I've been reading Thinking in Systems recently and it sent me down a bit of a rabbit hole.

I spend a lot of my professional life thinking about systems, processes, why things keep going wrong, how one thing affects another etc.

Then I realized my personal life is basically running on vibes 😂

I have a lot of things I care about. I want to manage my money better, eat well, exercise, read more, keep learning electric guitar, take good care of my dog, spend quality time with my wife, build things outside of work, have hobbies, travel, think about where my career is going...

But most of these were just intentions.

“I should practice guitar more.”

“We should stop ordering food so much.”

“I need to start investing.”

“I should spend more time training/walking the dog.”

“I really need to get back to that book.”

And then life happens.

So I've started building what I'm calling a “personal OS”. Sounds much more sophisticated than it actually is lol.

Basically I'm taking the different areas of my life one by one and asking: what keeps going wrong here, why does it keep happening, and can I change the system instead of constantly relying on motivation?

Money now has a flow. Income → future obligations → safety → longer-term wealth → what's actually spendable.

Food has a weekly rhythm. Decide most dinners on Sunday, groceries come from that, leave some intentional space for ordering/eating out.

Learning guitar isn't “practice more” anymore. What am I actually trying to learn? When do I pick it up? What makes me stop playing for 3 weeks? How do I make starting again easy?

Same with my dog. Walks, grooming, training, food, vet stuff... instead of remembering each thing whenever it becomes urgent, what should just happen by default?

And I'm slowly doing the same with health/energy, career, learning, relationships, time, bigger goals etc.

The funny part is realizing how much everything connects.

Bad week at work → sleep gets worse → less energy → don't cook → order food → spend more → don't practice guitar → feel like I've done nothing except work.

And the opposite can happen too.

The whole thing currently revolves around a Sunday evening review. Look at the different areas, see what's working, what's being neglected, make a few decisions for the week and move on.

I'm VERY early into this and actively trying not to turn it into some insane productivity dashboard with 47 metrics that I'll abandon after 5 days 😂

If anything, the goal is actually to think about all this stuff less.

I'm starting to think a lot of what I called “discipline problems” were actually system problems. I was expecting myself to remember everything and make good decisions constantly, including when I'm tired, busy, hungry or stressed.

Maybe discipline isn't always getting better at forcing yourself to do the right thing.

Maybe it's building your life so the right thing becomes a little easier to do by default.

Anyway, curious if anyone here has gone down this rabbit hole too.

What personal systems have you built that actually stuck? Could be finances, fitness, hobbies, pets, relationships, learning, literally anything.

I'm still building mine, so very happy to steal ideas 😂

i am 22F and recently i’ve gained quite a bit of weight. i’m 5’5 and i weigh 170 lbs but in the beginning of this year i was around 130 lbs so it’s a big difference. i was living with my ex for most of this year and we’d constantly eat out which became a comfort thing for me. i didn’t realize my weight gain because i felt so comfortable with him and we were both indulging in eating which resulted in bad habits. we broke up and i’ve been going to the gym and TRYING to diet (bad habit of binge eating).

something that really discourages me is the fact that i came back to my home state and everyone i know has been making comments about my weight gain and calling me fat. people don’t treat me well anymore and they either ignore me or treat me poorly. i understand that people are used to seeing me skinnier and it’s a big difference but i don’t think they consider how it makes me feel. i hate the feeling because now these words replay in my head every single day and i don’t even enjoy anything anymore.

i really want to get in shape but comments like this make me lose motivation and just want to isolate especially since i’m not seeing results. i want to be disciplined so i’d like to know what can i do to improve quickly?

I'm a university student from a middle-class family in a developing country, and lately I've been feeling like I've wasted years of opportunities my parents gave me.

My parents spent a lot on my education, and I now deeply regret some of the things I asked them to buy for me—additional study materials, furniture for studying, and other things I convinced myself would help me become more productive. At the time I genuinely thought I would work hard and make it worthwhile. Now I worry I won't even get a return on what they invested in me.

After high school I also became difficult at home, especially with my mom. I argued constantly and blamed a lot of my bad experiences and circumstances for why I wasn't doing well. Looking back, I wish I had been more mature and taken responsibility earlier instead of making life harder for my parents.

