What is GTD?
Yesterday
- Alarm went off at 07:45 but I stayed in bed until 09:30
- Pranayama (15 minutes) and neck mobility drills (3 minutes) @ 11:30
- Vibration plate (10 minutes) plus stretching (3 minutes) @ 12:15
- Double 15 minute yoga sessions by Abi @ 20:30
- Meditation (5 minutes) using the Muse @ 22:00
- IQ exercises @ 22:30 - 23:00
- Italian lesson @ 23:15
- About 1900 cals.
On yesterday’s post I forgot to add I completely forgot my subs. So no Emperor Fitness until Friday. I really wish it was ZP’d already.
Don’t know why I stayed in bed, but it definitely impacts my day as it means I have to do some things during work hours.
Took my blood pressure right before pranayama (I sync all my smart wearables in the morning). I notice that the lower my heart rate is, the higher the diastolic. And vice versa. I wonder if that is always the case. Either way, my heart rate is slowly getting back to the low 60’s where it belongs and the systolic is around 110 which is normal for me.
Even though it’s only week 3 of the year, I do catch myself a bit disappointment for not going faster and doing more. That little voice in my head telling me to go fasting again and save the muscle building until after. Then a second voice asking the first one if he’s mad given how cold it is and fasting makes things even colder. Other than the voices, I’m considered mentally sound. 
I think I’ll try something new fasting-wise on a month-to-month basis. So I’ll eat 6 or 7 days a week this month, aiming for as small an eating window as possible. Then maybe do ADF in February. And depending on its results, I may go into a full fast in March. I don’t know yet. The one thing I am certain of is that this will be the year in which I get my beach body back. I’ve been “trying” for too long and every year it gets harder.
Ugh, didn’t finish work until 18:30 and I didn’t get around to emptying my mailbox. Tomorrow’s a new day. Now let’s see what I can salvage of the evening.
Got my daily coffee in at 18:45. Hopefully not too late. I don’t really need coffee, but I like to drink one cup wil milk just for the taste. Unfortunately that does tend to hinder OMAD efforts unless I take my dinner as early as possible.
According to ayurveda the evening is actually a bad time for digestion, the main meal should really be eaten between 2 and 6 in the afternoon.
Since I only do the vibration plate on recovery days, I did 2 15 minute yoga sessions back to back, to the great annoyance of my hip flexors.
Afterwards I got dragged into an IT support call for a Discord server I volunteer at. And just like that my evening was gone.
Did a Muse meditation for 5 minutes around 10, during the call.
Muse is selling their old Muse S Gen 1 stock for 40-50% off for the next few days. Still, I already have one…
Then the IQ exercises on multiple breaks in between as well. The emotional N-back is hard, really hard. I can barely hold on to N3. As for the attention focus one, I’m starting to feel myself getting control over my autopilot and did 2 perfect runs today. Really cool.
Quick Italian and now finally to eat something. I am so predicting it’s gonna be a late night…
Q&A
It’s a super-strict productivity system but relatively easy once you’re caught up and your life is manageable. Basically everything in life goes through a workflow to determine what to do with it. The goal is to end up with an easy to accomplish next step for everything which requires actions to be taken.
One thing I like a lot about it is that you don’t have to plan every step in an entire project. Just figure out what the very next thing is which you need to do. If you can do it in 5 minutes, go ahead and then figure out the next step. If it takes longer than 5 minutes, it goes on the todo-list. And we’re talking granular. Putting a postcard in the mail is not 1 step but at least 4 (put it in the envelope, stamp and address it, put the envelope next to my keys for the next time I go out, drop it off at the mailbox). Once you do the first 3 you already feel like you’re a productivity machine.
Apply that principle to absolutely everything in your life, both personal and work, analog and digital. It’s very liberating to receive emails or click on webpages only to determine there’s nothing you need to do with them and just delete them.
Also works for children needing to clean up their room. Instead of “clean up room” you just throw everything in a box, pick up whatever is at the top and do something with it. Small actions leading to a big result. No putting it back down and picking up something else. Eventually you reach the bottom and the box is empty. Everything has a place and everything in its place.
Nirvana is a ToDo manager designed for use with GTD, although the GTD site has manuals on how to set up a lot of popular apps.
There’s also Zen to Done, which is based on GTD but works more on habits, with a focus on what’s important to you and feels more pleasant.
https://www.makeuseof.com/getting-things-done-vs-zen-to-done/
May actually be better overall, but for hardcore execution GTD is likely still the winner. It’s not easy though, almost like fighting an addiction, GTD does not tolerate messing up very well. The Inbox must be empty at least once a day and all ToDo’s must be single-step actions or the system starts failing.
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Cool. Thank you for the elaboration.
