Challenge morning

So I’m typing this out on my Kindle Fire because I decided last night that I would turn off my computer WIFI and start the day without it. I plan to stick to that.

I’m up early. It’s 7:05, and I have a bowl of cereal next to me to finish, then it’s on to writing. Wish me luck. I’m going to need it. :)

Web reading challenge: day 4

I started this challenge on January 23rd, making today day four.

I haven’t cracked once since I started it, but it sure hasn’t been easy. I seek out distractions when my brain gets tired of focusing on one thing and it’s been interesting to notice just how often that really is.

That said, I think this is a powerful and important challenge for me and I have every intention of sticking it out until the end of February.

Web reading challenge: morning one

Mornings are when I expect to have my most difficulty with this web reading challenge I’m doing. I tend to spend a lot of time in the mornings settling into the day reading this stuff.

I didn’t have any trouble at all this morning. Haven’t even been tempted. Stopping myself from clicking certain things by habit wasn’t even a problem, because last night I deleted all my bookmarks and history from my devices for the particular infotainment sources I want to avoid.

Not clicking the trending tab in my Fire tablet was a little more difficult, but I gave it the side-eye and moved on. I’m pretty happy with myself at the moment.

I haven’t cut out all web reading, by the way. Just stuff that I associate with addictive patterns.

For example, the Dean Wesley Smith blog. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen DWS post more than once a day and the comments on his site are moderated and he seems to only let them through once a day too. No addictive behavior rewards there, so I’m not worried about taking a peek at the site while I eat my breakfast, which I did. In other words, once I’ve visited, there’s no point going back!

Am I worried about slipping into a habit of visiting twenty blogs that are only infrequently updated and basically recreating the thing I’m avoiding?

No, because I’m just not going to do that. I’m not trading one web reading addiction for another. Full stop, not going to happen.

I feel really good about this challenge. I think it’s going to do me a world of good. :)

Caffeine helped but it’s time to quit again

I’m facing caffeine withdrawal again, but this time I’m trying to wean myself off caffeine instead of just eliminating it altogether. I can’t face the headaches with the holidays so near and my deadlines looming.

I’m drinking water in a cup, hoping it will satisfy the need to have a cup of something nearby. It seemed to work yesterday and is working okay this morning too.

I waited yesterday until I had a headache before I drank any coffee and I only had 6 ounces then. It took about 45 minutes for the headache to completely go away after that, but it did go away. It’s not that I plan to wait for the headache every day, but I did need to know at about what time to expect it. That would be at about 4 pm. So today, I’ll have a cup of my favorite green tea (considerably less caffeine than equal amounts of coffee) after lunch and see if it can hold off the headache. I will admit, it’s only 10 a.m. and I’m already feeling twinges over my right eye, but I’m going to wait and see if it’s a full blown headache forming earlier today, or if it’s just this sinus thing I’ve got going on.

I want to do this because I’ve been having some side effects from the caffeine that I’m ready to get away from for a while. Dry skin (so dry that it’s like I’ve developed a coating of powered sugar on my arms, LOL), possibly a stomach ulcer (something I’ve never had before, but maybe it’s something else, who knows?), jitters, and a bad habit of staying up really late but not really getting anything extra done to make up for it.

I don’t mind staying up late if I can look back and see that I’ve accomplished something during that time, but that’s not what happening. I’m planning to go to bed early, then puttering around doing much of nothing but reading stuff that’s a waste (like forums and blogs with info I’ve read a hundred or thousand times before).

I feel like I’ve been sick more often lately, too, but that might also be unrelated. Then again, sleep and dehydration probably play a roll in illness, so…

Anyway, that’s the plan. Here’s hoping I make it! The holidays are a tough time to quit anything, IMO, so I know I’m going to have to watch out for stumbles.