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.<p>Here's my list:<p>- Eat properly(no junk food, no coffee, no nootropics)<p>- 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)<p>- Daily exercise<p>- Daily fiction writing(250 words at least)<p>- Daily coding(or studying anying related to Computer Science.)<p>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.<p>By the way, if you have such list - can you share it?
> and Reddit does not count as reading)<p>This is the key point, honestly. Hacker News and other online forums are fun and all, but ultimately they waste so much time.<p>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].<p>[1] <a href="https://www.criterion.com/library/expanded_view?m=hulu&p=1" rel="nofollow">https://www.criterion.com/library/expanded_view?m=hulu&p=1</a>
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!)<p>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.<p>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.
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.<p>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.
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.<p>I think rebooting should be required of a lot of your average (and not-so-average) typologies. Breaking the mold is <i>essential</i> 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?
This is a list of mostly nice advice.<p>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.<p>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.<p>There are some nice motivational subReddits.<p>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.
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.<p>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).<p>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.
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..
I'm also in the process of rebooting my life.<p>Central to my approach has been thinking what I want to achieve (quality), in what areas I want to achieve it and how.<p>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.
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".<p>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.
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.<p>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.<p>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.