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Yesterday
- Alarm went off at 08:45 but I dozed off until 09:30
- Little online home office Feng Shui workshop @ 10:30
- Pranayama @ 12:30
- KB24 Swings (6 minutes) @ 12:45
- KB24 Swings (5 minutes) @ 18:15
- Abi Carver yoga session (15 minutes) @ 18:45
- Wolf full moon meditation (15 minutes) @ 20:00
- IQ exercises (N = 2.8) & attention focus (95.75%) @ 20:20
- Italian lessons (10 minutes) @ 22:00
- About 2100 cals.
Not entirely unexpected I went to bed late, didn’t have the most restful sleep. The Oura is not happy.
Speaking of, I should tell them to send me the Oura 3. If only they had a size 10.5.
I did a little Feng Shui workshop for Shwaying my home office. I may hire the teacher to consult on it once the renovations are done. Otherwise it’ll be all white and glass. It could probably use some color.
Did 6 minutes of swings before my left arm started getting some difficulty. My body doesn’t feel super pleasant today.
Another afternoon of meetings. Will they ever let me work?! And why do people keep asking me to introduce myself?! 3 times is enough already!
After 30 minutes of meetings a recently migrated software system went down followed by 2 more, all while having to do a nearly 5 hour long on-boarding meeting. By 17:30 I was devoid of any complex thoughts.
Did another 5 minutes of swings. Surprisingly my lower back started complaining again, I did not expect that. I really do hope I’m able to do at least a single 10-minute set reliably by the end of the month.
Did another yoga session as well, with any luck I’ll be able to keep it up, even 15 minutes a day is better than none.
Hey, I made a short post!
2 Likes
What is that?
Yesterday
- Alarm @ 07:45, still slept until 09:15
- Vibration plate (10 minutes) plus light stretching @ 15:30
- Pranayama (15 minutes) @ 20:00
- 2x15 minutes of Yoga @ 20:30
- Meditation (10 minutes) @ 21:50
- IQ exercise (10 minutes) with N4.2 @ 22:15
- Attention focus exercise (5 minutes) with 96% @ 22:30
- About 1900 cals.
I should really get out of bed when the alarm goes off. It feels nice at the time but moves everything up.
My neck is feeling really awful today. I really want a deep tissue massage or pressure point massage, but I keep postponing it until I’m back in shape. Not so much body image issues as wanting to seduce the massage therapist with my awesome looking bod without saying a word. I strip, she falls in love. Happy endings for everyone!
I actually used to date a massage therapist while back. I can highly recommend it.
During another of those super-long meetings I squeezed my training in, but I ended up doing the breath exercises later in the day.
Got my double yoga in, I can’t stand that my spinal flexibility is so much higher than my skin allows for at this time. At least my neck isn’t hurting as bad now.
After my meditation I did the IQ exercises. I came up with a new strategy where I list them off then put the memory aside and list off the next sequence without actively thinking about the last sequence. I then trust myself to press the buttons on any matches. Actually had a back to back N5 going there and ended with an impressive 4.2.
I went late again unfortunately. My timing challenges are on my retrospective list for periodical review.
Using the short bullet-point list like above is helping me to keep track of things. It’s not really fun to read probably, but it helps my system.
I wonder how long it will take for me to look like a real Spartan!
Q&A
The ancient cultures followed the Lunar Cycle instead of the Solar Year. Until the Romans figured that since their slaves had trampled all over Europe to make roads with Romans taking all the credit, Romans should also get to invent a new calendar (naming the first 8 months mainly after gods and emperors, running out of creativity and apparently the ability to count for the last 4 names).
So the people still dancing naked around fires in the woods didn’t have 12 neatly named months, they had 13 time periods named after a prominent feature around the time of the year.
In old Britannia the Celts and some dirty old men in even dirtier robes noticed how wolves were howling an annoying amount during the first part of the year, due to it being breeding season and them seeking a mate. So they named this first lunar month after the wolf.
Ironically, this howling resulted in more mating for the wolves and a lot less mating for the Celts (due to the constant howling putting Celt wives in a bad mood). The dirty old men didn’t do a lot of mating so they didn’t mind as much.
Wolves actually start the year out howling for company and end the year mostly howling to warn others away. The reason and frequency of howling changes throughout the year.
Anyways… after the introduction of the 12 months, the names of the lunar months unofficially became the names for the full moons. The first full moon of the year was thus dubbed the Wolf Full Moon, and people practicing esoteric stuff might meditate on the wolf spirit and the character traits of the wolf during that particular full moon.
Like most things in energy pseudo-sciences, throughout the ages so many people have done such meditations that this particular full moon has become charged with their combined intent. And so we can now meditate on the wolf during this moon and experience the latent effects while adding to them. For most people, it will make the visualization a lot easier, as if the sensations come to them pre-recorded. For sensitive people, they can go full blown Method acting.
Although no successful change into werewolf has been verified at this time.
