Things I did today

I was watching a YouTube video recently about productivity, and something the presenter said clicked with me. The more free time you have, the more self discipline you need. Absolutely. I remember my last year of high school. I had front loaded my classes due to block scheduling. I could do two years of a subject in one year. By the time I was ending my sophomore year, I had finished the math requirement for graduation. And, because I continued to do that with other subjects while I can (did something similar in science) I was able to do Post Secondary Option with, well, more options. Post Secondary Option was a program the high school sponsored where the student could select a local college or university to attend instead of classes in high school. It allowed me to end my high school career with 28 college credits and a lot of procrastination.The last requirement I hadn't fulfilled before graduation was a semester of an English class. My schedule for that last semester looked

This week has been an odd one, in regards to my sleeping. For about two months or so, I've made it a priority to have the same routine. Go to bed at 9:30. Play meditation app Calm. Fall asleep between 9:45 and 10. Wake up at 6 on weekdays or 7 on weekends. However, this week, I messed up. I read instead. I went to bed at 10:30 instead of 9:30, and that lost hour of sleep for three days means that by Wednesday evening, I was exhausted and went to bed that night at 8:30 and fell asleep at 9. Going to bed early then had the issue of waking up at 2:15 and not being able to fall back asleep until 4:30. And I still had to get up at 6 to go to work. I struggled all Thursday. When I got home, I started falling asleep on the couch at 8:45, so I just went to bed and fell asleep there, until 3:15 in the morning, able to fall back to sleep at 4:30. Woke up at 7:30, so I got enough sleep even though it was broken up by staring at the ceiling while being annoyed. Must go back to making my

I did the Core class at Planet Fitness, and found that I must have a stronger core than I imagined. While the exercises eventually tired me out (that last plank was a little shaky) I didn't feel overwhelmed or unable to do anything after. My muscles also didn't hurt the day or two after exercising, so that seems to mean I can increase either time to do an exercise or the weight or difficulty. It reminds me of when I read through Ramit Sethi's 20x Your Potential with Mark Divine , part of his Brain Trust program, discussing Hell Week that Navy SEALs go through. Ramit challenges his viewers to do either a 21 minute plank or 1,000 pushups. I attempted this back in summer 2015. I managed to do 10 minutes of a plank while on my knees instead of toes. I just tried it out, and while I only managed to plank on my toes for 3 minutes, I finished the rest of the 21 minutes on my knees and my core doesn't hurt much. The goal now is to improve my core muscles (and shoulders, and bac

The company had an outing at the NC State Fair. We enjoyed eating ridiculous food and riding rides and walking roughly 10,000 steps.

I agree with Jeremy at GCC when he talks about renting: https://www.gocurrycracker.com/renters-for-life/ Renting allows for your lifestyle to change easier than when you purchase a home. I don't know where I want to be forever ...... or even in the next few years. There are endless "Rent or Buy" calculators. One being the well regarded New York Times interactive Is It Better to Rent or Buy tool. For me, the answer is only if I can buy a house less than 250k, and none of the houses within 3 miles of work fit the bill. So, I'll continue to rent until my rent price goes over what I want to pay, and there is a house in the area that I would like to buy. Everyone's situation is different. I don't have a significant other to worry about, nor do I need to make sure I have enough space for a child to flourish. It'll just be me for a while, and perhaps later I'll want to make a different decision if I happen to have someone to partner with. In the meanti

I just read How to Find a Hobby over at the New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/guides/smarterliving/how-to-find-a-hobby Nice to see that my anecdotal evidence is backed by science - people with hobbies are more physically fit and intertwined in communities and have lower stress. Picking a hobby that enriches your life will also give you a community of people who are similar to you, and you can help them and they can help you. But don't pick a hobby that makes you stare at a screen. I guess I won't, then, and instead end this blog post early. I'm exhausted anyway.

The darker side of my personal financial journey means all the time I spent reading about finances and redoing my budget is time I wasn't using to get better at my hobbies or skills for my career. I also wasn't as interesting as a conversationalist, because most of my topics related to money, which often is an uncomfortable subject for people. Another issue I ran into was depression if I wasn't able to save as much as I thought I ought to be saving. Like a dieter that tried fad after fad, I would save every penny I could, become miserable because I wasn't using my money to enjoy life, then would break and spend a lot of money because I was miserable. Then I'd be depressed that I had spent money on myself when I could have saved it and made cheaper choices or not gone out at all. Something had to change, because I was starting to be insufferable to myself and others. This is why it's important to follow advice from people like Ramit Sethi or David Bach or JL