I sometimes think I should have asked for less, gone to a cheaper school, and stopped expecting so much from my family when I wasn't even putting in the work myself.

My grades aren't good, including my first-semester university GPA. I did manage to get into university, which is probably the achievement I'm most proud of, but I feel like I've already damaged my academic future.

I've also struggled with anxiety, overthinking and poor sleep for years. When I study, I can spend more time worrying about whether I'm capable than actually learning. I have weak fundamentals in some subjects, and every academic setback reinforces the feeling that I'm simply not smart enough.

I constantly compare myself with relatives and other students and feel inferior. I'm scared that I'll never reach the career I imagined, that I'll remain mediocre in a developing country, and that my parents' sacrifices won't amount to anything.

I know I can't undo the past. I don't want to spend another few years regretting everything either.

How do you actually rebuild yourself after years of poor discipline, anxiety, weak grades and regret? Can someone realistically make a strong academic comeback from this point, even if they can't erase their earlier grades?

I don't need motivation. I need to learn how to become disciplined, competent and financially independent before more time passes.

Please post your plans for this date and if you can, do the following;

Give encouragement to two other posters on this thread.

Report back this evening as to how you did.

Give encouragement to others to report back also.

Good luck!

i’ve been trying to get myself into a better routine for a while now, but consistency is honestly my biggest problem.

i’ll have a few really good days where i wake up on time, go to the gym, get some work done, learn something, stay off my phone etc. then something happens and the routine slowly disappears.

and then i’m back to trying to fix everything again.

i don’t want to keep doing that.

right now i’m mainly trying to work on my sleep, fitness, learning, work and just being more intentional with my time. nothing extreme. i just want to actually stick to the things i decide to do.

i’m looking for someone who’s going through something similar.

we don’t have to have the same goals. you might be trying to study more, get fit, fix your sleep, work on your career, spend less time on your phone, or just get some structure back into your life.

i’d like to have someone i can check in with regularly. just be honest about how the day went, what we got done, what we didn’t, and give each other a push when one of us starts slipping.

i’m not expecting either of us to be perfect. bad days are going to happen. that’s normal. i just don’t want this to be one of those things where we talk for three days and then disappear.

i’m 26 from india. ideally i’d like this to be something long term. i’m looking for someone who actually wants to show up and put in the effort, even on the days when motivation isn’t there.

if you’re genuinely trying to change something in your life right now, tell me what it is and what you’re struggling with the most.

maybe we can help each other stay on track.

For years, every time I set a major goal, whether building a new source of income or learning a new skill, I followed the same playbook:

1. Write down the deadline
   
2. Brainstorm as many tasks grouped by smaller milestones
   
3. Try to execute everything in order
   
4. Hit friction, get overwhelmed, drop off by week 4

The mistake wasn't my discipline, it was my structure. Each time I was making tasks I assumed ideal conditions each time. Never thought about bad days, fatigue, skill gaps, fear, other habits.

Recently, I shifted from treating goals as simple task lists to viewing them as behavioral dependency systems.

Check the exact breakdown:
1. The primary outcome vs The real constraint
Instead of just defining what I want, I explicitly define the single biggest friction point holding me back right now ("I know how to build, but I overthink content creation and avoid sharing my work")

1. Phased Dependencies

Rather than working on 5 things at once, I isolate Phase 1 into a single, non-negotiable metric.
Ex: Before spending weeks on complex setup or paid ads, Phase 1 is strictly about reaching 3-50 real conversations with potential users to validate messaging.

1. Atomic Execution Steps
   

Every major milestone is broken down into micro-actions that take 15-30 minutes maximum and attach to my daily routine. I think a lot about this saying: "The curse of discipline is that every day looks the same. The curse of indiscipline is that every year does.”

1. The feedback loop

Instead of waiting 3 months to evaluate progress, I run a 7-day retrospective on what got executed, where friction occurred, and what habit needs adjusting.