This was another chapter in “History, as told plainly by DarkPhilosopher”
If you’re interested in the other names and why they were named such:
PS The Chinese trumped both the Pagan Lunar Cycle and the Roman Solar Year and went Lunisolar. Props to them, even if you can’t get any AliExpress deliveries for most of February and March.
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I don’t care about the AliExpress, but I have my personal complaint about the Chinese calendar… My wife celebrates her birthday based on that. No way for me to “remember” her birthday. Or maybe it’s a blessing, I don’t have to remember it. 
On another note, I felt like I was using too many words daily, so I took a break from writing on the forum.
Yesterday
- Alarm @ 08:45, overslept until 10:00
- Core systems malfunction @ 13:45
First time oversleeping this year. Reminds me of the commuting days. Oversleeping by 10 minutes meant arriving an hour late to work. Now I put on some clothes, walk to the computer and I’m present and accounted for. When we are eventually forced to return to the office I’m so not doing it on Mondays and Fridays.
I’m kind of happy I’m using my water filter again. It feels good knowing that I am doing everything I can reasonably be expected to do to purify and enrich my drinking water.
I’ve also been looking at the list of Nasa-recommended plants to support clean and oxygenated air, with an eye on low maintenance and size.
There’s an official report as well, but this one’s an easier read.
Basically to survive in space where there’s no oxygen you need half a greenhouse per person, but a decent compromise can be found I think. I’ve selected 3 plants so far which should work great for anybody (2, 3 & 5).
The only unfortunate thing is that all plants which purify the air are toxic to pets. So if I do end up getting a cat again someday, I’ll have to discourage him or her from going near the plants. I’ve always loved upside down slightly sticky tape. Unlike water spray, they never get used to tape sticking to their paws and it annoys the crap out of them.
Do you realize that having pets is almost as expensive as having a partner, depending on how spoiled either the pet or the partner is? Although in some adventurous relationships, a partner can also be a pet. Meeow!
After writing the above my half day at work was over and I felt like taking a short nap. I woke up 24 hours later having accomplished basically nothing.
Sometimes I sleep through the day when I’ve exercised a lot and my body needs to recover. But this felt different. Plus, both my back and neck are hurting now. I should probably get a better mattress.
Either way, I didn’t accomplish anything yesterday unfortunately. And it’s already afternoon. I guess my next post will show if I can pick the pieces back up.
Q&A
Blasphemer!
That would work, until she figures out they have the same amount of days and so you can easily find the associated day in the Gregorian calendar. Unless she keeps moving it with the moon-part of the calendar. Which would make her age faster, women don’t like that.
I myself considered setting my birthdays on the Mayan Long Count so I could enjoy my younger years longer, but then reconsidered when I determined it would be 165585 years before I was of legal drinking age.
I’m so glad you used your daily allotment of words on the forum to communicate that.
I tried talking to the forum instead of writing, but I get so few responses. It’s like nobody’s listening. So rude.
On a more serious note, this one-post-per-day format of my journal is working for me. It prevents me and others from going into hours-long conversations. And for those reading the journal, they know they can come here once a day to see the updates and leave a comment/question for the next day.
By the way, I appreciate the likes during your absence. Gives me an idea people are still reading this. Even with all my alpha male attitude I apparently still care what others think. Go figure.
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Yesterday
- Got out of bed past 15:00, ugh!
- Pranayama (15 minutes) @ 17:00
- Vibration plate (10 minutes) @ 17:30
- Yoga (15 minutes) @ 20:30
- Meditation (5 minutes) @ 20:45
- IQ exercises (15 minutes - N4.2) @ 20:55
- Attention focus exercises (10 minutes - 94.5%) @ 21:10
- Duolingo Italian (10 minutes) @ 23:45
- About 3000 cals, unfortunately.
After getting out of bed I got some Chamomile tea to hydrate and opened the Emperor ZP thread. After reading that free-for-all Octagon match I considered getting back into bed and waiting for Spring like a Groundhog.
With the sincere hope of not waking up certain remarkable people...
…there was a study done several decades ago where people were hooked up to sensors measuring the electronic current in the body. They were then exposed to certain audio frequencies and asked to describe what they felt. Some felt something, others didn’t, but without fail the sensors registered increased activity in the locations of the body commonly considered the home of the chakras. They were able to repeat the experiment with colors and even simply the intent of an energy healer. Every time the specific locations which yogis have been talking about for thousands of years as being chakras lit up on the machine as having increased electrical activity. Sound frequencies, colors and focused intent, all activating specific areas in the body.
In the end, I think Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming puts it most scientifically when describing QiGong. He explains that there is an electrical current generated by the body and running throughout the body along certain channels in our skeletal structure and along the highly conductive fascia. This current is essential to our body’s functioning (like nerve and cerebral function) and the generation of the electromagnetic field around us (fields which upon scientific observation have been shown to be toroidal (donut-shaped) in nature and connecting to the body in the locations designated as the root and crown chakra.)
