
Things I did to reboot my life - McKittrick
https://medium.com/@wilw/7-things-i-did-to-reboot-my-life-a4bab2d409e#.bpi55ncii
======
rayalez
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/youtube/movies,
reading and learning is fine)

\- Daily exercise

\- Daily fiction writing(250 words at least)

\- Daily coding(or studying anying related to Computer Science.)

I will keep struggling to incorporate all these things into my habits, because
that is what perfect and healthy life for me would be like, it's just it's
surprisingly difficult for me.

By the way, if you have such list - can you share it?

~~~
nefitty
My plan is very similar. Nootropics and caffeine are an integral part of my
success, though! Haha Have you tried ytracking your success with each of these
items? I have been doing so for the past few months and it is definitely
helping me pinpoint where I need to redouble my efforts. I also set a theme
for each month (either Health, Wealth or Social, cycling through those three).
The thing is to focus on mastering one are at a time, plateauing in that area
with solid habit formation and then tackling the next area. Can you share what
practical steps you have taken to achieve any successes? ie schedules, habits,
plans, etc.

~~~
rayalez
Setting a theme for each month is an awesome idea!

Yes, I track these habits. There's an awesome app called TracknShare, super
convenient. Here's how my list looks like:
[http://imgur.com/I9qK9iu](http://imgur.com/I9qK9iu)

I measure writing by the number of words I write each day, and I measure CS in
"Pomodoros"(from pomodoro technique, 20-minute-sized chunks of uninterrupted
time).

Participating in /r/WritingPrompts really helps with daily writing. Prompts
are a great place to start, and provide instant gratification, also it's
really fun.

When I have an interesting and exciting project to work on - I can easily stay
on top of CS, but if not it becomes super hard.

The main thing about healthy food - is just throwing away everything
unhealthy, and replacing it wih _a lot_ of delicious healthy alternatives. If
I get hungry and I don't have some nuts/berries to chew on immediately - I
know I will go and buy chocolate/pizza. So it's mostly about controlling my
environment. If everything around me is healthy - it's not that hard to keep
it up.

When it comes to coffee and reddit - I still haven't found a good solution,
I'm addicted to that stuff.

Exercising isn't that hard to keep up, just set a goal that is easy enough to
not be intimidating, and spend several days paying attention to it, because
when I don't I simply forget.

~~~
nefitty
Awesome, so you're tracking daily streaks then? That helped me form my
meditation habit pretty solidly. I also measure productivity in pomodoros!
It's dope to meet other people as excited about this stuff as me. Since you
shared I'll go ahead and show you how I have my ratings system set up. I'm
using Google Sheets, tracking each metric daily and then at the end of each
week I enter the average of the values or the sum, depending on what I'm
measuring. I then turn that into graphs, which give my brain some nice
feedback about its behavior haha hope you find this cool!

[http://imgur.com/a/95cet](http://imgur.com/a/95cet)

~~~
nefitty
@rayalez I couldn't reply directly to your last comment, the thread looks like
it's too deep now. The biggest challenge is definitely the size and amount of
things to track. If I slack on one day it's hard to pick up the pieces the
next. The patterns are still hard to discern, but I'm definitely seeing that
the biggest factor in my success day-to-day is amount and time of sleep. It's
literally the biggest leverage point, so I'm investing more resources in
perfecting that as well. The amount of projects that arise from this list of
metrics can be overwhelming, so the ethos of "keep it simple" is the best way
for me to make any headway.

If you ever want to continue this convo feel free to email me, it's my HN
username at gmail. Maybe you could use an accountability partner or someone to
bounce ideas off of? Either way, good luck with your project!

------
sotojuan
> and Reddit does not count as reading)

This is the key point, honestly. Hacker News and other online forums are fun
and all, but ultimately they waste so much time.

About film: If you have Hulu, watch the Criterion Collection films on it.
Criterion is a company that releases and remasters some of the best films of
all time (from all countries!), and about 600 of them are on Hulu[1].

[1]
[https://www.criterion.com/library/expanded_view?m=hulu&p=1](https://www.criterion.com/library/expanded_view?m=hulu&p=1)

~~~
ak39
Here's what I have discovered recently about the way I read & pay attention
after habitual use of Reddit/HN:

I have "trained my brain" to scan headlines very quickly to see if they are
relevant or of interest to me. Consequently, I have developed a troubling
trait of reading most things only to "cognitively dump" immediately
thereafter. I now find that I cannot hold concentration to read larger tracts
of writing. Or that I will read something but fail to recall only moments
later.

------
sakopov
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 group and all confessed that they felt like they
got off course somewhere. (2 of the 5 were prepping to through-hike the PCT!)

Being an engineer myself, I've always loved what i do, but I found that I felt
infinitely better when i was disconnected from the tech. It's almost like
being blindly in love with someone who hurts you. So for my "reboot" i quit my
job, sold everything and started doing things that are completely out of my
comfort zone like long distance backpacking trips, going into the nature,
camping, paragliding, kayaking. As a consequence, I've dropped weight and
become healthier by simply being outside more. Things like healthy diet and
exercise didn't seem like impossible chores but very natural habits to
transitions to.

So take this with a grain of salt, but when someone who tries to change their
life is telling me that they want to sit in 4 walls and watch Netflix more, or
get an android app that monitors their sleep, or that they want to try and do
more daily coding, i realize that they have no idea what they're doing.