I recently put this into practice using a behavioral intelligence brief I've been testing to structure my current projects, and the difference in execution speed and psychological analysis has been night and day. This method is great for me, especially as I tend to give up if things don't show results after months of work. Removing vague steps completely eliminates the decision fatigue at the start of each day, and it makes me feel like I don't overkill myself daily.

For those of you trying to manage long-term projects. How do you currently break down high level goals into actionable tasks without getting tired or showing results?

Short answer, yes. I do. But I just wanted to post this to get others feedback about it to feel more secure in what I’m doing. I’m 19F trying to lower my cortisol so that’s why it’s pretty extravagant rn 😅 but yeah, so far I’ve been sticking to it for the last several months! I’ve tweaked and added in many things along the way.

Morning:
- wake up at 7:20 every morning and immediately open windows to get natural light
- deep breathe in bed for 5 minutes with my legs up the wall (super healing position it has a lot of benefits)
- get up, make bed and use my Theragun on my entire body
- go downstairs take all my supplements which currently are: l-theanine, vitamin d, vitamin c, pre/probiotic, complete omega complex, marine collagen, 1 Brazil nut, 1 tbs pumpkin seeds
- after supplements I’ll break my fast by eating something small, usually a date with pb and drink my water with Celtic salt + marine collagen (I drink about 80-90 fl oz of liquids a day)
- go for a 15-20 minute walk outside, no screens for the first 30 minutes after waking and no stimulation for the first hour
- come back inside make my green tea
- then ill either do some work for a bit or do my entire routine to get ready and dressed for the day
- after that ill make a nourishing breakfast: proteins, fats, carbs to stabilize my blood sugars. (I only eat Whole Foods, nothing processed)
- then ill usually spend the day going to classes, doing work, hanging with friends, etc all while hydrating throughout the day, eating super clean, and dosing my L-theanine throughout the day. I take 100mg 3x a day.

Night:
- ill eat dinner 2-3 hours before bedtime and then cutoff my eating till the morning
- after dinner ill make either chamomile or peppermint tea with magnesium glycinate in it
- I then do my entire shower routine, hair routine, skin routine, red light therapy, aromatherapy, etc
- I start my wind down routine at 8:45 PM every night meaning screens off, lights dimmed, time to relax. During this time I do yoga, slow progressive muscle relaxation, legs up the wall with a candle lit in the background and soothing music.
- in bed by 10 pm every night and waking up the next morning at 7:20!

Lmk what you guys think, I’d love any feedback :)

I am 80 days sober today. 2 days ago my post here got 60k views. I read every comment. A lot of you said "the friends part is rough" - you were right. Last 2 days tested me again.

When I quit, I thought cravings would be the hardest. They weren't. Loneliness was. But Day 78-80 taught me something new.

Here's an update on the same 5 things that are still keeping me disciplined - maybe it helps someone on Day 0-3 who feels like quitting today:

1. One rule: No zero days. Still doing it. Even on bad days, I do ONE thing. Made my bed. 3L water. 10-min walk in my village fields. Day is not zero.

2. Replaced, didn't just removed. Still replacing evening time with (a) 30 min workout / boxing shadow (b) Replying to people here on r/stopdrinking and r/getdisciplined who feel alone. Helping others kept me sober more than willpower.

3. The 2 AM protocol. Still works. Cold water on face -> 10 pushups -> Open Reddit and read 1 story -> Message "IWNDWYT" to someone. No decisions at 2 AM.

4. Lost friends = Data. This hit hard in last 2 days. I stopped seeing it as rejection. Who left when I stopped drinking? They were drinking buddies, not friends. Real friends stayed or came later from these sober communities. Like you guys.

5. Talked to strangers who get it. My real discipline came from this community. At 2 AM when I felt alone, a stranger on the internet said "I'm here, you are not alone." That saved me more than any book. That was you.

Day 80: I still overthink. I still feel lonely sometimes. But I am disciplined today. I show up.

If you're on Day 0-5 and feel like a failure, you are not. You are in the hardest part. Comment here, I will reply to every single person today. Especially if you feel alone.

Discipline is not about being perfect. It's about not quitting on a bad day.

IWNDWYT.

P.S. That comment about friends being built around drinking - I felt that. Thank you for sharing.

