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Therapy Logbook

This is a log of the things I've done, tried, failed at between my last session on Sept 06 and my next session on Sept 27.

Sept 07-08 First weekend

The bad: - This weekend was quite bad, spent both days doing almost nothing. All YouTube and forums. - Failed to play as much guitar as I intended. Essentially spent no time on music. - Failed to clean the house like I had intended. - Have yet to start the meditation.

The good: - Did cut my hair. - Worked out both days, in the morning to start my day.

Important note: - late Sunday night I decided to research site and app blocking apps and decided that whatever it costs is absolutely worth the price if it ends up working. - Installed Freedom.io app on my phone and set a schedule. - Block apps and sites (YouTube, forums, guitar related sites) from 9:00PM to 8:00PM the next day, every day of the week.

Sept 09 First day of app blocking

  • Installed the Freedom.io app on my laptop.
  • First day of using Freedom.io app.
  • Successfully made it through the day, I checked out forums and reddit during the open window but it was short lived and I wasn't drawn to it much.

Sept 12 Three days into app blocker

  • I've noticed that my mind is significantly calmer throughout the day.
  • I have much more (almost full) control of what I want and intend to do.
  • When the window opens to check all the sites and apps, I don't find myself overly interested.
  • I have not experienced any standout moments of boredom.

Saturday Sept 14

  • had 45 min before driving Angie to work, spent the time doing deliberate guitar practice.
  • Normally, I would have filled that time with useless internet use.
  • Generally, I've noticed that I'm filling a lot of small time windows throughout the day with productive tasks instead of useless internet use.

Sunday Sept 15

  • Given that I'm still logged into YouTube on my TV, I spent most of the day watching YouTube.
  • Failed to do most of the things I wanted to accomplish today.
  • The failure fueled a second wave of taking actions to block apps.
  • I installed browser extentions on both mobile and desktop that remove all the algorithmic features from YouTube, Instagram and Reddit. Things such as the home page, suggested channels, suggested videos, comments. Basically all the things that really hook you into using the Apps.
  • I don't really know what I can do for the YouTube app on the TV. I think the best approach is to abstain from using the TV as much as possible.

Monday Sept 16

  • Stopped taking L-tyrosine as it was effecting my sleep.

Tuesday Sept 17

  • Managed to distract myself with some guitar related course and researching some gear.
  • It wasn't as bad as my regular days before because I didn't have access to forums, but still distracting enough to not do a lot of work.

Wednesday Sept 18

  • started looking at forums on my work computer.
  • The reason for this is that I have something I'm intensly interested in looking into. Enough to push me to work around my blockers.

Thursday Sept 19

  • Really bad day using work computer to do a bunch of research.
  • Feel overwhelmed and stressed by work now because of being distracted and not working.
  • I installed the app/website blocker on my work computer after my work day.

Thursday Sept 24

  • The weekend wasn't too bad since we had family over.
  • Monday and Tuesday were not great given that I was able to research what I was wanting.
  • Added more sites to the block list.