Night Culture

It’s interesting to me to note the differences between Taiwan/Far Eastern culture when it comes to sleep.

Traditionally, people in the Far East tend to sleep later. Events are generally held in the evening when it is cooler, so the result is that people tend to sleep later. One of the things my Language Exchange partner pointed out to me is that prime time TV dramas tend to start at 9pm and finish at 11, which would be too late for most people in the West, I believe.

It’s very common for people to sleep at around 2am or later, chatting on MSN. I have no idea how they make it up again in the morning, but one trip on Taipei’s MRT and you’ll realise that the culture as a whole is horribly, horribly overworked. Around half the people on the MRT at any given moment are sleeping, and the other half are standing up. They aren’t even mutually exclusive as the occasional person is found dozing against a window from time to time. A girl I tutor had to work overtime until 1am. Absolutely unbelieveable. It’s not only adults that are subjected to such work, even elementary school kids have to wake up at 6am, and some attend additional cram school until 9am or later.

Any time of the day or night, people are around and cars are tearing across the city streets. 7 Elevens open 24 hours, and you can get food any time. The net result is that many of the people here sleep so late, it’s difficult to stop it from affecting me. When I was teaching, even waking up before 8am was difficult because I was sleeping so late. But late for me was 12.30, but my flatmate would sleep even later, around 3am or later. I found my sleeping time creeping closer and closer towards his, and I find it happening again now. It’s unthinkable for me to sleep before 10pm because it’s completely unheard of in this culture.

Yet as I’m needing to be at 100% to get any programming done, along with the physical exercise, in order to wake up at 6am as I desire, 10pm is the time I need to be sleeping at. It seems a bit unsustainable in this culture. Even my Toastmasters meetings finish at closer to 10pm. As lately my sleep pattern has become completely destroyed, I’m considering a switch to around 7.30 instead, since the gym here only opens at 8am, making waking up early difficult to justify.

June Rules and Goals

Well, I decided to write out my goals for June! I like to set rules and goals – essentially, the rules are to improve myself, whilst the goals are there to keep me motivated and to have something to work towards. Goal setting is very important after all. This is likely to be a long post. As mentioned in my previous post, I broke many of my rules for last month, which was annoying. Again, these rules and goals pretty much correspond to the five threads in which I’m concentrating my resources. Any more, I believe, is to spread myself too thinly and will lead to a loss of focus.

Rule 1. Wake up before 6.30 am daily, and wake up once a week effortlessly and bursting with energy.

With Dragon Boat finishing next weekend, I’m worried about how my sleep pattern will take it. I have a morning 10am class which should help me to some extent, but I still want to wake up before 6.30, and probably even earlier. Taiwan is getting hellishly hot now, and the mornings are just so much more comfortable. Steve Pavlina made a recent post which spoke about how to create daily habits, which seemed timely. It’s the discipline to sleep early that I’ve been having the most trouble with. It’s hard to make myself sleep early when Taiwan is such a late sleeping culture. As with the programming, I want to create the situation where it’s more appealing to wake up early than to lie in.

Even though I failed last month, there’s no point in changing the goal to something like ‘wake up early just six days a week’ in order to build confidence. I don’t think that really works, especially for sleep, and I did come pretty close to succeeding. So I’ll keep that goal the same, and additionally I want a goal to wake up effortlessly once a week, with a view to increasing the number of days over time. In order to do this, I’ll need to sleep early once a week, and hopefully that day/morning will be so pleasurable in contrast to zombie like, I’ll choose to continue.

I have enjoyed the Dragon Boat practice, so I’m going to run every morning to wake myself up. It will need to be early due to the disgustingly hot weather here.

Rule 2. Surfing the Internet can only be done while standing up

The Internet restriction is something that could warrant a whole article (I’ll probably give a humorous Toastmasters speech about it in the future). Indeed, fairly recently Paul Graham wrote an awesome essay about it. It’s a real problem for many people, so I shouldn’t feel too bad. In addition, I guess I could see it as a good thing that I’m so curious about knowledge (albeit useless knowledge.) Still, it’s something that must be stopped. After last month, I realised that the days I’ve spent without the Internet have been better than the days with it. That’s worth keeping in mind.