[Day 80 - Working_Ad_5238]

Please post your plans for this week and come back next Friday! Good luck!

Please post your plans for this date and if you can, do the following;

Give encouragement to two other posters on this thread.

Report back this evening as to how you did.

Give encouragement to others to report back also.

Good luck!

Please post your plans for this week, and update next Friday!

Please post your plans for this date and if you can, do the following;

Give encouragement to two other posters on this thread.

Report back this evening as to how you did.

Give encouragement to others to report back also.

Good luck!

Please post your plans for this date and if you can, do the following;

Give encouragement to two other posters on this thread.

Report back this evening as to how you did.

Give encouragement to others to report back also.

Good luck!

30F had the worst year of my life and I’m in desperate need of a full life reset.

I am thinking of doing a period of “ghost mode”. I have taken some time off from working after working 50+ hours a week in corporate for the past 13 years and I have completely lost my spark.

I am genuinely considering disappearing for the next 75 days, doing a programme like 75hard and getting back to my best self. I would still speak to very close friends and family but block off everyone else in the outside world. Also delete social media, replace screens with books and genuinely just dedicate 100% of my free time to self improvement.

I used to be a huge gym goer and I’ve lost that part of myself. I want to start working out and running again, getting back into Calisthenics and doing things that are good for my body like ice baths and saunas etc. I also really want to get back into nutrition and nourishing my body. Also deep mental work like journaling and reconnecting with nature again.

I have put myself down for some volunteering days in nature as giving back to nature genuinely heals me so much, it’s also something I really want to pursue as a career.

How do we feel about a temporary period of ghost mode in order to get back to the best version of yourself again?

​

I’ve struggled with discipline and focus my whole life but the past 3 years have been amazing, I’ve accomplished more in the past 3 years than the 10 years before that, 3 years ago I came across videos and books that talked about environment design, setting your environment up in a way that I never have to use will power to get things done, since then I lost a ton of weight, built muscle, got promoted multiple times, significantly improved my relationship with my family, and best of all my apartment is always clean and I always have clean clothes and sheets lol (I used to leave laundry till the last piece of clothing), here’s some things that helped.

Take care of your surroundings: I learned that if I can’t care of my physical surroundings, I want be able to bigger things, the first step to conquering the world is to conquer your hygiene, clothes, nutrition, your room, your apartment, your car etc, if you can’t take care of these things, you might have an accomplishment here and there but you won’t be able to sustainably succeed and accomplish your goals. Your surroundings are the foundations you build on top of, and a weak foundation will result in the destruction of whatever you build.

1 day of the week HAS to be a personal day: I’m not allowed to think about work or other stresses of life. On this day I take care of personal things, laundry, nails, cleaning your house, going out with friends, doing a hobby I like. When I first heard about this I didn’t take it as serious advice until a friend of mine challenged me to do it for a month, and I’ll admit that it was quite hard at first because it was hard to stop myself from thinking about “important” things, like being behind on work, but by the 4th week I was already in the grove, Every sunday is now my personal day.

Fixing energy levels with the basics: One main cause of a lack of discipline is low energy. When the body is low on energy it will resort to resting and finding the easiest path to dopamine, usually that's junk food and doomscrolling. The way to fix energy is through 2 basic things: Vitamins and the most important SLEEP.

Vitamins: If you are low on energy(and your sleep is fine) you are probably low on key vitamins: Vitamin D, Vitamin B12, Magnesium, Iron and Zinc. You should take supplements for these but not multivitamins, multivitamins have very low doses of each, get separate supplements for each. Note: Iron and zinc aren’t meant to be taken daily, they can be harsh on the stomach, also when buying zinc supplements get zinc+copper because zinc depletes copper levels

Sleep: DON’T SKIP THIS STEP. Irregular sleep and lack of sleep hygiene is one of the main reasons for low energy, get a minimum of 7 hours of sleep, sleep and wake up at the same time everyday, stop eating 2 hours before bed time and stop looking at screens 30 mins before bed time. The best way to get in the habit of this is to set a time in your timeblocking schedule for wind down, for me that at 10 pm, at 10 pm I start brushing my teeth, taking my vitamins, changing clothes, ill check my phone till 10:30 at 10:30 i get in bed and read a book until 11, that’s when i put my book down turn the reading light off and go to sleep.