Throughout history many people may have used terms like energy/qi/chi/prana, chakras, kundalini, aura and so on, but in the end most equipment we have shows us that whatever we want to call it, there is most definitely a measurable current present in the locations which yogis call chakras and the lines which Chinese healers call meridians. They intuitively documented something long before equipment was able to measure it and so they got to name it. The only reason why it seems so far off to many is because some apparently have had enough practice to manipulate those areas with sheer mental intent. Modern science prefers that we use tools to make things happen, not happy thoughts. Although that has been changing the past years.
Anyways, I’m of the opinion there’s no harm in believing and keeping it to myself but lots of potential harm in not believing and neglecting a possibly essential part of us, so this is me being practical and letting my Anahata send y’all a Love Bomb.
One good thing coming out of Friday’s sleep-fest is I fasted all day. This should compensate nicely for the over-eating last weekend.
I’m actually considering making Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday my exercise days, Monday, Wednesday and Friday my recovery days and Saturday my rest day. Doing so would allow me to fast on Friday, which is a habit I got into a few years back. And then go into fasting on all recovery days like an almost ADF schedule. If exercise gets to be comfortable and easy enough I could go into a full-blown fast again like last year while hopefully keeping the fat loss as well as the other benefits. But this is not yet relevant.
I’ve also been thinking about keeping Emperor Fitness in for a second month. With Khan and EoG, the first stage does a lot of healing stuff. With eFit (as I like calling it) it’s there to teach a few healthy habits. I’ve definitely become aware of its teachings even if I haven’t adopted all of them yet (I’ll post more about things I can relate to subs next weekend on my monthly review), so I think I should move on to Stage 2 and maybe keep that running for two months. Get those body composition benefits going. I’ve got one more week to figure it out.
The bullet-points and Trello are making reviewing my efforts quite easy. It’s obvious to me that the greatest benefits can be gained by better time management and treating the weekend like any other day. The latter would also help my diet as there would be no more cheat days for food. That might make things harder for me though as I work hard throughout the week so I can reward myself during the weekend. Without the reward…
I continue to lose weight at about 1k/2lbs per week, but the scale was very confused about my fat and lean percentages. Which is not entirely uncommon after having slept through a day. Probably due to lack of hydration.
In the end I got the basics out of the way but didn’t get to do much more, and I also went to bed late, meaning I’ll likely wake up late and won’t have a lot to do tomorrow either. I’ll have to accept it is what it is and move forward.
Q&A
@King I believe I tried the one by Julian Jenkins. I got one of his Udemy courses out of curiosity and thus I’m on the mailing list. I might try or save this one as well. Or maybe I’ve completed so many shamanism courses by next year that I can make my own, complete with my own drum. I would like the idea of creating an audio track with guided meditation for the interested people.
Thanks for posting!
3 Likes
Do you have a link to the study?
Yesterday
- Duolingo Italian (15 minutes) @ 15:45
- Pranayama (15 minutes) @ 16:15
- KB24 Swings (5 minutes) @ 16:55
- IQ exercises (15 minutes - N4.2) @ 19:15
- Attention Focus exercises (10 minutes - 94.75%) @ 19:30
- Duolingo Italian (45 minutes) @ 20:15
- Meditation (5 minutes) @ 23:00
- About 1700 cals.
Need to do a load of Duolingo to keep my League status, so I figured I’d start earlier while enjoying my tea. On one hand I despise the leagues, on the other they do provide the necessity to come back to it every day. I wish I was at the point where I could converse a bit though, but Duo takes forever to get there. Still, I like how I can stay at a difficult point until I get it.
I also tried Pimsleur in the past which gets straight into conversations but can get very difficult very fast. Then there’s Earworms, which I actually really like and sometimes have running on long walks. Works best when the playlist is set to shuffle though.
It’s official, Sunday is now my Day 1 of the week. Did 5 minutes of swings. I will say the extra rest day helped, I felt really powerful in my swings. Actually thrust the bell up so high with my hips that I could push up down with my hands (and the nomination for easiest to misinterpret sentence goes to…)
Will have to start my subs then as well. Really wish eFit was ZP’d already.
In completely unrelated news, a woman was quarantined on board an airplane for many hours after she tested positive for COVID mid-flight. Where did they quarantine her you ask? The really tiny toilet of course! I have to wonder what she did when the Fasten Seatbelt sign came on (which she didn’t see).
IQ exercises are funny, that’s 3 days on 4.2 since I figured out something which works for me.For the attention focus one it still amazes me how easy it is to switch to auto-pilot.
Did a Duolingo sprint to get back into the highest League. Took a while, did lots of repetitions, they have their purpose as well. I wonder how rapidly you forget a second language when you don’t use it.
