Decluttering tips
I’ve been running a decluterring goal since may, and it has been pretty positive.
Issue is that I’m beginning to run out of ideas 
Thankfully, GPT-4 is here to help.
It has tons of ideas.
So today I’ll pick… Physical decluttering 
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happiness - a local optimization problem
happiness is not that much of a side effect…
I’ve always thought of happiness is a side effect of $success. Of course, why should I be happy if I don’t have $success?
I don’t know how it got to that point. I suspect that I made the correlation since my grades in school went down at the same time I became depressed, and that I became happier when I started taking gigs. It gave me a sense of self-worth.
My point is that the happiness-success relationship is actually inversed. Good work is a side effect of happiness. It’s more a circle that feeds itself rather than a causal relationship. And by the way, $success is a side effect of $good_work.
The same way that smiling makes some people happy (doesn’t really work for me), doing good work makes me happy. And being happy makes me smile and do more good work.
making it harder to fail
My approach with this journal was not super straightforward, but now, I think it will be a bit clearer.
Happiness can be a simple optimization problem, in my case.
It has highs. Why? Can I replicate that?
It has lows. Why? Can I prevent that?
And it has middles. What was preventing this day from becoming awesome? Is there an entirely different approach that would’ve worked?
It’s literally the most important problem I have: maximizing happiness. Why is it a second class citizen, in my head?
(I didn’t go to engineering school for long enough to really use the right terms… And it might not be an optimization problem at all. Sorry, educated folks 
)
In my experience, this kind of problems require two things:
- A metric of the end result; like a frequently updated graph
- Concrete changes, as often as possible
Measuring happiness - the Simplified Happiness Rating Scale (SHRS)
I’ve just invented it. Screw reading research 
It’s a simple 4 point scale:
| Rating | Description |
|---|---|
| 4 | I want to repeat this day. It was awesome and I want to retain memories of it. |
| 3 | I feel good. Neutral days and good days go here. It’s smooth. |
| 2 | I feel slightly bad. It was a bumpy day. Something is off |
| 1 | I feel really bad. Something is definitely going on |
There are tons of metrics I’d like to account for, but I’ll keep this one since it’s reasonable enough. Avoid prémature optimization.
making changes towards happiness - just iterate
Something that often happens to me is to get into analysis paralysis. I will look at the metric, and try to slice it until it looks good. Trying to find correlations, or trying small insignificant changes… It turns out that I love graphs. It’s my version of “I want to compare all the options before buying this $15 item I won’t buy anyway” problem.
I won’t have that luxury here, since there’s literally one metric and it’s super easy to understand.
Here are simple guidelines for changes to make:
1: change the day entirely, plan for a 3.
2: change a part of the day, plan for a 3
3: make a slight change to reinforce the 3, or plan for a 4
4: find out what caused it and replicate it
Today is a 3. I could go down to a 2 if I do bad choices in this evening. But I won’t let myself 
So my change for today, is to plan to go to sleep earlier.
I’m reinforcing the 3.
It requires me to screw $nigjtjob, but I can do it tomorrow morning.
(Side-note: $nightjob is not really something I do in the night. Working hours doesn’t matter a lot for my work, thankfully. I’m super glad for that)
EDIT: I tried to sleep but couldn’t because I messed it up anyways. I worked on $nightjob, did good progress. I’m running on 2h30 of sleep, but it was worth it to wake up.
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Glad I have a scale
My Simplified Happiness Rating Scale is bearing it’s fruits in the day to day.
Before doing something, I ask myself: “will I bee more or less happy afterwards?”.
It helps to do chores before doing something fun; it helps to start working rather than delaying it (which is my go-to recipe for disastrous days).
It also made me realise the good times while I was living it.
Excited about the future again
i’ve been feeling something I haven’t felt in a while: begin excited about the future.