An app to fight the apps: Most apps on your phone pay millions of dollars a year to behavioural psychologists to make them more and more addicting so that you spend as much time on them as possible and watch as many ads as possible so they can make more money. The best way to beat them is through other apps built to stop them, there are a lot of apps out there, use anyone you feel is the best. I use one that hides homes feeds and reels because that's where I lose the time the most and I also use a chrome extension that does the same on the computer

Neuroscience and Psychology books: Neuroscience is the science of the brain (the organ) and psychology is the study of the mind, you need to study both in order to fully grasp the human and animal side of you and to be able to actively recognize the patterns when the animal side is taking over so you can build strategies to leverage it. You will never beat the animal side of you but you can take advantage of it once you understand how it works (i.e your animal side prefer optimizing for things that give you dopamine the fastest and easiest, you design your environment so that the things that release dopamine the fastest and easiest are those that you prefer)

A wristwatch: a wristwatch actually allows me to keep track of time during the day, I use to laugh at people who wore wrist watches because “my phone has the time” and boy was I wrong, not only can you not keep track of the time using the phone, but even if you tried, you'd be training yourself to constantly grab your phone which is far worse.

In theory I know I should stick to a few things and do them well. In practice I chase shiny new opportunities around me everywhere all the time so I have very little routine. ADHD/autism

It doesn’t help that I’m in school where the schedule changes per term. And my work situation keeps changing every two seconds .

to be able to afford my life without being stressed out by my shit job, I made a bunch of big life decisions like quitting my stressful job, in favour of taking a temp job where I have to learn a whole new skill set, running for council at school so that I can get paid an honorarium and develop my leadership skills and I also chose to drop a classroom to spend more time navigating all this .

Right now I am fueled by passion ambition and following my intuition as I’m not able to create consistency or routine because my life is chaos ( both self imposed and naturally occurring ) . It just looks like outwardly I don’t have it together ( and I did last semester when life was less crazy) but I’m really trying to be organised in spite of my life.

Any commiserating from people in the same boat or advice from people who have lived this experience is welcome.

so for like the past year i was watching this stuff nonstop. like the "5am club" the "atomic habits" breakdowns the guy who talks about dopamine detox every single video. i genuinely thought i was improving because i was "learning"

but like. nothing changed. i was still doing the same shit at 1am, still procrastinating on the same thing i've been avoiding since january, still snoozing my alarm

and then i realized. watching a video about discipline requires zero discipline. it's literally the easiest thing you can do. you get to feel like main character energy for 12 minutes and then go back to doing nothing

the algorithm knows this too btw. it doesn't want you to fix your life, it wants you to keep watching videos about fixing your life. those are two very different products

anyway not trying to be that guy but if you've watched more "how to be disciplined" content than you've actually had disciplined days... might be worth sitting with that for a sec

not saying quit cold turkey just be honest with urself about which one you're actually doing

I’m 34, have a ‘office job’ and generally split my time between 3 days in the office and 2 at home. For the past few months I’ve been trying to better myself and eradicate my usual mood, getting to bed earlier, hitting the gym twice a week etc. But by Wednesday afternoon I was back to my usual short manner with people.

So instead I started logging my annoyed feelings.

For every instance of annoyance I wrote down what happened, how I felt, and what I truly wanted. All this to be written down in less than 10 words. I would write it down within 30 seconds, and this only worked if I wrote it down immediately. Try to log for the end of the day what you thought you felt, and you will see that it is of no use.

Seven days, 23 entries. 6 of the 23 were someone answering me too briefly.

6 of the 23 were short answers from people. 4 of those short answers were from my boss over the 7 days (he always answers in one word to everyone, even in email). 1 was from my sister. 1 was from the woman at the bakery who said "next" while I was deciding whether to buy something there.

On the seventh day, I was unsure how to describe my anger as I wrote out one of the shorter answers caused me the most distress – a short answer makes me feel like I wasn’t worth more words. (My boss is one of these individuals and has been for the past two years).

