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# Lifehacks blog List of my personal, subjective achievements from last two years: * Boulder climbing: ~6a (V2) -> regularly doing 7a (V6) boulders * Weight 90->72kg * Quit smoking, vaping, nicotine * Reduced alcohol consumption by ~95% (virtually an abstinent) * Made occasional mountain hikes a habit * Learned to ice skate * Virtually overcame phobia of dancing/karaoke/public activities * Cured my dermatophagia * Reduced my insomnia by 90%, reduced caffeine intake by ~75% * Habit of meditating each day * Habit of learning spanish each day * Habit of exercising before each meal or coffee * Overcame my dentist phobia and got my teeth fixed * Quit junk food * Bought an apartment * Can do 14 pull-ups and a muscle-up * Moved from sport hater (didn't partake PA classes due to knee injury) to sport lover * Fixed my knee injury for good with physiotherapy, exercise and weight loss (instead of surgery) * My procrastination is 15% of what it used to be. I am extremally happy with my productivity. * Quit news/video/gaming/yt/sitcoms for 6 weeks (wondering what to do next though) * Read about ~100 books 1Mar2020 **************************************** I might write a book or a series of posts one day. The topic would be habits-crafting. The book could potentially help me to organise my thoughts. I've been giving this idea some thoughts for past few years, but I always thought I lack credibility. In the next post, I will compile a list of recent personal accomplishments. These might look like small wins, but for me there were huge. I often started from a really bad position (very bad habits for very long time). 2-3 years ago I was in quite a dark place. I had feelings of anxiety, frustration, anger, procrastination, disappointment, resentment almost every day. Now I'm in the middle of a long streak of very good days. Some anxiety remains, but I mostly experience excitement, hope, empathy, trust, fascination, satisfaction and gratitude. I want to enjoy it while it lasts and also try not to forget what small changes in my routines enabled it. Also, I have a problem with lifestyle/self-help gurus: I think they tend to overfit to popularity. In other words, they become experts in crafting advices that sound catchy and propagate quickly. They might even become experts in blogging, publishing, writing, recording and marketing youtube videos. They will naturally tend to guide their audience into pursuing a blogger/youtuber/writer career as well. Which is fine, I guess, but what if some of us don't want to make a living from this? I think there might be some fellow engineers out there, that would like to engage in some discussion and maybe benefit from my observations, and also share some of theirs in return. 28Feb2020 **************************************** Review of: 'Atomic Habits' by James Clear (a self-help book) In my opinion behavioural change is really hard, only 1 out of 10 strategies I read about will work for me. But maybe that's ok, maybe there is no one-size-fits-all solution. With that being said, 'Atomic Habits' is a book I keep going back to. It's only promise is that it will show how habits can be established or interrupted - and it delivers. It's short, simple, and information dense. It helped me getting straight my work habits, climbing trainings, daily pushups/pullups/stretching/choosing stairs instead of elevator. It allowed me to regulate my media consumption and news intake. I've conquered my chronic insomnia partially thanks to it. Oh, and've quit smoking for good (I was also an abstinent and didn't eat any sweets for some time). My anger and anxiety management skills are orders of magnitude better than they used to be. I don't do scrolling of social media feeds anymore. Instead of trying to brute force myself into obedience by sheer willpower, I break my habits into cue-craving-action-reward and work on each step. I use my identities when in doubt (ie. "I am a healthy person that moves a lot") as a mantra. I make desired actions obvious, easy and available. The time for work, and the time for leisure is clearly separated (despite working remotely, flexible hours). Work and hard things come first, reward and leisure come next - the order is important. The cost of making lazy choices in the morning is much higher than the cost of making them in the evening. 2Feb2020 **************************************** My current dietetary setup. I am a climber weighting ~74-76kg. I've experimented with dozens of dietetary techniques and theories for last few years. Went from 90kg to 72kg by just climbing and not eating sweets, but it was a constant struggle and controlling my diet took a lot of my attention. Tried to only eat stuff <300kcal/100g, only <400kcal/100g (remember: carbs and proteins ~4kcal/g, fat 9gkcal/g! also: fat takes a lot of time to kick in!). Tried most of the ideas from 4h body by Tim Ferris. Tried to eat a lot of whey protein with skyr yogurt. But finally I went to a dietician and she told me to simply get a catering service. I pay 60PLN/day (16usd) for 5 meals delivered each morning, balanced diet with slightly elevated proteins, 2500kcal (0.5kg reduction / week, I will move to 2800kcal or 3000kcal at some point). Bought the cheapest 230PLN (62usd) microwave (sometimes I will also use an oven, but it's not really required). Now I have to stick to a single rule: only eat stuff from catering (and maybe have a cheat day when visiting my parents or wanting to cook with smb). This is so much simpler to follow, feels healthier and controlled. I've been only doing this for past few weeks, so we'll see, but it might be THE solution. The downside is the plastic waste production, but at least I scrupulously segregate my waste and never buy bottled liquids. It will also take a few weeks to see if it causes or prevents gastric problems. I still have to test it on mountain hiking and climbing trips - is the packaging handy enough for eating outdoor? PS. When it comes to liquids: I only drink water, coffee, mint and tea. I think there is zero point in drinking stuff that tastes sweet. It won't give the feeling of eating stuff while it will either deliver a lot of calories or deregulate you (insulin spikes etc). 1Feb2021 ****************************************