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AM Routine/Ritual:

• make bed

• empty dishwasher (menial tasks helps my brain wake-up and gets a chore out of the way)

• put on contact lenses and brush teeth

• movement and cardio (I want to be able to move around at old age so I have been practicing a daily routine of movement (lunges, squats, stretches, hip mobility) and light cardio (shadow boxing). I use a boxing timer on my phone and do 3 rounds of shadow boxing (3 minutes each) followed by 1 minute of rest in which I "move" and stretch.)

• drink a large glass of water (gets the juices going)

• cold shower (Builds comfort with discomfort. Because the water doesn't get cold enough, I always keep a pitcher of tap water in the fridge and pour it on at the end of the shower. I literally walk out and smile when I'm done.)

• meditate (I use the headspace app)

• do my hair and get dressed

• eat and take some vitamins (very quick meal)

• get inspired (I usually read a passage out of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and interpret it with my own words and visualize how I can apply it to my life)

• state one thing for which I am grateful

• calibrate day (ie. make my schedule)

Why?

The ordering just works for me. I am debating making my inspiration ritual the first thing I do upon waking. This routine takes 1.5hrs. If I am unable to complete it, I usually cut out the movement and cardio and do it later in the day. I will also cut out the inspiration. That's about 30 minutes right there.

>Our mind is analogous to a cup of muddy water. The longer you keep a cup of muddy water still, the more mud settles down and the water will be seen clearly. Similarly, if you keep quiet without moving your body, focusing your entire undivided attention on the subject of your meditation, your mind settles down and begins to experience the bliss of meditation

This is from a book I'm currently reading about mindfulness meditation and would suggest it to anyone who is beginning with meditation. It's called "Mindfulness in Plain English" and can be read online for free:

http://www.vipassana.com/meditation/mindfulness_in_plain_english.php

> I can temporarily be very disciplined and stick to my plan, but once the motivation wears off (give it a few weeks), i relapse into my old ways.

Motivation is not a source for long-lasting change. It's a quick rush, like sugar. What you want to develop are habits. Habits are hard-wired neural pathways that your brain chooses based on the path of least resistance. When you've performed an action over and over in the same environment, that behavior pattern creates grooves (metaphorically) in your brain, making it easier for you to do it next time.

What motivation/willpower does is give you the initial energy to overcome your existing grooves and to change that neural landscape in a way that suits you. If a river wanted to go a different course than how it usually does, it would have to summon the energy to lift itself out of the riverbed and rush out over open land. Over time, this would create a new riverbed, which will be very easy for the river to follow.

If you want to learn more about motivation and the science of habit formation, I recommend Henry Hazlitt's The Way to Will-Power (a little old-fashioned, written in the 1920s, but very useful) and Charles Duhigg's The Power of Habit.

>I'm plagued by anxiety. I mull over for far too long the potential negative effects of my efforts rather than the positives, and this paralyzes me, leading to me doing nothing rather than giving things my best shot.

This is a great observation and it's awesome that you're making it relatively early in your life. I'm 25 and I just came to terms with it this year.

For me, it's related to perfectionism as well. The feeling that if you can't make something perfect, it's not worth doing, because it won't be a 'real' reflection of what you 'could' do. But this is an illogical trick of the mind, because all you're showing is that you couldn't do it at all. Are you a perfectionist?

You should check out the book Mindset by Carol Dweck, PhD. It was super enlightening for me, and talks about the 'fixed' mindset which is a result of that paralyzing anxiety you mentioned. It's a short, 200-page read, very approachable.

One of the things it touches on specifically is Mulling over the negative effects of your efforts', like you said. This is often due to not wanting to 'reveal yourself' as incapable after trying something. It's about trying to hide the fact that you consider yourself an intellectual imposter. Like some sort of 'success-fraud'. And believe me, everyone thinks of themselves as a fraud at the start.

The book talks about changing your mindset to take risks that better yourself and helps to deconstruct achievement anxiety and perfectionism. Let me know if you pick it up, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Best of luck.

Media Type: Book
Title: The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
Author: Edmund Morris
Notes: The story of one of America's most extraordinary men. Im only about 1/7th of the way done and at the point where he is only 22 years old. But Im already awed by this man. Plus Morris' writing is a absolute pleasure to read. He will help you become more creative in your language.

So far, I'm really enjoying it - Newport has a great writing style and ideas. I really like that he uses case studies and not hypothetical "evidence" from imaginary people. Simply from what he says in the first part of the book, Deep Work is based on efficiency - "if you want to work more deeply, work smarter and with fewer distractions." Though I know that it's more than that and I'm looking forward to finding out in what ways.