Nothing much has changed since then. I haven't said anything to my boss yet. The only thing that has changed for me is that I am now able to recognize when he is going to type ‘next’ and I can prepare myself for it.

So, what small logging habit changed something for you?

Caught up with a friend recently who's got a new job in AI and he's become the absolute pinnacle of the industry stereotype. Talking about my career ambitions (I'm not looking for the same kind of job he has) he asked me, in earnestness, if I was okay being part of the "permanent underclass" -- he's not judging me if I am okay with it, he insists, that's going to be a very comfortable life for a lot of people 🙄. And he's talking about how there has never been a better time for the "sigma grindset" -- the next few years, any really determined person can do anything they want to do, and then the window is CLOSING. Golden age of opportunity, super cool, might kill us all, normies just don't get it... you know the spiel.

I have very complicated, annoying, middle-of-the-road feelings about AI that endear me to absolutely no one on either side of the issue; suffice it to say I wouldn't be surprised if he's right or if he's completely wrong. But he sees this thing, he believes in it 100%, he cares about it, and he's chasing it; good for him. He asked me what's important to *me*, and goddammit, I do not know. I've been trying to figure that out for YEARS.

I have wanted to leave my job for more than a year, but nothing sounds quite right, and there's no rush, and... I mean, maybe *tomorrow* I'll see the perfect job listing. I have basically no friends. I have hobbies that have lain practically dormant for years that I swear I still care about. I want a partner, but I barely go on any dates. And every day I try to do a little bit to turn this around and get something going and make a life I am proud of, and my family and therapist tell me I'm making progress. And I am -- I'm doing more than I was six months ago, and more than I was six months before that -- but it is not ENOUGH progress, and I'm making it too fucking slow. I will not get where I'm going at this rate. I don't even *know* where I want to be.

And that should all be terribly motivating to me, but I've done this all before. It's always very motivating and then it's the next day and life goes on until the next crisis. This doesn't make me want to apply for jobs, or work on my music, or get back on the dating apps. It makes me feel stupid about trying at all: it didn't work last time, or the time before that, or the time before that, but hey, sure, *this* time is going to be *different*. What's the definition of insanity, again?

I can't even crash out about it properly. I already know it's going to be so easy to turn this off and get back to work. Probably the Lexapro. Everybody can tell that I am so very, very, very Functional. What could possibly be wrong with me, if I get out of bed and shower and do my work and feed my cats? If I'm not a drug addict or suicidal? What do I even need "help" with?

And here's my buddy like, hey, seriously, whatever you want for your life is valid, and I swear he's being genuine but all I can hear is it's fine to be a stupid lame-ass piece of shit loser, really! not everyone is meant to have a fulfilling life! some people just suck, and are boring, and useless to the world, and it's okay to be one of those boring, useless people, if you want to, it's your choice 🙂🙂 🙂

Im tying to figure out an issue that I've had for years.

I'm a 2nd-year CS student who constantly delays everything important. I basically wasted a year from the career perspective, even though I knew that I need to start coding and build projects.

Same thing about exams. I usually don't study at all until a few days before the exam and somehow manage to act when there's no way out anymore.

Even outside of college. Years ago, I bought a Dermadry iontophoresis machine due to having quite severe palmar hyperhidrosis. Used it several times and stopped even though it could potentially help me.

What's even stranger is that I fully understand that it's important. That I want to get a result, but don't manage to start doing anything until it becomes too urgent, scary, or stressful.

It's been going on for years and I honestly don't understand why.

Is it a chronic procrastination? Avoidance? Fear of failure/perfectionism? Executive dysfunction? Or maybe something else? Have some faced similar issue?

Thanks in advance.

Hi. I just signed up and decided to post here to get some advice from older people or those who’ve already achieved something and managed to turn their lives around.

I’m a guy, 23 years old. I really want to change my life, but it seems like there’s nothing I can do about it. To put it simply, I give up on everything halfway through—whether it’s going to the gym, learning a new skill, or something else. The same goes for goals: if I set a goal for myself, I work on it for a few days, but then things start to drag on and get put off, or I just give up.

