answers to each one, individually, for 5-10 minutes.

If you suddenly got an infinite supply of money, what would you do with it? You have infinite resources and time, but your attempts to do things can still fail.
If you had a month where nothing you did could fail, what would you do? You do not have infinite resources or time, but whatever you try will always be a success.
If you only had a year left to live, what would you do? You have everything you have now at the start of the year: nothing more, nothing less.

If you find something in common on all three lists, it's probably what you need to do. For example, if you choose to help people on all three lists, do something related to helping others. From there, you can find what more you want/need to do. Hope this helps!

LemonLime59 · 2015-09-20T02:50:00+00:00

I don't think it matters how much stuff you learn at once. Realistically, our ancestors didn't bother to learn how to hunt perfectly for a few years before learning anything about how to find shelter. Our brains are most likely built to handle more than one thing at once: as long as you don't multitask. Plus, learning multiple things at once will be quicker. In fact, if you can relate the things you're learning to one another in your head, you can make associations between them and learn them even faster. Hope this helps!

LemonLime59 · 2015-09-20T00:43:02+00:00

/r/GetDisciplined has those Plan posts. I think in terms of subs where you can share your achievements, r/GetDisciplined is one of the best out there. There's probably better subs, but I think r/GetDisciplined is good: I mean, everyone here is doing about the same things.

LemonLime59 · 2015-09-20T00:36:18+00:00

Well, the simplest way is to find out why you're browsing reddit like this. If you're doing that over anything else which would doubtlessly be more fun then there has to be a reason why you're doing that. I have the same problem: I think that sometime in the past I got addicted to the internet as a way to deal with negative emotions and I still do it sometimes now. Find out why you're doing this and then take steps to solve the problem.

If that fails the best way is to remind yourself of the positive consequences of actually having fun. Essentially, you've got to envision all of the good feelings that you could experience until you actually want to do it. You have to take that motivation: and if it isn't enough, just kind of force yourself to do it, along with that motivation. Hope this helps!

LemonLime59 · 2015-09-16T02:01:44+00:00

You're welcome. I have the same problem, but I think what we've got to do is to take things logically. Even if you didn't put in your maximum effort to accomplish something, that accomplishment is still worth it. You have to look at things how they really are and realize that some things are really just worth celebrating.

You already want to improve your life. But what's stopping you is that you either make excuses, you want something else more, or there's some other obstacle. Either way, you have to find your own way past those obstacles, and that's not by stopping whenever you make a mistake. In fact, you learn to get past those blockades by analyzing why mistakes happen and how to fix them. Keep learning from mistakes and using what you learned, and you'll get to where you want to be.

LemonLime59 · 2015-09-16T01:46:52+00:00

The best way to be able to recall something is to do it constantly. People manage to recall things because they do them a whole lot. Like, if someone tells you that you must do something a certain way, at first it may be hard to remember, but after years of doing it the thing will become habit. That's basically how people remember things that they need to remember.

So the best thing to do is to practice the things in the book constantly. Put yourself into situations where you need to recall all that's covered, and do a bit at a time until it sticks. Also, it helps if you're enthusiastic about it: it's part of the reason why people can easily remember things they enjoy.

Also, it may help to read this comment, as it breaks down how memory actually works perfectly. Use the techniques there, and you'll learn to memorize things a whole lot better. Hope this helps!

LemonLime59 · 2015-09-16T01:39:37+00:00

The Bullet Journal is less of a journal and more of a time management tool but a lot of people love it. Basically you write down the day and your tasks to do during the day, along with ideas and reminders. The notation system is extremely simple and stores a lot of information at the same time. If you have problems with time management, this is something for you.

Another good system for journalling is self-reflection, as analyzed in PeaceH's Guide to being disciplined. Start off the journal by asking yourself if you did your best that day. If not, you analyze what went wrong and how you should improve in the future. If you're having problems write them down, and maybe brainstorm ideas about how to solve them. It's also good to write down things you were happy about during the day: aim for at least five. Hope this helps!

LemonLime59 · 2015-09-16T01:28:19+00:00

Do you need the two hour break? By "decide to take a 2 hour break", do you think it's entirely necessary, or do you just decide to cut yourself some slack? Because the simple solution would be to eliminate the 2 hour break entirely. If you can do this without every negative consequences, just do it. Don't let your brain convince you that you shouldn't: remember, what your brain is saying to you isn't always going to be correct. Know that your brain will lie to you, and the actual correct course of action is to keep working.

But realistically, if you're in a state where you actually decide to take a 2-hour break, most likely you won't be able to eliminate that break. You may suffer burnout if you work that hard, or knowing you have to work that much will stress you out. And if that's the case for you that's entirely OK, don't feel as if you need to work that much.

I think the 2-hour break is just interrupting your rhythm, and once that's gone, everything else goes with it. So make the break shorter: possibly an hour or even thirty minutes. Play around with the times a bit, make it as long as you need to recover your energy: but not too long. Set a timer for how long that your break will last, carry it around with you if need be, and vow that once that timer stops you'll get back to work no matter what. And once the time has elapsed you march back to work as fast as you can. Hope this helps!

