Week 49 Day 5 Thursday
Thoughts: Solid day. Not the most work, but had a good workout and stayed working on shit for most of the day, albeit not in the most efficient and productive manner.
Took up bet with Tynan on blacklisted internet use today! Super excited about this. Goes until September 30th. Very excited to see if I’ll just end up doing random shit anyway with my time or if I’ll actually become much more focused here and won’t just find excuses to waste time anyway like I have been doing recently. If this works and helps me increase my productivity at all, it’ll have been amazing. Really looking forward to it. Tynan mentions he gets 9-10 hours of real work every day and tops out at that. I’m nowhere close to that, so here’s to hoping it happens. Going to start up the Harvest app again and do this in conjunction with time tracking.
Terms of the bet:
So I’m using StayFocusd because I couldn’t figure out how to block all sites on Nanny, (though I’m assuming it’s just a * wildcard, since that’s what it was for StayFocusd, juts didn’t try it), but same thing. Already I’m experiencing problems since I’m trying to read your methodology on your blog but it’s blocked now.
In fact, StayFocusd just blocked its own settings page so I guess I can’t ever change it again lol. The minimum allowed time is actually 1 minute on StayFocusd, but I figure negligible difference. Since just opening a new tab counts down from the time, this should go away by itself. If that proves not to be the case I’ll switch to Nanny.
Allowed sites (these will change and be updated as per Tynan’s suggestion, to include sites like stackoverflow and stackexchange, banks, Harvard, and mint.com):
amazon.com (AWS)
aweber.com (mailing list)
benyu.org (blog)
braintreegateway.com (merchant account)
braintreepayments.com (merchant account)
drawkcab.org (I keep a daily progress report blog here where I post every night on what I did that day)
fda.gov (research for Sprayable Energy)
gmail.com (email)
google.com (calendar, google searching, gmail)
intenex.org (needed to access cpanel for my shared hosting sites)
paypal.com (payments for Sprayable)
shopify.com (work on Sprayable’s website)
sprayable-2.myshopify.com (Shopify Sprayable dev site)
sprayable-energy.myshopify.com (Shopify Sprayable published site mirror)
sprayable.co (Shopify Sprayable public site)
sprayableenergy.com (Redirects to Sprayable.co but originally used to host WP version of Sprayable before Shopify migration. May still be used in future)
svbtle.com (accessing blog settings for my blog)
Start date: Today, June 27th. End date: September 30th.
Until the end of August/when I go back to Harvard (which is looking pretty likely but still tentative on financial aid notification in July), I’ll be able to use a separate browser during meals to look at random stuff. Once I go back to Harvard, meals are going to be eaten in a cafeteria, so I’ll modify this to allow myself an hour a day as marked by a separate timer on a separate browser (I’m thinking Leechblock on Firefox), and then I’ll use a third browser (Safari) for regular browsing. Kind of convoluted, but yeah.
$50 bet like the original.
Anyway– I will keep StayFocusd installed on chrome and not add any objectionable sites to the whitelist, circumvent it, or disable it until at least September 30th.
I use a separate browser during meals and to do non-junk stuff. Some examples of acceptable and unacceptable browser use during regular hours:
Acceptable:
Looking up how to implement something on Sprayable (css/js/etc)
Learning iOS/Android/etc. development on Treehouse
Buy plane tickets/research travel that is immediate or requires immediate planning (Planning the Japan trip would have been okay, for example)
Fulfilling requests for people
Fulfilling necessary obligations, such as visiting Harvard’s website to fill out a housing form or pay my term bill
Paying bills and visiting bank websites for that purpose and such
Answering email-like messages on Facebook
Replying to/sending email-like or business related Tweets
Playing around with scripts on FlyerTalk and LendingClub explicitly – only these two sites, and only for the purposes of modifying/improving those scripts you sent me as it looks like a useful exercise and furthers the goal of improving my programming skills which is a priority in work/learning for me right now
Unacceptable:
Browsing ebay without something specific that I’m about to buy immediately.