A similar restriction to last month is not only slightly inconvenient (since I have to go down to the library), it’s not a realistic option this month. Now I’ve finished the book and will start to write my own programs, I’ll need the Internet as a reference, and so this looks like I’ll be opening a can of worms.

Since I couldn’t think of a clear cut solution, I decided to brainstorm some ideas. Many ideas which sounded good have failed me in the past, so if necessary, I may have to employ as many as I can simultaneously.

To go for an outright ban sort of builds resentment and frustration and isn’t the best route to motivation, as last month proved. The most ingenious plan I’ve thought of thus far is to stand up while I surf. Many people have advocated a chairless office environment, and it builds energy levels, though personally I can’t imagine coding for long periods of time standing up. In order to stop myself falling into that glazed over trance where I browse endlessly, standing up seems like a good way to go.

Graham’s solution (to use a separate computer) seems like it could work, but I only have one computer! In a way, keeping the Internet out of my home, and using the university Internet has been a similar idea, and to be fair, it did work. But as I mentioned earlier, I can’t keep doing that. A similar solution is that I already have a separate user account on my computer for programming, and when I’m switched, I’m pretty reluctant to waste time; in fact, after I switch, I start work pretty much right away. So allowing myself to use that account for Internet and freely too, is another option.

However, since I do manage to work in that account and pretty well too, I don’t want to ‘contaminate’ it with my bad habits.

I think the common idea is to build a different sort of state where you become very aware of your Internet use. Standing up seems the most obvious way to provide this. I want to keep my rule simple, so that’s the final goal I decided on. I feel I’m a grown man, and should be able to use my own self discipline. But if I can’t do it, then treating myself like a child is the way to go.

The other important factor I discovered was that use of the Internet comes when you’re bored. There’s no excuse for boredom in today’s world, and the solution to this is to plan your day beforehand – also an important exercise.

In summary, I’ll keep it simple, as per the rule above. If my plan doesn’t work (i.e. I follow the rules, but still waste time), there’s no point to adhering to it. I will reassess the situation next Sunday if my plan has failed me. This is an interesting solution. I’m looking forward to seeing how it works!

Rule 3. 25 Words in ProVoc daily

I think that I can continue doing ProVoc every day, and that I’m also going to listen to some audio programs while I do it, so this should be a nice morning ‘mental conditioning’ exercise. I wasn’t going to put this down as a rule, seeing as it was pretty easy to keep up, but I could do with a cheap win.

As for the goals…

Star Goal. Program 40 hours this month, with milestones.

The priority is again the programming, and I had trouble keeping up with it last month (I did only 30 hours.) Still, that’s a nice initial target to improve upon. I’m going to try to do 40 hours this month, as opposed to the previous 50. The idea of this is a sort of reverse psychology – I’m going to set a target that I know I can hit, and continue to improve upon that each month in the future. And of course, I won’t stop myself should I choose to work more than 40! This comes from an idea from The Now Habit by Neil Fiore. The ideal is to create the situation where I can’t wait to get back behind the computer and work on my projects. In other words, I need to be in the state where I want to work, more than anything. If that situation never arrives, I can’t see that I can continue this sort of work for the months (or years) that I’ll need to to make a success of myself.

Furthermore, I’ll set a bunch of light milestones of 10 hours of programming a week to work up to the 40 hours, which should stop what happened last month, where I set myself up to do marathon sessions towards the end of the month! It’s a habit I picked up from school! June starts nicely on the Sunday, which is nice for me. Since I’ve finished the Hillegass book, I’ll often need to do planning on paper, outside of the computer. That’s okay, it still counts. Just as an aside, I don’t feel like I’m all that comfortable in Objective-C yet, despite finishing the book. I might choose to work on some tutorials e.g. those on www.cocoadevcentral.com, but I’m not sure if I can work it into my schedule.

Goal 2. Be ready to deliver C8, C9, C10 speeches

Although my progress has been very quick compared to others here, I procrastinate a lot on my Toastmasters speeches. I’m not sure that I’ll have the speech slots to deliver my speeches this month, which is a disappointment. I’m not setting a particularly ambitious goal here, but as the scouts say, be prepared. I’d like to prepare these speeches this month so that I’m ready to deliver them if someone calls me.