~~~
akg_67
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 watched an interesting talk by Guy Spier, a value investor. I
was expecting the talk to be focus on value investing, it turned out be much
more on making life choices, changes and gaining wisdom.

Guy Spier: "The Education of a Value Investor" | Talks at Google
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifDCmRBElPY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifDCmRBElPY)

Guy Spier, The Education of a Value Investor: My Transformative Quest for
Wealth, Wisdom, and Enlightenment [http://www.amazon.com/Education-Value-
Investor-Transformativ...](http://www.amazon.com/Education-Value-Investor-
Transformative-Enlightenment/dp/1137278811)

~~~
eevilspock
_" > 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.

------
Killswitch
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.

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

~~~
icebraining
This is where the effort to avoid falling into the sunk cost fallacy is
harmful :|

------
fit2rule
A cursory study of the greats of literature of the last few centuries, and
beyond, reveals that rebooting is essential, and one must be prepared to do it
a few times in ones life, I feel. We need to be prepared to abandon all
cultural and social precepts, and re-componse oneself in the face of the
abyss, at a near-infinite degree of potential.

I think rebooting should be required of a lot of your average (and not-so-
average) typologies. Breaking the mold is _essential_ to the progress of the
species, and doing it on a personal, familial, or social level. Perhaps this
is what drives the primordial desire to see the world burn?

------
DanBC
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 some nice motivational subReddits.

There's probably a niche in the market for a service that pairs or groups
people who want to achieve change so that they can motivate each other -
virtual motivational cards and voice messages etc.

~~~
prawn
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/](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.

------
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.

------
swozey
Something I found with these life reboots that is really, really bad for my
personally is the guilt that you lay on yourself when you fail at "rebooting,"
completely. I'd go out and socialize with friends and have a good time, but
beat myself up the next day because it was my day to do XYZ (budget, clean the
fridge, whatever) and I didn't do it because I went out. I had to, and am
still struggling with that, with being a human and forgiving myself. Oh
perfectionism..

~~~
3stripe
Try building one habit at a time. Do it for 60 days in a row (but don't beat
yourself up if you miss a few days). Then start building the next habit...

I had a breakdown a few years and tried to change a lot of things at once — it
didn't really work! You can read some more of my thoughts about this at
[https://gumroad.com/l/reset-your-brain](https://gumroad.com/l/reset-your-
brain)

------
nextos
I'm also in the process of rebooting my life.

Central to my approach has been thinking what I want to achieve (quality), in
what areas I want to achieve it and how.

For me rebooting has been mostly about decluttering and focussing. So I've
ended up with a list of very few areas where I want to excel, and some tools I
will use to achieve my goals. Everything else I have got rid of.

------
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.

~~~
xlm1717
I'm not convinced it is a bad thing. Why would it be a problem for "avoid mood
changing substances" to become a habit, calcified and very difficult to uproot
and change?

~~~
bikeshack
So it's back to the concept of a recipe where the ingredients change, but the
recipe sort of stays intact. Change too many ingredients and we have an
entirely different dish. I like this analogy because it's less formal and more
forgiving. Just make sure to stick to it in an informal manner and not abuse
the leniency provided, and you shall be fine. Technically every substance is
mood altering (sugar for example), but there are some that have a marked
increase on judgement and mood that it is safe to treat them as suspect. When
I refer to "recipe" I mean a loose guide to run with in times of crisis.

------
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.

~~~
bikeshack
Seconded. There is a lot of noise on what diet is superior and which one works
best. Intuitively a person knows when they've over indulged just as when we
pull back when putting our hand in a flame. We just don't do it anymore, and
design our lives around not ever having it happen again.

My only problem with this is the victim-hood that happens when this high carb
crap clamours for our attention in ADs and the media. Invariably you will get
victim-hood and people gorging and gulping their way to negate such imagery. I
know I don't look at a McBigMac the same way when I've had one.

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

~~~
sotojuan
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.

------
tdkl
Props on changing yourself, not trying to change the society, because you felt
inadequate.

------
cheez
That's not a reboot.

~~~
rm445
Fair point - the author did a lot of things together but they were all
incremental - perhaps 'refactoring' would be a better term?