I dug up some of my old massage course materials and realized I’ve been making a mistake on my neck and shoulder muscles. When you find a “bad” spot to apply pressure to, it’s key to very slowly increase pressure. Too much pressure too soon and the muscle will lock up to protect itself. But by gently increasing pressure, the nervous system is triggered to go relax. My neck feels a lot better now.
I really should do some more (foam) rolling on the muscles, but it tends to take a big of time to do right, so I keep skipping it.
I was looking for some tips about forward folding when the belly isn’t totally flat when I found this:
One of those super obvious things barely anybody mentions. It made me smile.
Finally, my calorie count for today is within acceptable limits. I have some bread left but I was simply full and didn’t want anything anymore. That’s good I suppose.
I ended the day with a 5 minute active standing forward fold. My hamstrings did not like that.
Q&A
I was reluctant to share it since somebody who doesn’t believe will shout to everybody with ears that the scientists are quacks who should have never received a degree etc etc as long as they are right and everybody else is wrong. Some people unfortunately close themselves off from the mere possibility of possibility.
I went searching for the one I had read the full papers of, which was the second study on this page:
Scientific studies of the chakras
The original paper had the extra stuff about sound waves and colors which isn’t mentioned here. But it was in the 70’s I think so not the easiest to find.
I really think they should do a modern study, get a yogi, qigong healer, Tibetan monk and a random person who has no idea what’s going on and use sensors to measure what changes. I mean, they’ve done it with brainwaves and they’ve created equipment to measure the electromagnetic field around people and how it changes based on different thoughts and emotions, why not do this one with modern equipment as well?
Anyway, let’s leave it at this. I know what I experience during my asana practice, kriyas and meditation and I really don’t want to get lost in a big discussion about it. To each his or her own.
4 Likes
Hunt VV, Massey WW, Weinberg R, Bruyere R, Hahn PM (1977) Project Report: A Study of Structural Integration from Neuromuscular, Energy Field, and Emotional Approaches. Private printing: Sponsored by the Rolf Institute of Structural Integration, Boulder, CO.
To quote John Maynard Keynes, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do?”
I will see if I can get a copy of this.
4 Likes
Cool. Thank you for sharing.
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Yesterday
- Alarm @ 08:45 - out of bed @ 09:45
- Pranayama (15 minutes) @ 11:00
- Vibration plate (15 minutes) @ 12:45
- Yoga (15 minutes) @ 21:00
- IQ exercise (15 minutes - N4.3) @ 21:25
- Attention focus exercises (10 minutes - 96.5%) @ 21:40
- Meditation (5 minutes) @ 21:55
- Around 1000 cals
Note to self: I should rig an electronic bed to tilt me out of it in the morning.
Had a strange dream last night.
I dreamed I woke up in a room and there were bags of food supplements, protein powders and weight loss products stacked on shelves all around the room. There were also webs and spiders everywhere, mostly fakes but also some real ones. Looked a bit like Halloween. A friend was in the room and he thought it was all kind of funny. I didn’t.
At some point my partner (she felt a bit like Scully to Mulder) woke up and was looking around confused. As she neared a window I saw a real spider coming towards her. I shouted but was too late as she was bitten and collapsed. I shouted angrily at whomever had done this, while my friend didn’t move. I vaguely recall a man with a cane and a bowler hat (that traditional English thing) standing in the door opening and telling me something about small of stature before disappearing.
As I squashed the spider when it crept around the bed, I noticed a small vial inside it, presumably the antidote. My friend told me to pour it into my partner’s mouth, but I notice small markings on it, one being “small stature” and poured one-third into her mouth. She coughed and woke up.
That’s also when I was no longer able to maintain my dreamy haze and came up to the surface, The whole dream had a kind of Alice in Wonderland vibe to it.
If you think that’s nuts, the dream before that was related I think. It was me in pursuit of a secret society of men. Their means of transportation was a one-horse open sleigh without anything pulling it. In order to get it to move one needed the instructions on the inside of the belt of one of these men. In order to interpret those instructions, one needed their suspenders.
At some point I jumped on one such sleigh as it was leaving. I was with somebody, maybe that partner. We were knocked out and found ourselves in a cloudy or snowy landscape. The driver was nowhere to be found but his butler was. Time was running out and although we had the butler’s belt, it was only then I figured out the only other thing all those men had in common were their suspenders (which for the record were in a red Christmas theme just like the belts). So we were chasing the butler to take his suspenders from him when the dream ended.
I remember thinking it was the secret society responsible for the food supplements and spiders in the other dream.
Turns out there was no rush getting out of bed as the company firewall was extra secure and wouldn’t let anybody in, giving me ample time to write down the dream above and do breathing exercises after.
The rest of the day was pretty busy though. Got my sort-of exercise in and spent most of the afternoon learning more about Git version control and its setup at work.