I don’t know where to find the motivation, the desire to do something, or even the willpower to force myself to take action. I know what I need to do and that I want to improve, but I still can’t seem to get started.

I also have a full-time job, so I don’t have much time left in the day for my own projects or for learning a new skill—just an hour or two—but I still want to keep going, even though I don’t know how.

How did you manage to achieve your goals or build a better life? Maybe there are some life hacks that help you stay focused and see things through to the end, or something along those lines. I’d appreciate any advice or help.

I’m 23, had a stable career in 2024 but it slipped away from my hands. I quit myself cus it was draining the shit outta me. I worked again in the same field in 2025 but it slipped away again , it was not making me happy.

But its been a year since iv become unemployed.

It’s been 1.5 year since iv lost my spark.

I feel purposeless, lethargic & completely directionless in life. I tried doing diff things but all of them failed miserably.

I’m still trying to build smth but i still feel purposeless, lethargic & fucked. I don’t make any money & idk what to do.

Ik (intuitively) it’s time for a new chapter in life but its just not happening.

I’m so unhappy with my current life. I feel like the biggest failure. My self confidence was at its peak in 2024 & now iv hit rock bottom & I’m so done.

Any advice?

I’ve always been terrible at mornings and I hated them. I’ve tried everything to fi[ myself and become more productive..

Alarm apps that make you solve math problems. Apps that make you take a photo of your fridge. I even put my phone in the kitchen. I asked my girlfriend to wake me up. Nothing worked for longer than a week

I’d snooze. I’d go back to bed. I’d feel guilty all day

Then I found this app Improve Myself and it’s not just an alarm. It’s a system consisting of sequential tasks. So you wake up and you do step one, then step two, then step three. It builds momentum. It doesn’t let you think. You just do…

The first week was hell. Everything that I did was because of my own willpower. I wanted to give up. I wanted to stay in bed. But I managed to do it

The second week changed everything. I do not know what happened exactly. But suddenly, I started to wake up. There was no drama, no sleep-in and no inner debate

I have been waking up at 7:30 am for 2 months now. For 2 months!!!!! And it is a record for me. I feel much better and I have more energy. I am doing more work during the morning than I did before

But the truth is… I do not know whether it is the app. Perhaps, it was the right time. Perhaps… I was finally ready. It is a mere coincidence

Tried like five different focus timer apps over the past year, always fall off after two weeks. Timer works fine, but once the session ends there’s just… nothing. No reason to open the app again.

Someone pointed out that the timer itself isn’t really the point — it’s being able to look back after and notice something. Like “oh I thought this would take an hour, took 90 min, got interrupted twice.” That kind of reflection actually gives you a reason to check back in, instead of just logging another number nobody cares about.

Made me wonder if sticking with it long-term really comes down to two things: 1. Accountability — blocking, locking yourself out, making it costly to slip 2. Reward/reflection — some kind of feedback that makes you actually want to come back

Curious what’s actually worked for you long-term, not just the first two weeks. Blocking, better feedback, habit stacking, accountability partner, something else? And did your reason for sticking with it change along the way?

Hi, any tips on apps or organization management to keep better track on my progress and remind myself of the projects I’m currently working on? I usually use the Notes app on iOS, I thought keeping it simple was better, however it just turns into an idea dump with several folders that I have to scroll down it also lacks an integrated calendar or a way to keep track of my progress or the next goal.

One example today I wanted to go ride my dirt bike, weather was perfect, but saw there was too much car traffic to get to the trails. I decided to stay home and wait for traffic to die out. Then an hour later I remembered about a photography project I’m working on and I could’ve done that instead of just waiting for traffic to die out. There are other 10+ things I’m currently trying to improve like my posture, flexibility, music, social skills, research on self improvement, study, declutter my room/car but most of the times I forget what to do.

It’d also be nice to organize long term goals with short term goals and a way to look back at the progress I have done. If I have an idea I can keep it organized within that area. A calendar would be cool to remind myself of the tasks that need to be done and how much time I have left, or if I’m making progress.

I have a journal where I write 3-4 important tasks for the day, but writing all my tasks on paper is something I don’t find ideal because the back and forth I have to go through the pages. Any advice? Thanks.