Researching stuff that isn’t immediately relevant
Facebook other than to reply to an email-like message (messages where people just want to chat will be ignored)
Porn (this will be the best spinoff benefit of this bet)
Wikipedia unless immediately applicable to SETT or blog post.
HN, Reddit, etc.
Sleep
Done: Woke up at 10:30am, going to sleep at 1am ideally.
Todo: Flexible wake time with a maximum of 11am. Going to start enforcing this.
Work
Done: Researched homeopathic references on being able to use caffeine as a Class A substance and not a Class F. Was sparse and not very helpful. Oh well.
Got sites all working again after StableHost’s epic fail-migration to a new server. Unfortunately, not sure if mail is working properly for sprayable.co.
Did some emails with other manufacturers.
Todo: Fill out quote application for liability insurance
Identify manufacturer for packaging
Identify and close potential celeb perks
Implement product/checkout integration. Look into http://apps.shopify.com/recurhub and http://apps.shopify.com/chargify and other free options like just directly implementing it.
Ask dad for official caffeine blood concentration data.
Migrate Outlook Contacts list and formalize ten contacts.
Learning
Done: 10 cards in 21 seconds today. No Treehouse.
Todo: Run through Anki every day.
This week, finish the Build a Simple iPhone App and Build a Blog Reader iPhone App courses.
Next week, Build a Simple Android App. 30 videos.
Next week, Build a Blog Reader Android App. 24 videos.
After this, must continue making apps to maintain your skills, just like in programming, or else you lose them all. Shit, you need to do something in Python soon. Make that another goal after this.
Blogging
Done: None
Todo: None
Exercise
Done: Did a good climbing session, did the V3 and the two other bouldering routes then did all the auto belays except the kid one. Then did 145 pushups with 90 seconds rest today (week 5 day 1), then did 2 * 30 second extended planks with 30 seconds rest, then did 2 * 15 swiss jackknifes with 30 seconds rest, then did 40 self leg ups which felt really good on the abs holding the kettle bell, which was not a bad strategy. Then did a great 3 mile run at 8:00 pace, felt I could have easily gone longer but unfortunately stopped since wanted to get back home and back to work. Oh well. Going to start running light every day since I still feel fat and I think I just need to move more in general.
Todo: One run, one rock climb, one pushup and one ab workout on Saturday. Do a light run on Friday and then next week do a light run every day until this fat goes away. These runs should be super relaxing and just refreshing and consider getting audiobooks to listen to as you do them. Should be great. Audible may be a good start. Try it out and go from there. Still need to finish the Wizard of Oz by Anne Hathaway. Damn she’s great.
Relationships
Done: Wrote in daily gratitude and trio of good journal.
Todo: Write in daily gratitude and trio of good journal.
Write a gratitude letter to Becky. Really this week.
Money
Spent: $1 myLT Buck purchase to cover $162 purchase of $69 Tasc Accelerate Performance 1/4 Zip Black w/Gray Small, $74 Polar FT1 Heart Rate Monitor, and $19 Yogitoes Sweatless Hand Towel (Lapis Tie-Dye)
Prices are generally remarkably accurate. Retail on the Tasc Accelerate Performance is $64, and the Polar FT1 Heart Rate Monitor is $70 (though selling for $40 on Amazon) and the Yogitoes Sweatless Hand Towel is $18.
So it looks like they take the retail value and add in the shipping cost and are generally honest about it. Good to hear! Super pleased with getting all this and the $39 Tasc Performance Vital Training Shorts small. Fingers crossed those fit. They say ~28-30″ waist. Hopefully I can get into it if it’s 30″ and it fits perfectly. Also those are selling for just $30 on Tasc, so $9 markup there. Oh well lol.
Going by retail value, this redemption was actually worth $182, which is amazing. And even going by the actual selling value of the Polar FT1 on Amazon, it’s still at least $150 or so, so really quite impressive for doing absolutely nothing referring Travis lol.
Left: -$160.39
No Games, TV Shows, CDs, or Computer/internet after midnight:
Game and TV Streak: 163 days
No blacklisted internet use: 0 days
CD Streak: 3 days
Computer/internet after midnight: 2 days
Outlook Contacts: 20