We had one online happy new year get-together where I ended up drastically oversharing with the manager about my childhood. Fortunately she seemed to take it well.
Don’t quite know what happened after work. I think I was daydreaming a bit? Suddenly it was 21:00. I did some yoga (lots of painful little stretches) and the IQ stuff.
I think in a little while I’m giving those exercises a bit of a rest and start doing some puzzles instead. Keep some variety.
Threw in the last meditation in the latest Muse challenge. I’m feeling a bit depleted so I just want to relax now and at times meditating can be a chore. So I kept it short.
Tomorrow I can freely choose my meditation again. I’ll try out some different things.
I’m reluctant to do Duolingo again because it is easier to maintain my rank if I skip the first day of the week. You get matched with people starting their week around the same time, so skipping the first day means I get matched with lazy people.
But I suppose I have no choice. Didn’t put it on the list, but would have been about 15-20 minutes total.
Calories are low today as it was getting late again and I didn’t feel like it anymore.
Q&A
Now I feel embarrassed mentioning you behind your back. It’s nothing personal, you just have a tendency to get some people passionately involved. And others passionately frustrated.
Unfortunately I will admit that in that same line it was a study done in the 70’s when people were very much into that sort of thing and sponsored by an institute which had invented Rolfing which also does not have much more than YouTube reviews.
Which is why I think people should take a fresh look at it, if for no other reason than scientific curiosity.
Either way, to me it doesn’t matter if it’s real or not, I can easily live my life as if it is without coming across as a crazy person. Also gives me something to talk about with all those flexible yoga women after class. Win-win.
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Yesterday
- Alarm @ 08:45 - Mobile @ 09:15
- Pranayama (15 minutes) @ 10:45
- Meditation (20 minutes) @ 21:30
- About 2000 cals
I stretched upon waking up and the neck/back muscle which has been bugging me for a while finally had enough. As a result I can now barely move my head and there is constant pain at the back of the neck and below the right shoulder blade.
Even after (for the first time in years) taking an over-the-counter inflammatory and muscle relaxant I feel like training is suspended until further notice. I may be able to move better, but just because I don’t feel it doesn’t mean the cause isn’t still there. Don’t want to make it any worse. I’ll stick to brisk walks and vibrations for the coming days. Maybe I could do some Tai Chi or QiGong standing movements.
Go figure, just when I finally start using the muscles they quit. Maybe the universe is telling me to get that deep tissue massage.
Did the meditation @King linked to before, which was a YouTube full moon meditation. Behold my superior brainwaves! 
And going full surround:
Bit of an Alpha/Beta blend there. I still think it is strange that during my meditative state and sleep Alpha and Beta become dominant and during my waking alert state Theta and Delta rise to the top (you can see Delta drop at the start and rise at the end which is when I had my eyes open and on the screen). Maybe this is evidence that what I think of as reality is actually the dream and y’all are figments of my imagination.
If you guys have any other YT meditations with or without binaurals and the likes you want me to try, I’ll see if I can make a little graph of them, provided they don’t creep me out. Might be fun to see if my brain is merely a subliminal hard gainer or simply hard-headed in general.
I could also do one while listening to a ZP track in meditation. See if that changes things.
Neck doesn’t feel any better or worse after the meditation.
To distract myself I watched some reruns of stuff I liked and ended up going past midnight. So no Duolingo or IQ stuff for me. Don’t feel like much of anything right now anyways. Fortunately I think the pain isn’t bad enough to keep me from sleeping.
2 Likes
Yesterday
- Alarm @ 08:45, out of bed by 10
- Pranayama (15 minutes) @ 13:00
- Vibration plate 'n stretching (15 minutes) @ 13:30
- Duolingo (20 minutes) @ 20:20
- Meditation (20 minutes) @ 21:35
- IQ exercises (20 minutes - N4.3) @ 23:10
- Attention focus exercises (15 minutes - 96.75%) @ 23:30
- About 2100 cals.
Getting to sleep was doable as long as I didn’t move, but getting out of bed in the morning was a project which took me about 45 minutes. Getting my morning tea was another 15 minutes. I woke up with the entire right shoulder blade area inflamed and it turns out that area is actually useful for getting around. Oh, joy!
I guess this is why regular yoga is such a good thing. It uses every muscle in the body, preventing such injuries (which as far as I know happen either with overuse or underuse).
I really felt like doing some shoulder and arm stretches before getting in the vibration plate. Felt good, for a moment I felt normal. Then I tilted my head to the right.
The medicine has made it possible to do almost everything right now, albeit with some pain and discomfort. Hopefully that’s an indication the muscles are releasing. My boss told me that without painkillers the muscles refuse to release and the pain sticks around. I suppose it’s possible, elicit too much pain from a muscle and it will defend itself by locking up. But if that’s also the case in a situation like mine, how would it ever heal when you’re in constant pain?