I purchased a New 3DS out of pure nostalgia (a kid clicked on the wrong buttons and bricked mine 
)
I’m generally feeling emotions that I didn’t feel in the past two years due to the antidepressants:
- being disappointed it didn’t arrive yet, earlier in the week
- being hopeful when looking at the tracking stuff
- being super sad when seeing the missed calls on my phone (must be delivery man)
- generally being excited the whole week about it
- feeling satisfied when rescheduling it to be delivered
I also met a friend and could think “hey, I am feeling good right now”.
It makes me want to see them more often
In the past, it would be more “if it happens it’s cool, but I feel lazy about it”
(ramblings about how anti-depressants are good for GAD but only medium-term + Cortexin apology)
Rather than making the positive emotions better, I feel like the antidepressant dulled every emotion.
Good feels… nothing.
Bad feels… nothing.
The only thing that stayed was this intense feeling of dread, like if I was going in the wrong direction with my life.
I don’t think the ADs are intrinsically bad.
Because they definitely helped a lot with anxiety.
I feel like ADs have removed my social anxiety by allowing me to live experiences without feeling it.
So now, in my head, social stuff is not scary anymore.
It works with other fear-like emotions too. I didn’t fear for my life and didn’t take measures when I should have, because I felt nothing about it. “I don’t feel like going into the worst place of this dangerous city, in the night, is a problem”. Damn. The world is a dangerous place and I’m a fool.
The other issue with ADs is that by removing the emotional compass, life goes into a weird trajectory.
I didn’t really have opinions, and didn’t feel like I needed them.
Now, I’m full of fear and anger, but also joy and compassion.
I’m pretty sure that I will be in a better state than I would have if I didn’t take them for 2 years, because it nuked practically all the fears I had in me.
So yeah.
Thanks ADs, for the service
By the way, the withdrawal is not that horrible.
This is 100% because I take Cortexin.
It’s known to stop withdrawals from opiods if you inject enough of it.
It looks like for Duloxetine, in my case, spraying a 5mL bottle over 2 days is enough to cut all the withdrawals.
I also stopped Nicotine too at exactly the same time. (I was going to live in horrible pain for a month anyway, so I might as well bundle the two). I should be craving for a nicotine gum right now, but I’m not. I see them every day, and I have a slight crave, but it’s easily manageable. I didn’t even need to hide them.
I’m blessed
Me 1 - Pain 0
The pain is not that bad.
I feel happy even though I am in pain.
I’m going out more often to try and ease it out.
Do more exercise, that kind of stuff.
I feel like it takes a few weeks to see the effects of that.
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this is not clutter
This is noise.
I am renaming my name from “declutter” to “silence”.
How to make my life as silent as possible, so that I can hear and act upon what matters?
→ making silence in my life. I shouldn’t drown myself into noise.
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noises
Maybe my role is to actually reduce noise to the minimum.
I hear alert signals from inside.
I hear a bzzzz parasite sounds that says that I am too much exposed online
I hear a bzzzzzzzz parasite sound that says that my phone is not secure enough yet
I hear a sound that tells me that I have to fix an issue at $dayjob. It’s an alarm sound
I hear a sound that tells me I should re-enable this feature at $nogjtjob. It’s a screeching sound
I hear a sound that tells me to cut down server expenses. It’s a far away tribal instrument sound
I hear a sound that tells me to fix this feature at $nigjtjob. It’s a beep beep beep.
A dark screenching sounds tells me to take a hard look at my finances.
I felt despair from the insides of me, because I didn’t go to sleep even if I did everything I should. Heck, I even feel tired. I feel like insides is really desperate for me to do my job: going into my bed. I’d say that it’s cries more than noises. Feelings are elaborate sounds.
I like to think of life as sounds and mute spaces.
I have tons of parasites right now. If I didn’t have them, I could follow the crystal and harmonious sounds that tell me to start another project, travel to another place…
I have a feeling that I’ll stick with the sound analogy for a while
So, it’s all feelings (act now!), parasite sounds (fix asap) and harmonious sounds (go for it… if you have space!)