Well, I think this is a better plan than last month. It’s obviously not perfect, but I’ll see how it goes!

May Goals: Summary

Just a quick summary of how things in May went. Basically, I’ve failed on several fronts, but I can’t allow myself to dwell on it all too much. I have to pick myself up for next month after all!

I had three goals this month. The first was to wake up before 6.30am every day. I failed on four days, all on the weekends. This is a disappointing result, because I didn’t pay enough attention to my sleep needs. On the plus side, waking up is definitely a little easier than before this month. My energy levels haven’t been that great. I’ve slept a lot in the morning. So, I’ll try to continue this for next month.

The second was not to use the Internet in the apartment. This went great until one day last week, and then in the last three days I grew frustrated and turned it on again. As soon as I did that, my productivity fell apart, and it was easy to see how much of a time sink the Internet is. Ultimately, being without the Internet is much better for my life than having it, and the obvious decision is to continue with the restrictions, although I will almost certainly revise them.

The Provoc is the only goal that I managed to complete. I’m forgetting words very quickly, but with the system in place, I know very clearly that some of the words are sticking. It might not be the best method for incorporating the words I’ve learned into my everyday conversation, but as I remember the word writing, I’m also remembering the English definitions, that’s for sure. It’s doesn’t take too much effort, but being able to do that tiny little bit of Chinese every day is something positive to take from a month in which I failed many of my goals.

The Big F***g Goal was to complete 50 hours of programming. This was definitely possible, but I left myself a mountain to climb in the last week. As I closed in on 35 hours, I completed the Hillegass book on Cocoa at the same time, and didn’t really have any clear goals after that. In contrast to being able to follow the tutorials for an hour at a time, I procrastinated because I didn’t know what I ought to have been doing. I never managed to set up a clear goal, so I finished only on 35 hours. It’s a lot fewer than I’d hoped, but finishing the book is a decent start and should leave me with a decent foundation for continuing learning Cocoa development. So I’m not as upset as I might have been.

In conclusion, setting the goals for May was definitely a good exercise, even though I didn’t manage to hit them. Just writing out my summary makes me feel less annoyed about not completing them for some reason, but the Provoc alone was something I might not have done at all had I committed it as a goal. I’m not sure if I’ll publish out my goals for June after this public failure, but after I revise my goals, I should still be able to get much benefit from the exercise. I’m tending towards publishing it, because I think it will help me to have to account for my actions. I want to look forward to writing a more positive post in June

Hillegass on Sleep

Dragon Boat training has both helped and completely destroyed my sleep pattern. It’s helped me to wake up around 6am, which is great, but it’s tired me out to the extent that after I get back home, I just want to sleep, sometimes for over two hours. That can’t be great. At night though, I still don’t have that much trouble getting to sleep, so my body really needs the rest. That’s how I justify it anyway.

It was interesting for me to read the recommendation by Aaron Hillegass in his book that while you are learning programming, he recommends getting ten hours sleep. Also, while you are in physical training, you should also get more sleep, maybe nine or ten. If that’s the case, how many hours should I get? I have a real time maintaining concentration, and it might be a direct result of muscle fatigue, but I’m also walking around a lot slower than I used to. Unfortunately, this weekend, I slept in until 10am on the Sunday, which is the second time this month that I haven’t woken up at 6am. I don’t know what this will mean for the chances of establishing the habit of waking up early after Dragon Boat. I know that waking up early is getting easier overall, although I’m crashing out later in the day.

Still, we only have three weeks before the races, so I’ll need to just push harder until then.

May Goals: Day 15 Update

Just a quick update to recap on my goals for May.

I guess the sleeping is going okay. Apart from one day when I was ill, I did manage to wake up before 6.30am every day. The day I missed bugs me, but I can’t be too harsh. I think I’m in a good position to establish this as a habit. Even so, I still haven’t been getting enough sleep, and I have a tendency to nap. I haven’t had any trouble sleeping at night though, which suggests that I’m not sleeping too much; indeed, it’s likely the opposite.

