Sunday 7 August 2016

Blaugust 7, 2016: Taking Stock of Stuff!





It’s nearly eight o’clock at night and my mind is slipping into ‘sleep’ mode rapidly, and I haven’t blauged yet. Just like most nights this last week. Seems to be a bit of pattern there, whoever would have suspected? Anywho, I think I will use tonight’s blaug to take stock.

I am pleased to report that this (will) make me seven blaugs for seven days, which is a solid starting effort. Imagine me flailing like Kermit the frog at this juncture.

My little ‘break’ from sugar seems to be going well. I have so far avoided the shakes, possibly because I bought some strawberries which I split over two nights, and have weaponised the odd banana in the fight against cravings. I am still anxiety-eating, however, and I need to be a bit more careful about smashing back the amount of pasta I have been smashing back; likewise pizza, which has been too attractive an option on nights when I really can’t be bothered. Probably the biggest issue is how tired I am feeling. I don’t know if that is the new job, the lack of sugar, or what, but I seriously hit the wall hard at about 7 at the moment.

Saving money has been going OK. I haven’t been as disciplined as I set out to be, but I think I should yet reach my $5000 goal by September. In related news, I need much less for a house deposit than I thought, because HomeStart’s graduate loans are available to anyone who has completed as little as a Cert III. Lucky me! This makes things eminently more achievable, as does having a full-time job.

I’ve been dreaming again over the last few months, or perhaps it is more accurate to say that I have been having dreams that I remember again over the last few months. I used to have great dreams as a teenager and young adult, but that stopped around about the time I moved in with Kelly. The cause was likely that I was in my mid-twenties, in the middle of my change in direction to the environmental sector, work was pretty shit, and AVCon 2008 was scarring me. I was also staying up too late playing video games and getting less sleep.

I think the dreams have come back because I have made an effort to get more in synch with daylight. I’m going to bed earlier, I’m getting up earlier. I am getting more sleep in total, too. I don’t refresh properly on 7.5-8 hours as most do, I work better off 9. I don’t get that every night, but I get it more often than I did.

The transition to earlier bedtimes has been fairly straightforward. I’m finding that I am less interested in games these days, so that isn’t keeping me awake, though my screen time is still considerable. I installed f.lux, which has been a big help with that side of things. The other important factor has been that I am not staying up to interact with the important people in my life any more. Many are either busy adulting or also trying to sleep earlier. Others have drifted out of my day to day.

One thing I am going to have to work on is work burnout. I am aiming to rack up a paid day off each month by working very slightly more than 7.6 hours each day. As I think I talked about, there was a day I missed lunch. This was great for going towards a PDO, but having no break that day really set me back. Being near the end of the week and a little worn out already, I ended up not entirely with it for the whole next day. This is something I should actively prevent in the future. No more skipping lunch. I should also prioritise an extra hour of sleep on Wednesday and Thursday nights.

OK, that’s enough taking stock. I am going to watch an episode of something amusing, then move using yawn propulsion to bed.

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