I need to really dive deep into making every parasite sounds disappear from my life
And then, I’ll follow the signals
PS: I just realized I should use earplugs in daytime too, to be able to work better 
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I accidentally made my life more complicated
Okay, so, I accidentally deleted all of my phone.
At least, that removed all the crap I accumulated on it. Photos were backed up. It’s all that matters.
Huge shoutout to my beeminder goal that forced me to keep my stuff backed up 
On the other end, I’m left without a phone for a week, and I’m slightly anxious about it, given that I wanted to go out on Friday. And that’ll be a challenge with my eSIM wiped clean off my phone.
I feel really insecure without having this phone fully operational.
It’s like a 4th dimensional limb has been removed from me.
I think I’ll do this:
Phones have become weird do-it-all machines.
When I was a kid, I wanted my phone to be able to do everything.
Now, I prefer if it does the least amount of stuff possible, because I don’t like to be addicted to it.
I might be hyper-fixating on something really irrelevant to my life quality.
I should just pick guidelines and follow them… so here we go
- My phone will be separated in two profiles
- The core profile contains everything
- The second profile contains proprietary apps.
This way, I can try living with my ethics (software should be open and free) while still living the life (using google maps, or ordering sushis)
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Not sleeping, again…
It makes me so upset that I just cannot go to sleep
I just don’t want it
I will avoid it no matter what
It’s so stupid
The good sleep challenge 
Again. This is another trial to fix my sleep
Frankly, I’m tired about having this problem every few weeks.
RULES
(in all caps because I’m angry against myself)
- FINISH WORK before 21h
- FINISH MY BEEMINDER CHORES before 23h
- BE IN MY BED WITHOUT COMPUTER IN MY ROOM AT MIDNIGHT
- WAKE UP AT 10am MAX – NO NEED FOR MORE SLEEP
Rules can change day by day as long as I post about it here. I am creating the goal now
EDIT: goal created. I am now the sleep machine. Nothing will stop me from having a healthy lifestyle
- Sleep
- Exercice
- Diet
why is it so hard to be a healthy human? why am I not like this by default???
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it’s super hard to start working
it’s 19h, and my deadline is 21h
I need to have a rule that puts me to work as soon as I wake up
So I’m adding a rule: started working in the first 2 hours after waking up
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I didn’t go to sleep again.
Better to do it step by step
Because by waking up at 16h, I end up starting to work at 18h, and stopping at 21h is not really a good idea.
New plan to stop going to sleep when the sun rises
- just be better by 30 minutes, each day
- always try my darn best to go to sleep earlier
Today, I’m “going to sleep” at 7h30.
Tomorrow, I will aim for 7h.
I’m renaming my goal to reflect this
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Found a balance
Shifting my sleep by 20 minutes every day works perfectly
- My sleep is getting better, because I sleep at consistent times
- Since I know when my day ends, it pushes me to work earlier
- I don’t have a sense of dread that tells me that I suck because I slept super late
Overall, I feel like I have a sense of balance and routine, just thanks to this simple change.
I found something that works, and I’m hanging on it.
Working too late
Now, the issue is that I start working too late. At midnight, precisely.
I have less and less time to do everything
I’d like to have 8 hours of “workday”, to be able to get a few hours for $nightjob
and a few hours for $dayjob.
Issue is that I cannot work too early.
Early in “the morning” (=15h), I can only work on stuff that is personal/innately interesting.
I feel sleepy, and it’s hard to work on stuff that doesn’t have a “high reward” in my head.
I think I’m definitely one of those types that work better late in the day.
I can crush anything as long as it’s past 3am.
Maybe this was because I would stay up late when I was a kid, to do programming, and I wrote myself this way… Or maybe I was like this at the start, which made me stay up at night when I was a kid.
Now, I’m taking my time when beginning my day, without feeling guilty, and I don’t stress around starting to work the earliest possible.
Withdrawal from Duloxetine
I feel like the withdrawal is almost off.