I'm interested in the idea of how elderly brains react differently to negative images than younger ones, and how this is tied to attention and managing that attention. We can draw from this the position that Deep Work, and therefore focus, can allow us to ignore negative stimuli more easily in the long run as well as the short.

I do, however, have an issue with Newport leaning heavily on expelling social media - everything is good in moderation after all. Instead of removing it completely, like his cases did, I rather simply relegate it to something I check a couple of times a day as opposed to constantly. And, as /u/cat_of_cats says (and from what I learned in the Learning How to Learn Coursera course), distraction allows us to make connections that we might otherwise not when we're focusing on.

However, Deep Work as a whole is an interesting concept and I can't wait to learn more.

Glad you enjoyed it :) I'm an experienced programmer but new to Meteor (and responsive web development in general). I took this whole series of courses by the University of London (except for the 1st one, which is too basic), and it's been a lot of fun! Unfortunately I can't afford paying for the specialization, so I won't be able to do the capstone project. But I'll make something of my own ;) If you're interested in Meteor, I highly recommend these series.

A bit late perhaps, but my plans for this month are to finish the Linear Algebra course on edX (https://courses.edx.org/courses/course-v1:UTAustinX+UT.5.03x+2T2015/info) - I'm currently in week 8 - and the Machine Learning course on Coursera (https://www.coursera.org/learn/machine-learning/home/welcome) - I'm currently in week 9. Also I'm reading Roberta Ness's Innovation Generation, Polya's How To Solve It and Barbara Oakley's A Mind For Numbers.

I'm also doing NoFap, trying to run four times a week and try to meditate every day.

Woa, PhD in Japan! I admire you already! :D

I'm also a Computer Science student, and I'm starting my master program in Software engineering this year in Vienna. Good to have you here!

Regarding math, I highly suggest you to read the book "A Mind For Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science". I completed it last month together with the course on coursera: https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn/home/info

Also, take a look at https://www.khanacademy.org/ , they have some great courses about math.

There's an amazing book called Mindfulness in Plain English by Henepola Gunaratana. It goes into detail about all of the basics of meditation in a simple albeit interesting manner! Definitely worth a read :)

Seems like a nice list. The only book from it which I've read before is "Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor Frankl, which was very inspirational. Thinking about it always reminds me of that scene at the end of Schindler's List, where Schindler exclaims how much more people he could have helped if he had just sold some of his valuables like his watch, a necklace... It reminds me of how we can bring so much more to the world if we are willing to give up on useless habits like watching TV, reading random web sites, etc.

I think if Frankl would have released his book today he would not explicitly refer to Man it the title, similar to how Star Trek changed their slogan from "to go where no man has gone before" to "to go where no one has gone before".

Well I relapsed on my nofap streak many times this month, so that one's out of the window. I've finished reading one book, How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, and am currently reading Cosmos by Carl Sagan, which will be finished by the end of the month. I haven't missed one of my gym sessions, I have meditated every morning. My writing is happening, but not an hour 3 days a week. I am getting sleep more between 6-7 hours of sleep a night than over 7.5 unfortunately. So some things are going well at least :)

Media Type: Book

Title: Think and Grow Rich

Author: Napoleon Hill

Notes: One of the classics of New Though and motivation. Only after reading a few chapters and reflecting on it's ideas and comparing them with my own life did I realize how true it's principles are. They are precisely how I entered my first real relationship.

It is available for free on iBooks

Media Type: Book
Title: Man's Search for Meaning
Author: Viktor Frankl
Notes: The central theme being life is not what happens to you but how you react to it. A message that should be oft-repeated to oneself until it becomes habitual; an unwavering attitude cemented into the core of your being.

Media Type: Book

Title: My Early Life

Author: Winston Churchill

Notes: I finished this book today. It's the life of Winston Chirchill from his childhood to approximately 1902, covering his escapades. It's a motivator and a chronicle of manliness if ever I read one.

Amazon link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Early-Life-Sir-Winston-Churchill/dp/0907871623

Or get it from your library if you can.

Media type: Book

Title: Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

Author: Mark Williams, Danny Penman

Notes: In my opinion a great Introduction if you never meditated before and want to start experimenting on your own.

http://www.amazon.de/Mindfulness-Eight-Week-Finding-Peace-Frantic-ebook/dp/B005NJ2T1G
Website: http://franticworld.com/

Habit Loop is great for tracking habits! https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.isoron.uhabits

I see http://kaizenchallenge.dynalias.net/ is not working. If we need a dedicated Kaizen web app I would be interested in developing it, maybe with soms other Kaizen warriors from #programming.