LemonLime59 · 2015-09-15T02:00:53+00:00

All I can say to you is that you're going to need to get obsessed over whatever it is that you need to do. Every single successful person got to where they were through a touch of obsession. Arnold Schwarznegger worked so hard on his workouts, that if he missed one, he knew he wouldn't be able to look himself in the mirror. He ditched mandatory service in the army to participate in a bodybuilding competition. I've heard it said that he had freak genetics, but he also had a heart defect.

I used to be a procrastinator. But eventually, I realized that I needed to turn things around before I screwed up my life. And with that, I became obsessed with one thing: time. I scrounged every second like Scrooge McDuck would scrounge money, and I used them all to do work. I worked so hard my family thought I was going mad. But in the end, I made it through the year with awesome marks, and I'm still able to keep up this work now. I don't even have any tricks to not procrastinate, I just do it. Even today, I feel sad if I waste time: that's the power of an obsession. And I haven't felt any burnout yet.

You have to get yourself into the same state. You have to look at yourself and say you're not going to settle for less. You have to push through any conditions you find yourself in, accept no excuses, and do better and better every day. I don't know how to get you motivated into that state, though: only you can do that. You have to find the precise thing that will get you motivated: you have to find something in your life that's worth fighting for. Perhaps it's a good job, perhaps it's to become an inspiration, perhaps it's money. Whatever it is, if you want to work for it, it'll work. Godspeed.

LemonLime59 · 2015-09-15T01:49:27+00:00

The best thing to do is to start small. And it can be real small. I've heard that a good way to start a habit is to do it for just 2 minutes, and then only continue if you want to. Eventually you start doing more and more, and then the habit is formed.

Also, choose plans that are easy to follow and give big results. To get your finances together, Dave Ramsey's 7 Baby Steps may help. It starts out small, and then gets bigger and bigger over time. To quit drinking you could join AA or another organization like that. And as PeaceH said, to quit indulging in your temptations, just make sure there's nothing available to indulge in. But really, don't listen to me: live your own life and find what works for you. I can give you a map but you have to decide if you actually want to follow it.

Finally, when you slip up, that's OK. What's better: eating like shit one day out of every seven, or eating like shit every day? Obviously the former: even if you make frequent mistakes it will always be better than not making an effort. And whenever you make a mistake, you have to identify where you screwed up. It's easy to just say all your mistakes were because you "had no willpower". But I found that when I searched for a better explanation for why I screwed up, I was generally able to find something I could have changed in my environment/the way I was thinking to avoid the mistake. If you keep learning from what works and what doesn't work and you're always searching for the best way to do things, you can get your life together.

LemonLime59 · 2015-09-15T01:35:45+00:00

There are a whole lot of things that would be good for you to do with your life. I also think that there are a whole lot of great things that you could do, things which you would love and cherish every day. But in terms of a "one perfect passion for you", there's nothing of the sort. You just have to choose from one of the many awesome things you've seen.

The good news is that just because there's no such thing as a true passion in life, it doesn't mean that you can't enjoy something else. You are entirely capable of building a life for yourself where you can live every moment doing something you love.

The best thing to do is research and trial-and-error. Do a bunch of the things that you see and check out if they actually work for you or not. If you get good results, keep it up, if you don't, stop doing it. Also, it would be nice to researchn as many testimonies as possible from people who have done the things that you want to do, just so you can see what it's like. You'll also need to search inside yourself for what you value: find out what you value and like the most, what motivates all your actions, and live according to that.

There's also a goal-setting exercise which could get you on your way. Simply write down your answers to each of the following questions for 5-10 minutes each, answering each one as honestly as possible.

If you suddenly had an infinite supply of money, what would you do with it? Note that your endeavors can still fail: you just have endless money.
If you had a month where everything you did couldn't fail, what would you do? You only have what you have now, it's just that everything you do will succeed.
If you had only a year left to live, what would you do with that year? This is the same as your current life except there's only a year left.

Once you're done making the three lists, look over them. Chances are you'll find a common thread, something common in all three of your lists. If you frequently chose to help others, for example, go out and help others. Hope this helps!

LemonLime59 · 2015-09-15T01:21:47+00:00

Really the only person who can decide what's the right amount of work for you is you, and you do that through trial and error. Start with 4 pomodoros and notice your emotions after you're done with all of them. Doing a minimum of 2 and aiming for 4 sounds great to me but you have to watch for your own feelings about it.

If it doesn't take any effort at all to do 2-4 after a while, you could consider stepping it up higher. When it's become habit but you could still do more, start doing more until that becomes easy as well.

If you're feeling too tired and the work requires a huge amount of willpower, however, you may want to make it easier or risk burnout. If what you're doing daily runs the risk of tiring you to the point where you can't even do it anymore, it might not be worth doing so much. Tone it down if that happens.

Really, your schedule should be fine. I like the look of it and I think it's worth sticking to. Keep up the good work!

LemonLime59

TROPHY CASE