My personality has changed a lot. I’m more precise, I feel more emotions. I’m also more easily irritable. Overall, I “feel” more. I also have less this sense of dread that was looming over my days. I have a sense of direction. I’m more connected to reality and the present moment rather than dreams. I’m caring about concrete and present improvements rather than stuff that’ll happen down the line.
Pain is not that much of an issue, like it was 2 years ago. It’s because I took better habits, and now, it pays off: I don’t destroy my back, so my back doesn’t destroy my happiness.
I also feel more independent.
There is not this voice in my head that tells me: “did you take the pill? did you?? otherwise, you’re going to suffer 
” (actually, beeminder helped a lot with this)
And also! I’m smarter. I solve programming problems in an easier way.
So yeah… That was an extremely good move from my side.
Another life hack
I noticed that I base a lot of my worth on “are the results good?” rather than “did I work well to improve the results?”. So I feel bad when the results are down.
I optimize for results, rather than “working well on getting results”. I feel like this is a common trap.
I wasn’t always like this, but I think that it happened out of pure intellectual lazyness.
I’m now switching my self-worth to “did I work long-enough and well-enough on attaining the result I want?”. This should reduce the amount of hacks that I use to get through in daily life.
Doing stuff in the right way should always be above getting immediate results.
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I noticed that I base a lot of my worth on “are the results good?” rather than “did I work well to improve the results?”. So I feel bad when the results are down.
This one has been so important for me - my goals need to be “did I do the work” rather than “did I achieve a result”, otherwise I tend to put off trying in case I fail. I’m trying to improve my chess, and - for me, at least - I have to lose a lot of games to do this! So I’m just reminding myself that each time I lose, it’s a chance to get a tiny fraction better.
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I’ve been feeling noticeably peaceful and happy for a few days in a row.
The sense of progression that have appeared since I created this goal to go to sleep earlier has transformed in actual well-being,
Healthy distractions
Having my 3DS (video games) has been good.
It prevents me from overworking as well as disconnects me from my tasks.
I’m also reading a technical book about databases.
I’m self-thaught, so it helps with the “”“imposter syndrome”“”.
(hey guys, I know B-Trees now. And I know why compressing data is improving the performances of analytical queries. I’m a true software engineer now – or at least, I’m making progress)
I’m also watching TV series with my mom.
So yeah; I’m more of a vegetable than before, but it seems to make me feel better in the day-to-day…
Before, I would have too much of a sense of guiltiness for it to be enjoyable.
Now, I say to myself “I worked” or “I will work” and trust myself.
Rather than “I didn’t manage to fix this, I have to work, I should stop getting distracted!” (spoiler alert: nothing will be fixed and done 100% when powering off the computer, and there is always more stuff to do).
Having this perspective helps enjoying the small sweet moments of life.
Even going out feels a bit better, because I don’t become guilty. “Weekends are for going out or resting, I’m doing what I’m supposed to do, so I will enjoy it instead of overthinking about optimising every hours”
(
this is the next episode of what you replied too @clivemeister 
)
Sleeping earlier, again
My first goal was a bit crude; it was a do more with “sleep shifted minutes” counted.
I archived it and created a weight-loss goal with units set as “hours”.
It’ll remove the need for me to do calculations.
I also created a meta goal to enter data every day, to make it impossible to weasel out of it.
Getting out in the weekend
I have decided to really cut down on work in the weekend.
I only look at emergencies. Most of the time, issues need triage (“okay, this is not urgent” + inform stakeholders), but they don’t need to be solved right off the bat.
And even if they needed, most of them would benefit from taking one or two days to think about a clean solution rather than getting on working on it right off the bat
Moving to another city
I want to get a “fresh start” effect.
… by living in a new place, where I don’t know the language, and I know only a few people.
This is definitely out of my comfort zone (I learned to avoid this!), but this is definitely worth it too (so it’ll be great anyway).
Knowing where I’m going, and slowly working on it (sending texts to find an appartement, asking for advice from Italian friends) is something that made me feel a little better too.
