Hackingu!! - Specifically prep for Offensive Security Certification test - oof

Utter failure, but a success anyway because I say so.

NEW GOAL: Do all the things I did instead of working on this project.

Miny-goals completed:

1. Clean up my sleep schedule. I was going to bed at 4 and getting up at noon or later on workdays, often snoozing my alarm for hours while I constantly checked for work emails and slack notifications. Now I’m going to bed around midnight and starting work around 8, 8:30 like a normal human being.
2. Get my studying Japanese habit re-established so I feel like I’m moving forward on the things that are important to me personally FIRST, before I focus on career goals. I prefer it this way. Anki deck is caught up and I’m watching Japanese shows regularly again - podcasts next.
3. Read the first 100 pages of the 4-hour chef and learned some useful new cooking skills. I’ve grown tired of making the same 4 recipies and eating out is crazy expensive. I also made several of the first couple recipies and bought a bunch of new toys to play with (helloooo Enamled Dutch Oven and fancy Hot Pot!) Reinvigerating through food!
4. Got a metric ton of personal and work backlogged items finished that were hanging over my head. Had several important conversations at work to get some process changes underway!
5. Refreshed on the 4-hour work week specifically for the Elimination portion. Trying a better work day structure tomorrow to help me do Deep Work so I can have more time for this during the week rather than trying to cram it in on the weekends.
6. Significantly reduced my VideoGame and YouTube watch time with some very simple and easy to maintain changes. Now I’m only watching what I ACTUALLY want to watch and I’m able to stop playing Videogames when they switch from being rejuvinating and start becoming discouraging and rage inducing.

Overall this has been a Major success because I say so and it’s my project damn it!

Final goal for this last week: Do some research for windows box enumeration tools during the workday (it’s applicable to my day job) and save some command line format notes to jrnl to try out.

new goal: BUILD A BETTER GOAL. This week is going to be three-fold.

1. Continue doing everything I’ve started with controlling my sleep schedule, focusing on getting my work knocked out quickly, and limiting media input (youtube and video games). - So far so good on this
2. Get my environment setup to best facilitate the studying I want to do.
3. Show up simply by logging into my VM and logging onto the HTB VPN.
4. BONUS: Stare angrily at one of the Windows boxes as if Bill Gates personally programmed it to insult my honor and bring shame to my family.

Inspiration from Khaztz on Goal setting: http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/comfort-zone-growth-zone-panic-zone/

GoodVBad Goals: http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/bad-goal-good-goal/

What a shit show…

I’ve managed to clean up my Bullet Journal which is an immense load off my mind and knocked out a lot of the things that I’ve been needing to do for a long time which is helping me to relax and focus a lot better.

I scheduled 2 boxes a week but I think I’m having second thoughts about how well I’m defining my goal (thinking about Wintergarten’s recent video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLUDauIxudM). In fact as I write this update I’m deciding that defining a goal like this is dooming me to failure, so I think I need to restructure my schedule to be structured for success like my Japanese goal.

One thing I’ve started doing to reclaim enough time to be able to work on this project is by setting a timer for video games before I sit down. I’ve tried scheduling X amount of time in advance but it never works because I never know when I’m so tired I need a break or even if I’ll want to play anything at that moment. Instead, by asking myself, “what is the maximum amount of time I can allow myself to relax where, when I’m finished, I won’t feel like I’ve wasted the day” BEFORE I start playing, when my alarm goes off I realize that, “if I play for any longer than this I will feel bad”. This has been working really well so far so I’m going to try to continue with it.

I also want to try consolidating my media/news intake into one day a week. Maybe that’s too little but I can expand if necessary. The idea is to save any media I see throughout the week into a bookmark folder for later watching. This way I don’t have to be afraid of seeing something tempting on youtube or anywhere else. Normally I’d save it on my bookmark bar which means I would be constantly tempted by it, or I’d watch it immediately interrupting my ability to delve into deep work and ruining my day/mood.

I had been thinking it might be fun to stream the hacking sessions on twitch just for the lols. Could be fun.