Category: Self Improvement

This was written January 05, 2025

Introduction

Hello everyone!

As I find myself writing this, it is roughly 5:30pm Sunday evening, local time. It has now been a few weeks since I’ve start a new experiment, Disconnected Sundays, with varying degrees of success.

Disconnected Sundays

What are Disconnected Sundays? Simply put, I’ve decided to spend` the entirety of my Sundays without access to internet. Thus, as I head to bed on Saturday night, I disable the internet from my laptop and phone. Then, I go about my Sunday life as normal, albeit without access to internet.

But why? Having realized I waste a significant amount of time on the internet, (and I do mean waste) and that it affects my mental health negatively, I set out to find a solution. There are two main culprits for this negative impact:

• I easily get consumed by passive activities online, such as watching videos or mindlessly browsing.
• I spend all my time thinking and worrying about communication with others, idly waiting for responses or communications from others, and constantly thinking about what to write to others, which generates a ton of anxiety.

Therefore, I opted to investigate whether avoiding these for one day a week could negate their negative impact. Whatmore, this could also hopefully increase my productivity.

Part of the inspiration came from the Shabboth. For those unfamiliar with it, part of this Judaic custom involves not being able to actively interact with electricity (for example, you can’t turn on or off a light). It’s been my impression that for a lot of people, part of this custom also involves further devotion to the scripture, resulting in impressive results. It also seems like a lot of people generally use this as an opportunity to read, study or do what I’d consider more productive activities (including close-knit social interactions).

While I am not a practitioner of this faith, I still find it a rather inspiring one. And I couldn’t help but ponder over this custom and its benefits. I eventually concluded that there were important take aways leading to an opportunity to better myself. And so, I landed on this notion of Disconnected Sundays.

Why Sundays? It’s simple, it’s the only day of the week I neither work nor go to school, so it seemed like the only valid option. In particular, on any workday, it seems like I’m “duty-bound” to using my phone.

Results so far

As I’ve said, it’s already been a few weeks since I’ve started.So, how’s it going so far? Well, it’s a mixed bag. For starters, I tend to stay up rather late on Saturdays. Indeed, it’s the only day of the week where I can afford to, and it sometimes is necessary when I want to inteact with family or friends in other time zones. With a 12-16h time difference, opportunities for longer calls or gaming sessions are definitely rarer. Accordingly, it’s not rare on Sundays for me to wake up around 12pm or 1pm, a huge chunk of my day already having elapsed. I’ve also had 1-2 days where I was fairly sick, and simply spent all day in bed reading and resting.

However, despite these “setbacks”, I still consider most of those days to have be fairly productive. I find myself reading a lot more than on average days, I manage to make good progress on homework and studies, I even find time to work on some projects (such as writing this current post). So overall, I would label this a success. So much so I’m wondering whether I should try to implement this on Mondays as well, although it might be a bit more complicated, and inconvenient for others.

While this covers productivity, there remains my tendency to stress over communications with others. Well, I still find myself looking at my phone fairly regularly, or at the very least thinking about it, and then realizing that I don’t actually have access to this functionality. Still, as the day goes on, this tendency gradually wanes, which is a positive tendency. It’s just a shame that benefit does not carry on through the rest of the week, and nor to the next Sunday, but it is what it is. Better a temporary gain than no gain at all!

Of course, this does not come without its lot of inconveniences. For isntance, I’ve had a few instances where I went out and just couldn’t look up specific information online, nor use a map to find locations. But hey, that used to be the status quo just a few short decades ago, so there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to adapt to it, right?

Lastly, I must also admit that I unfortnately often lack in the discipline department. There have been a few occurences of me re-enabling the internet around 9pmi and communicating with others or watching stuff online. Still, that does not invalidate any of the progress I make during the rest of the day, far from it. And it’s something I should still be able to improve.

Conclusion

Well, there you are. Disconnected Sundays are a new habit I’ve formed, which I believe adds value to my weeks. And although it comes with some costs, the benefits definitely outway the negatives. Although keep in mind this is according to my own goals and mindset. Your mileage may vary.

Still, I do think it’s worth trying for yourselves, if you dare. If nothing, it’s at least an interesting experiment, and you could be find yourself pleasantly surprised by the results.