Most of my stuff fits into a small baggage, so it’s still easy to do that kind of stuff. I have a lot of luck to be able to do this, I should do it while it’s still possible.
On the verge of being fine
I think I’m pretty good now.
I am in a stable position at work. Both at $nightjob and $dayjob. Emergencies are mostly fixed, and we’re back into a slow & steady workflow.
I’m taking breaks, hydrating myself, and slowly making my sleep better.
I think, in the end, I think that I have “self-destructive” tendencies.
I know that doing X is going to significantly reduce my happiness, but I still do it anyway because I prioritize overarching goals (that I do to try to be happy, ironically…)
So I have to re-learn how to optimise for daily happiness
Beeminder will be an awesome tool for it:
- getting to sleep earlier ← worked well this week
- sending texts to old friend to ask them to go out in the weekend ← works well
- sending emails to agencies to find an appartement ← maybe I won’t need it, I’ll see
… that kind of low-effort, high impact goals are the best
Duloxetine withdrawal almost finished – it was a good choice
- The “withdrawal personality” is slowly getting away. I’m a bit more zen while still retaining mental clarity.
- The weird withdrawal symptoms (“brain zaps”) are rare now, even without taking other stuff to counteract them.
- My emotions are still more vivid than before
- Pain is almost non-existent. My back gets into a weird position sometimes and I have to fix it by stretching stuff, but I don’t have latent full-body pain like before. I think that I might even have less pain than when I was under Duloxetine…
(tw: suicidality — it has gotten significantly better)
One hidden benefit of stopping Duloxetine is also that I don’t feel like killing myself every day. I feel like making progress instead. Suicidal thoughts are a common side-effect of this medication. I got them more and more and thought to myself “oh, it’s nothing”. I didn’t have emotions to tell me “bro, this is not alright, see someone”. Actually, the manual tell you to see a doctor, but, lmao, what psychologist can do about a molecule?
I now have a better idea of how suicides work. At least, the kind of lived. It’s an internal process where some part of myself slowly gathered all the evidence, information and tools I needed to do it. First it’s an itch, then it starts being a pain. (A lot of what we do is unconscious, so going outside thinking “I hope I’m getting hit by a truck” is not super safe). I didn’t even recognize that I was in “existential pain” or in a very very wrong track. It felt very natural.
In the end, I’d say that in my case, the root cause is the emotions being numbed entirely. That’s what we live for. Even the feeling of peace is an emotion. What if you felt nothing? ChatGPT would kill itself for sure.
I’m pretty sure there are dozens of variants of suicidality; another one would probably be the opposite of the one I lived: too much negative emotions, rather than 0 emotions. Or maybe it’s more about having a net negative emotional balance? E.g. being between 0/10 and 5/10 for a long period of time causes a build up of suicidality, while being between 5/10 and 10/10 causes a build up of non-suicidability. This is a fascinating process, but getting intellectually interested in it is not a good sign…
There’s a lot of people saying “it happens to people when you don’t expect it”. I understand why 100%, now. Without emotion, you have to mimic a small bit of it or people ask “are you alright???” every 10 seconds. So of course, you don’t expect it; people who get down to business either go into a very short mood dip (going from 5/10 to -100/10) and you cannot see it, or slowly build their suicide over a 0/10).
There’s also the thing; about soft suicide. Doing reckless stuff that will make me end up in jail.
Accepting too much work to make me feel bad. Maybe, more generally, “destructive tendencies” vs “self-preservative tendencies”. In the end, both of them are circles. One of them is vicious, and one of them is virtuous.
The way of preventing suicide is entering a very virtuous circle
I’m not going to talk about it again because it’s a pretty sensitive / taboo topic. I don’t feel shame about this, but I don’t feel bad about showing this to people who just want to casually browse the forum.
So yeah, stuff is getting better.
Maybe I’ll be able to closs this journal by the end of the year, who knows !?