Cutting off the Internet at home has done a lot for my productivity, although it has made coming out to the library an explosion of information. I’ll have to cut down on my feeds. There have been times where I wish that I had the ability to email at home, especially now I’m starting to look for jobs, but I think that on the whole it was a good decision for me. I would recommend doing this if you are as addicted to the net as I am.

One of the interesting things I found was that I had this urge to go on the Internet, yet all my reasons for wanting to do so couldn’t be justified. It’s funny how vacuous and superficial a lot of the things I look up are, but it hasn’t stopped me from looking them up later when I’ve had the chance. After May is over, I’ll need to reconsider this goal, so I’ll write more about it later. Sadly, in place of the Internet, I’ve been watching a lot more TV for some reason (I barely watched any of it before.) I’ll try to cut this out for the rest of the month.

Chinese study has tailed off a little in the past week, as we’ve come to the end of our book, and we have little aim. I still believe that going to class isn’t really the most effective use of my time. I have been keeping up the Provoc sessions daily, which is helping me retain the words I’ve learned so far. It looks like I’ll be able to keep this up too.

So far so good, I suppose, and I should be able to continue my progress into June! The Programming deserves its own post, so I’ll do that a bit later, as it was really the priority for me this month.

Sleep Update

I’ve been sleeping a little too much recently. Most particularly with the football and the late Chinese class, it’s been difficult to get up at the time I would have liked. Ambitious goals may call for drastic measures, and in order to kill two birds with one stone, I decided to join Shi Da’s Dragon Boat team. Practice will take place every day at 6.30am, and that should force me out of bed; and also get my physical exercise quota done for the day.

My sleep has been wildly inconsistent, and when it has been consistent, it’s been 10am consistent. Not good enough, especially with all the things I need to get done. I’ll see how this Dragon Boat thing helps me to achieve my sleeping goals.

We had our first proper training session today. It’s not been quite as strenuous as I thought it might have been, but tomorrow I’ll know if my back muscles in particular are going to be feeling it in the coming weeks. If not, I might continue going to the gym, because even after training it’s still pretty early.

Thread Number One: Sleep

The first thread I would like to concentrate on is sleep.

I think that sleep is an area in which many people struggle, and especially myself. Though I have been able to get up early in the past, in recent weeks, I’ve found myself struggling. Being a student doesn’t help this – having a regular motivation to get up is extremely important, and my classes don’t start until late in the afternoon. Having a job is a great motivator!

Having said that, motivation isn’t the be all and end all to this particular thread. Ideally, I’d like to be in the position where getting up at a particular time is automatic – it just happens. There are many advantages to this, and I’ll talk briefly about them in the coming weeks. Mainly, I would hope that I’d be able to wake up at the same time at the weekend. Those early morning weekend hours are very valuable. Also, I find myself to be far more productive in the early morning, despite rarely managing to get up early on a regular basis.

Ultimately though, it’s clear to most people that sleep is a huge waste of time, and I hope that by waking at a very regular time, I’ll be able to cut down on some of that waste!

Waking up early is something that I feel will implode if I don’t manage to keep myself busy. As well as increasing my susceptibility to those infernal naps, a loss in a reason to wake up makes it difficult to sustain the desire to wake up early over time. I hope that writing this blog will provide another area in which to focus; another area in which to stay busy.

I’ve found that Steve Pavlina’s extremely popular article and also HowToWakeUpEarly.com have a variety of techniques and methods that have really worked for me in the past. However, I think this core motivation is something that has never been that constant in my life, and is the main cause of failure. That and the occasional staying up to watch football matches

So, this, my first thread, is a priority for me. I’ll be blogging frequently about it over the next few days, and perhaps that alone will lead to better results.

Hello world!

There’s a strange desire I have that the first post that I ever write has to be something hugely profound. I need to keep telling myself that it doesn’t need to be so. Such is the battle against perfectionism and procrastination. I’m sure this battle will continue through many of the posts that I come to write in the future.

In any case, this is my new blog. The five threads of the title refers to the five key areas of focus in my life, the areas in which I must continually strive to improve myself over time. The threads themselves will change as I continue to grow. I hope it all doesn’t sound too pretentious

That’s enough for now. I’m looking to write a little more later on today.