Designing a Well Lived Life: Checking In (August 2021)

Checking in for August for my "Designing a Well-Lived Life" blogging.
This is about making small changes during the year to make larger
changes.

This past month I spent recharging myself. This meant that a lot of
things went by the wayside while I was relaxing.

• Work on my game projects at least three times a week: I didn't work
  on this in lieu of relaxing.

• Meditation and mindfulness: I did some meditation in the morning.
  Hoping to do more of these in the morning.

• Work with less distractions and more focus on deeper work
  (Relentlessly prune bullshit): Made some progress with this, but
  there are times when social media or other things start distracting
  me. More practice needed.

• Walk or ride the recumbent bike at least four times a week: Didn't
  work on this much this month. Hoping that the cooler temperatures
  bring some more walking opportunities.

• Get further out of debt: Making progress with this.

• Play more games: I did take some time to play some games over the
  month. There were times when I sat down to play a game but my heart
  wasn't in it. But there were times when it did work and it reminded
  me why I like games and playing games. (Trust me, this is more
  revelatory than it seems.)

• Spend at least one night a week working on programming projects: No
  progress.

• Declutter and make our place more alive: I have renewed my
  commitment to this task. I'm starting to embrace more minimalism.
  More to come.

Onward to September.

http://decafbad.net/2021/08/30/designing-a-well-lived-life-checking-in-august-2021/

#misc #Adayinthelife #Seachange #ZenHabits #SocialMedia #Computers

Designing a Well Lived Life: Checking In (July 2021)

Checking in for July for my "Designing a Well-Lived Life" blogging. This
is about making small changes during the year to make larger changes.

• Work on my game projects at least three times a week: This month was
  also difficult for me to do anything related to game design. I found
  myself struggling to do my normal work and found that game design
  was just something extra to add to that pile. I'm going to take
  August off from doing game design just to recharge myself and
  determine if this is something that I still want to pursue.

• Meditation and mindfulness: Not as much as I would have liked.
  Whenever I did take the time to meditate I enjoyed it, and whenever
  I slowed down to be mindful I felt more relaxed and present. Useful
  skills, but I don't tend to remember to do them as often as I
  should.

• Work with less distractions and more focus on deeper work
  (Relentlessly prune bullshit): I've been finding myself doing this
  organically with my desire to pull back whenever I'm overloaded.
  Still need to work more on the pruning piece (I'm still not quite
  where I want to be regarding non-bullshit) but can say that there's
  been movement on this.

• Walk or ride the recumbent bike at least four times a week: Warm
  days make it more difficult to do this, though I have brought out my
  juggling stuff to do more exercise. Also the exercise bike got
  folded up when we had the possibility of a flooded basement, so I'll
  need to unfold that again.

• Get further out of debt: Making progress on this. Can see the light
  at the end of one of our credit cards. Still spending too much on
  physical and PDF books. I think part of that is looking for comfort.

• Play more games: You'd think this is an area I'd excel at given the
  stressors of the month. Leave it to me to turn playing games into a
  chore. WE did manage to play a game of Azul on the last day of the
  month, but overall I'm struggling to get the energy to do any solo
  roleplaying or to sit down and play literally any games (Zaccaria
  Pinball notwithstanding). Need to give myself more fun and
  exploration.

• Spend at least one night a week working on programming projects:
  PyOhio was yesterday and it's the firs time in a while that I have
  thought "I should do more programming" in a long while. Maybe August
  could be the month where this gets more attention.

• Declutter and make our place more alive: Trying to keep stasis
  between incoming and outgoing. Made some headway, but more to work
  on here.

Overall the month was more about maintenance than anything. I think
August will focus more on recharging and refocusing.Ever onward.

http://decafbad.net/2021/08/01/designing-a-well-lived-life-checking-in-july-2021/

#misc #Adayinthelife #Seachange #ZenHabits #SocialMedia #Computers

Designing a Well Lived Life: Checking In (June 2021)

Checking in for [June] for my "Designing a Well-Lived Life" blogging.
This is about making small changes during the year to make larger
changes.

This past month was rather busy. I've been helping my parents to move
into a smaller place, and much of my time on the weekends has been spent
helping them process, pack, and move things. It's also resulted in me
decluttering over here, which has been both exhilarating and tiring.
This has overshadowed much of my intentions for the past month and made
it difficult to really focus. I've been exhausted and crabby and loathe
to get up to do any more work. But, this is a practice ground and the
one thing I can do is keep trying and keep plugging away. Hence, that's
why I'm checking in this month.

• Work on my game projects at least three times a week: This was the
  first thing to go. I've not been getting up early (which is when I
  tend to work on these) so I haven't worked on them at all. By the
  time I'm done with work the last thing I want to do is more work, so
  I keep putting these off. What will help is if I decouple the time
  that I work on this and pull back from needing to be refreshed. Even
  if I can give these a little space they might prove less burdensome
  and more enjoyable. Definitely an area to work on.

• Meditation and mindfulness: This was also pushed aside. Even two
  minutes felt like a bridge-too-far. Need to reconnect with this
  practice each day and not feel burdened by just giving myself space.

• Work with less distractions and more focus on deeper work
  (Relentlessly prune bullshit): Mildly successful. There were periods
  where I was able to work without distractions but the more tired and
  exhausted I am the more I seek comfort in external sources
  (Mastodon, Youtube, BoardGameGeek, etc.) Pulling back on needing
  comfort may help here.

• Walk or ride the recumbent bike at least four times a week: My
  exercise this month was moving boxes, whether it was at my parents
  or at the post office (shipping off things to the Internet Archive).
  Not sure if I can claim this as mindfully exercising, but at least
  I'm moving, so calling this a win.

• Get further out of debt: Ho boy. I'm still making progress on our
  credit card debt and paying off bills, but I've also been finding
  myself purchasing more RPG games this past month. I need to curb
  that spending considerably, and hope that with the price increase at
  DriveThru RPG on premium color books that will be a slight
  disincentive to keep funneling my money into RPG books.

• Play more games: The next thing to get set aside was my desire to
  play any games. I've been reading a lot, and have a backlog of games
  that I would like to try out, but at the moment I'm not feeling the
  space to play any of them. We'll see if I can make some progress on
  this next month.

• Spend at least one night a week working on programming projects:
  Even with Coffee House Coders being once a week I've not done
  anything related to external programming projects. My headspace in
  this area is essentially moribund.

• Declutter and make our place more alive: Made some significant
  progress in this area out of necessity. With an influx of stuff
  coming in I have become way less patient to keep anything that isn't
  being used anytime soon. This has resulted in me listing a bunch of
  board games for sale/trade, donating books and 78rpm records, and
  just making space where I can. At the very least I can say that I've
  made some headway to removing some of the cruft that has been
  building up.

July is going to be an interesting month. I still have boxes of stuff to
ship out, and hopefully we can unload some of what we have taken on when
things settle, but for now despite my complaints I'm relishing the
progress that I have made with decluttering. If I can keep the mindset
that I don't have to think about things when I'm not the curator of them
then I think that will help me gain more energy in other spaces and help
me to reconnect with my projects and designs. Even so, I still need to
give those designs and projects space to thrive.

http://decafbad.net/2021/06/30/designing-a-well-lived-life-checking-in-june-2021/

#misc #Adayinthelife #Seachange #ZenHabits #SocialMedia #Computers