I tried a heavy visualization meditation with the purpose of figuring out if there’s an imbalance of one of the elements in the body. Unfortunately I pretty much fell asleep during it. Which was not that pleasant as that meant my chin dropped to my chest which my still painful muscle does not like. Either way, this is the graph.
I’ll have to do a baseline measurement of sorts during work hours when I’m answering emails and doing day to day stuff.
I got a bunch of cloud-related courses applicable to my job and also got some crowdfunded handstand aids which I think are probably way too expensive. I consider that work-life balance.
I’ve seen half of the crowdfunding campaigns I contributed hundred of bucks to the past years go dark with the pandemic. Too bad as there were some really nice ones. Really don’t get all those people blaming the crowdfunding platform. It is literally on the payment page that once your payment goes to the campaign owner there is nothing they can do to get it back.
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Yesterday
Muscles were locked up again this morning. Pretty normal after sleeping. Still, it’s a bit worse than I thought it would be. My day started out with discomfort, went on to feel like the occasional sticking a needle in there and ended with a general burning sensation but full mobility. Hopefully I’m getting to the end.
I ended up working until 20:00 and am mentally worn out so I will not be productive today unfortunately. Making this a very short post. It happens, I suppose. My treat.
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Yesterday
- Out of bed @ 10:30
- Pranayama @ 16:20
- Vibration Plate @ 18:15
- About 2100 cals.
I slept in this morning. Only half a day of work so I can afford it.
My muscle pain is back with a vengeance, the pain is probably worse than it has been since the start.
I was watching a documentary about sound and they talked about this:
It’s kind of cool, I can imagine affecting it by meditating with a plant. Focusing on the essence of the plant or sending Reiki into it. I teacher I had once said that when you observe a plant or tree its energy field reaches out to you. He sometimes felt a bit uncomfortable in forests when all the trees reached out to him at the same time.
But what if you can actually hear the sound change because you’re affecting the plant? I’d be curious about that.
They also spoke about the quiet zones around telescopes looking at space. An area where no radio signals are allowed. I’ve spent some time in a shielded room and the effect is definitely noticeable. It would be nice to live in a place like that. Or at least create a radio wave blocking meditation area and bed.
Did the vibration plate in the evening. Hopefully I won’t be punished for it in the morning.
Also did a little bit of Duolingo in between other things.
I tried some Jalapeno-flavored potato chips. Must have been a bad batch, I couldn’t taste anything anymore after the second chip.
Other than that, I was mostly still dealing with the dull pain in my back. It’s getting a bit annoying by now, not being able to do much. I wonder if I’ll have gained weight this week.
By the way, this weekend should be my first retrospective. Won’t be too interesting, mostly a look back at the month, see where there’s room for improvement and some questions for you guys.
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Monthly Retrospective: January
It’s the final weekend of the month and so I look back at the month to see what I did and did not do.
General
January was all about getting more structured in both life and work. I started exercising more often but pulled that muscle near the end so there goes the habit. I also did a lot of house-cleaning (mainly digital) to gain a clearer picture of things.
Positives
This month the greatest positive thing I did was to create that structure. If I can’t see where I am, I can’t see where I’m going.
- I have diligently posted every day,
- I created the convenient bullet-point lists,
- I started mild calorie counting, and
- I created the Trello boards.
The bullet point lists allow me to clearly see where I’m going wrong, the calorie counting may not mean much in the larger picture (diet composition and timing are much more important) but has been somewhat successful in stopping me from overeating.
Finally, the Trello might be the best thing I did. I have slightly changed the goals and will make them more SMART style or split them at a later moment. I also added a little note on each goal stating what I did or did not do towards this goal the past month. And I’ve created one board just for the retrospective.
I like how it works so far. I’m considering adding colored labels to them. Still need to consider whet those might represent though. Priority? Effort required?
Negatives
What, if anything, did I find lacking? Where could I have done better?
In order of importance:
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Sleep management
Obviously I still can’t help myself from saying up too late and sleeping too little. The first week went well, but I quickly devolved to staying up late and oversleeping. I am going to need some strategy to deal with this and could use some advice. More on this in the Questions section. -
Time management
Separated from the above, our bodies and minds prefer routines. Performing the same actions at the same time every day. You can see that when exercising every morning. If you suddenly skip a day your body will actually still act like you’re exercising.
In my case, in part due to oversleeping, my actions are all over the map. This in turn can also lead to a stressful sprint to the finish line which in turn leads to a late dinner and chill and an even later bedtime.
So I will need to find some way to schedule my recurring activities. This may or may not be possible before the sleep management is fixed. -
Diet management
Even though overall I did reasonable, there is a lot of room for improvement. A strict diet would be harder to maintain if I have to cut out the cheat days (even though they are the cause for all the issues). It is the eventual goal though. For now, however, I will need to see if I can cut back on the “cheating” even more so there is nothing left of those foods during the weekdays.