I dream of being like the guy on LessWrong, who tells that he was super unhappy, but now, happiness is the default state for him.
I definitely think that I’m going in this direction.
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Focusmate
I am working 3-4 hours per day
I feel like this is the time I need to be able to keep up with the bare minimum people ask of me.
I’d like to, maybe, start using FocusMate + Beeminder to commit to these hours every day
Then, all the additional work I do would be nice-to-have.
(I created a goal that’ll make me try FocusMate this week – I’m a bit excited, but now is the weekend, and I won’t think about this )
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I tried Focusmate
Someone taught me the basics (she noticed it was my first session), and I worked very hard on interesting work.
I feel like I was noticeably productive.
I believe that using FocusMate for the first hours of work, at least, can help me a lot to accomplish more.
I will ramp up my FocusMate goal so that I do at least one session per week…
Baby steps.
Taxes
I’m finally taking control of my taxes.
I have tons of money laying around that I collected for VAT.
(Spoiler: I’m not supposed to do it, and I’m trying to get rid of this money, and I’m using all the self-control in the world to not touch this money)
It’s not a big secret; I’ve sent a message to the fiscal administration, which told me to talk to someone else, which told me to talk to another person… Which answered me with gibberish my software developer brain does not want to even try to understand. I rather spend time tuning PostgreSQL.
But now, I have beeminder. That’s why I did tax stuff today.
I’m very thankful to Beeminder.
I’m doing the full administrative track again, to get rid of this money that I shouldn’t have.
I can do it 
!!
Motivation
I have a friend, he is a pianist.
Together, we motivated ourselves to reach our goals.
For him, it’s to pass one of the hardest piano exam.
For me, it’s working more, and more smartly.
So yeah, that’s great
Sleep
This is super important.
I’m still very cautious about it.
This is the foundation of well-being.
I am trying to get back to a good setup (earplugs + sleep mask)
Maybe I need a beeminder goal: “improve sleep”, to think about sleeping better and acting on it.
I’ll do it now.
I’ve noticed that small goals that happen twice per month are pretty light, still varied, and still effective.
All around, great news
Dare I say that I am happy?
This week is going to be the best week ever, because I’m going to work hard on my goals
And then, this weekend will be the best ever, because I will be super relaxed.
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In a good loop
I have found a routine that I like.
I’m awake in the daytime, and asleep in the night time.
It looks like this:
- wake up
- answer quick messages for $nightjob
- do 50m FocusMate on $dayjob at 11am (I usually want to cancel the session, but I feel too guilty because the person would be all alone, so I end up doing it — and if I’m early enough to cancel the session, then, it’s a win!)
- continue working as much as I can on $dayjob
- (take a few short breaks)
- once I have worked enough on $dayjob I start working on $nightjob (right now, the bar is at 5 hours, but in the future, it will be 6 hours since I’ll sign a contract with them)
- I eat with family at some point
- I go back to work
- Then, I go watch the TV with my mom for a bit while doing my Beeminder tasks
- Then, I watch exactly one episode of Veronica Mars, my favourite series, eaither eating chinese noodles or drinking hot chocolate.
- I read a few pages of “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius
- I fall asleep
- Repeat
I feel reasonably good for the amount of work that I do.
I might be tiring myself a bit too much, I’m unsure.
I hope it’ll work on the long run.
Issue is that now, I’m addicted to it, and I don’t know how to take my weekend…
There are so many pressing issues and people to satisfy that I want to put a dent into my weekend.
But at least, I don’t have this nagging feeling of “I should be working”. This is the worst.
This all started about 10 days ago when texting with a friend. We motivate each other.
Also, doing my first focusmate session one week ago helped.
Thanks to my friend, and thanks to FocusMate !
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I love this idea and I think we all should pay more attention to our happiness and feeling good.
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I think too! Time flies… unhappiness compounds, happiness too.
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got a flu
I got a flu but it makes me feel good.
I feel like it erased tons of neurons from my head.