On that note, thanks for joining, and take care everyone!

This was written January 02, 2025

Introduction

As mentioned in a recent update, I’m planning work on myself through the implementation of better and healthier habits. There are many aspects to consider: how to track and complete tasks and errands, finding ways to consistently study and work on projects despite a more constrained schedule, having a better diet, doing more exercise, etc…

But in order to maximize my chances of success, I should prioritize what’s most critical. In this case, what’s more important than sleep? If you don’t sleep well, it impacts everything else. Energy is low, concentration is poor, motivation is lackluster, even health starts suffering. This is why I plan to first attempt to improve my sleep.

Improving my sleep

So what’s the plan? Well, there are a few avenues I can explore. The main areas I can think of are:

• Sleep Schedule/Consistency
• Sleep Hygiene
• Sleep Quality

Sleep Schedule

While sleep quality is harder to approach in some instances (E.g.: If it’s a health issue, or if I need to purchase items), there are still many things I can do to improve my sleep.

Obviously, the first thing I can control is my sleeping schedule and its consistency. Currently, I’m often rather lazy when it comes to bed time, often procrastinating ad-nauseum before heading to bed, despite knowing what would be best for myself. Sometimes it takes the form of idling watching videos or shows, sometimes in the form of chatting with others, and sometimes it’s simply wanting to relax a bit after work. But most of it stems from a lack of discipline on my part. Consequently, I should institute a clearly defined sleep schedule I abide by. According to my work constraints (and the current iteration of my schedule), I plan on having the following bedtimes:

• Sunday: Before 10pm
• Monday: Before 10pm
• Tuesday: Before 11pm
• Wednesday: Before 11pm
• Thursday: Before 11pm
• Friday: Before 11pm

But what about Saturday? Well…I sometimes plan late-night events with friend in North America, since that’s usually the most sensible time (due to the time differences). Thus, it might be a bit complicated to have a reasonable bedtime on Saturday. However, if I notice that it negatively impacts the rest of my week, I’ll adapt accordingly.

Two additional comments. First, I do not plan to have fixed wake-up times for now. The most important thing for me is to go to sleep at a reasonable time and hopefully get enough sleep, depending on what my body craves. Moreover, it’s hard to plan for nightly disruptions (like needing to use the restroom). But once I have a more regular sleeping schedule, I’m sure my body will adapt and I’ll be able to plan accordingly.

Next, while I state I want to go to sleep by a specified time, e.g.: “Before 10pm”, my goal is to get to bed 30 minutes ahead of schedule, yet have a margin of error.

Sleep Hygiene

Other than my sleep schedule, I could also work on my sleep hygiene. First, one thing I believe plagues most people nowadays is phone usage in bed. I’ve gradually started away while charging it at night, making it inaccessible, although I’m not always too disciplined about it. Beyond that, I also have the terrible habit of putting on a tv show when I go to bed. This is in part to drown out my own thoughts, which tend to spiral while I’m trying to sleep. I will thus attempt to remove those bad habits from my life. For the phone, the approach is fairly self-evident, and simply requires discipline. As for television, it actually feels less straightforward. I often worry about changing that habit, especially when I have something important the next day (e.g.: an exam). Indeed, I worry it might negatively impact my sleep and that I might simply be unable to fall asleep.

Thus, I think I might want to take a gradual approach. In a first step, I would swap out television for music (possibly classical music, or at least something relaxing). Obviously, I’ll want to add a sleep timer to it so it doesn’t go on all night. Eventually, if this transition goes smoothly, I can finally move on to a completely silent approach…unless my environment turns out to be too noisy (e.g.: Neighbors or street noises).

Conclusion

Well, here’s the beginning of my new journey towards self-improvement. As a first step, I intend on improving my sleep. I also plan to document this in a “journal” format, logging the times I go to sleep, along with whether I relied on television or not. I will then try to share my results here. If possible, I’ll try to log my wake-up times, and how tired I feel during the day, although I can’t make guarantees on this.

On this note, I hope you tune in next time, and that I’m more refreshed from better sleep! Hopefully this also makes you reflect on your own habits and how you might want to improve upon them. Have a nice one everyone! Take care!