As far as the last one goes, with my dentist having moved the appointment to March and the official IQ test also in March, combined with the back muscle recovery time, I am considering fasting throughout February. It might give me a quick boost back into ketosis, make it easier to go into a better diet afterwards and help with my annoyance with having more flexibility than movement range. Then again, it may just be an excuse to overeat this weekend…
Subliminals and Me
This is a hard part for me. I might be considered a hard gainer. Or at least a very subtle one.
A second consideration is that some of the results I’m getting might not actually be from subs I’m running but ones which I have run in the past. For example, the biggest changes I could attribute to Khan actually happened a year after I had completed running it, when I was already listening to something different entirely.
For these reasons I have given up on the constant focus on how the subs might be affecting me. Instead, I simply state that they do and make notes of anything which I would consider other than ordinary. I then consider the subs I’m running and the ones I was running before that.
So, where does that leave me?
I have experienced a massive drive to structure and clarify everything. The bullet-points, jouralling, Trello and a lot of de-cluttering have really made a difference and came as an unexpected surprise. I have been wanting to do things like that for years but never got around to them and now it came natural and effortless.
This of course is hard to put on Emperor Fitness or Spartan. But I was running EoG & AM before the start of the ZP tests and after the end of them. And I have little doubt that these are skills which greatly benefit financial success.
I have been more assertive at work, as if I am less afraid that people will respond negatively to me speaking my mind. This comes combined with apparently having more emotional connection with the people I work with. So who knows, Chosen ZP may also be at work here.
The sudden interest and drive concerning IQ may have been brought on by JCast bringing it up and me getting curious and seeing it as a game, it could also have been because I ran Limitless ZP at the time. Either way, it’ll stay strong at least until the end of March I expect, although the N-Backs are getting a bit boring.
As far as Spartan, eFit, GLM & Paragon go, I suppose I have not seen that much yet. If anything, maybe it’s easier to do certain things. Like eating healthy during weekdays or picking up a weight and exercising. I don’t get energized and enthused doing those things, but I don’t meet any internal resistance either. It’s more a feeling of not caring either way so I might as well go ahead and do it.
I also find myself thinking about how fast I was able to make progress on those swings. At first I kept getting annoyed that I almost never reached that 10 minute set. But then I realized how difficult Tabatas used to be and those are only 4 minutes long. So I’m already doing a great deal more than I thought I would.
In the end, there is only so much progress one can make in the health & fitness category at any given time. So I try to focus enough actions in that category to keep moving forward and fill the rest of my time with other areas of focus. I’m moderating myself a bit better though, in the past I’ve been so driven by exercise that I injured myself.
I’ll probably add a column in my retro board for things I can link to subs. Then in future reviews I might have more for you.
Questions
I notice that when I ask for help from the audience, you either don’t see it, don’t feel like helping, don’t think you can help, don’t think I’ll listen to you or one of many other reasons.
So, I’m giving it its own section here. Here goes.
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What techniques do you use to get enough sleep?
I’ve heard people say to set the alarm and wake up to it even if you only went to bed an hour earlier. Doing it often enough would force you to go to bed earlier from exhaustion. I’ve also heard people say to simply have the discipline to go to bed earlier.
I personally have been playing with the idea of determining a time (midnight for example) when I go to bed. When that time arrives, I drop whatever it is I’m doing, brush my teeth and go to bed.
This would mean I may leave a lot of things unfinished. But over time might lead to better patterns and actually increased productivity. -
Do any of you actually plan your day in advance? If so, how do you get started with that and how do you deal with unexpected things?
I recall Saint telling me he plans everything, he always knows exactly what he’s going to do on any given day. Would lead to crazy productivity I think.
For diet management I don’t really need answers. I know all I need to know for now, but am still challenged to apply it evenly. I tend to jump from one thing to the next.
And there you go, my first 2022 retrospective. Another one next month, a bigger one every quarter and another post from me tomorrow.
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The most important for me is not using an alarm.
I have this annoying habit of not being able to sleep if I have to wake up at a pre-determined time in the morning. I keep waking up all the time to check the time.
I get a nice 8h sleeps on average every night.
Of course, I have the advantage of not having to care when I usually wake up. I usually go to the factory around 11am. And leave after 10pm. This past week I left a bit earlier just to get away from computer for a while.
I’m 100% undisciplined in this regard. I don’t use a calendar. I don’t plan my days. I hardly take notes.
If I don’t remember something, it wasn’t important 
I haven’t missed anything important with my “method”.
I learned all these bad habits in school. That’s what you get when there is no advanced class and the schooling system is most efficient in getting the bad students to a decent level. Too bad it killed all my motivation for any official education like university etc.
Then again, I hate working for other people anyway. Diplomas are only important if you want to get a job. Of course, that’s propably not true, but my stubborn belief.