I feel like it’s winter and that I’m in my childhood (I was a very sick kid)
I feel happy even though I feel terrible.
stuff smooth
Otherwise, stuff is going smoothly.
I’m getting a real work contract after two years of freelancing at my dayjob. At my nightjob, we have issues like always, but we fix them so fast that customers almost don’t feel the impact. I’m going to do sales. I feel like we’ve got something sustainable.
I’m going on vacation in one week.
I don’t know where I’m going yet
I should start looking it up
The key for work to feel good was: work harder.
If I work enough, I’m not dealing with emergencies, but rather with features that prevent them from happening in the first place.
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Planning
I decided to go to Italy. I don’t exactly remember why… I think I just wanted to see that friend I missed a lot. And that life is too short to stay at home. Oh yes, I took vacations! For the first time in two years.
That’s why, too. But I just really wanted to meet this friend.
I visited Florence, saw a bit of Bologna, and I am now staying in Rimini.
First week, I didn’t plan anything. I would wake up, check-out of whatever place I was staying at, and explore the city.
That’s really stressful. I started feeling an existential dread, inside of me.
Not knowing what I do the next day is really, really tiring. Life without a consistent direction doesn’t feel good.
And now, I don’t know what I’m doing next. I’m staying in Rimini, and I didn’t plan anything afterwards.
I feel like I need to make a radical change to the way I approach my life; by locking in the next month.
Maybe I should create this routine: on day X of the month, I plan the next 3 months.
Without time, there is no perspective; like: what am I doing next with my life?
Why bother making friends, if I disappear in one week?
My next plan
I want to go back to be with my family for one week.
Maybe work in my hometown for another week.
Then, go away
I don’t really feel very happy, because I am unstable, and I don’t have a clear routine.
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End of vacations
I enjoyed real life for three weeks. It was nice.
I don’t regret taking these vacations.
Check-in, check-out
Changing place to sleep every day made me quite unhappy. So I won’t do this again.
On the other hand, I felt good after a few days in the same place. After one week, I feel kind of “settled down” and start enjoying my time, building habits, not being afraid of talking with people.
It’s also scary to not know where you sleep next week. But in the end, it was saturday, and I didn’t plan anything for next week. And a friend cancelled their plan and invited me to their place. So, it was actually good that I didn’t plan so much this time. Otherwise, I couldn’t accept the invitation.
Work
Just to set the context; I decided to take one week of “real vacations” → no work.
| Week | Use |
|---|---|
| Week 1 | Vacations |
| Week 2 | Work vacations |
| Week 3 | Work vacations |
It was a good choice, because it led me to think about lots of personal stuff, instead of being in an endless work cycle.
I’ll probably repeat it, but maybe be in a more stable place where I can think deeply.
Not traveling through 3 cities and going to 5 different hostels
So. Issue is that I didn’t go back to work enough, when my vacations ended.
Here is this month and last month:
I can see that the amount of work I do greatly increased after stopping Duloxetine.
I got from 22h per week to as much as 50h per week (which, of course, is not really looking good compared to the standard french 35 hours/week — LOL)
Then, I got on vacation. 3 hours. Normal, it’s vacations. I remember having to look at a few things in emergency.
Then, I got a 26h and a 21h week.
Issue is that it’s not enough work, given that I have two jobs.
$dayjob is okay (for now), but they’ll ask me to speed things up pretty soon.
$nightjob is not happy (but that’s pretty unjustified criticism… This is why I wanted to leave the project. I don’t like that my partner doesn’t appreciate how much I sacrified for this project that is bringing 0 revenue since 2 years…)
So. Hard choices I have to make.
Either I start working again, and hope things settle? Or I leave one of my jobs?
$dayjob — pays by the hour
$nightjob — pays when the customers are happy, which happens, sometimes…
I feel that I would be significantly happier without $nightjob, for sure, because I would have a social life.
But on the other hand, I’ve worked for two years on it, and we’re getting some good traction recently.
So, we’ll see.
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