Hello comrades and welcome to the first improvement megathread of February! 
A new month in front of us to conquer.
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How was your January?
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Do you have any plans for February?
Poster caption: “Youth - to the stadiums!”
Good luck with your goals! 
Short update: We are still ballin’. Life is posting up 2-man coverage on me, but we ballin’ regardless.
Always be ballin
Did you see that RPG Maker is currently free on Steam? I know you’re into gamedev
I successfully did my first dry January. I’m currently sitting at 45 days of no alcohol.
One thing I’ve noticed recently is that I’m not really sleeping that well. Part of it is due to wanting to game late into the night but the other half is that night time procrastination because I don’t want the day to be over yet. So I stay up far too late and then am just a zombie the next morning. I know I can fix it by just going to sleep at an appropriate time but I feel like the underlying reasons why I keep doing this need to be addressed.
Other than sleep issues, I do need to do more physical activities and eat better. I’ve been semi-consistent with calisthenics stuff but without any real program. My main desire at this point is just to stem the decay of my body and stop my back from hurting all the fucking time.
Congratulations on dry January!
The “revenge bedtime procrastination” is so common that it even has a wikipedia page lol. It’s a systemic issue since most of our day gets eaten up by wage slavery and chores. Of course I want to stay up all night playing modded Skyrim smh
Regarding the back pain, these core exercises helped me
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I successfully did my first dry January. I’m currently sitting at 45 days of no alcohol.
Hell yeah!
I had a pretty great January. I successfully transitioned away from eating meat and now i’m on to culling other animal products with a goal of being vegan completely this year.
For February I want to drink less and get back on my weight loss grind. Definitely need less cannibus to make that happen.
Overall i’m feeling really good though! Like being part of this comm thank you.
Ooh, a less alcohol goal? I just completed dry January myself and carbonated, flavored water really helped me. It had the texture I was looking for in beer.
Best of luck to veganism, between you and me dairy is easier to go without than eggs if you’re looking for a way to start, and after a while you’ll develop lactose intolerance which helps.
congrats on the dry january and thank you for these very helpful suggestions!
i don’t really get alcohol cravings so much as socially my ptsd only relaxes when i’m tipsy and trying to hang out socially while sober i usually stress myself or others out so that’s something i’m trying to address in therapy. especially hanging out with my girlfriend i’m very loving and cuddly when tipsy but i’m a little tetchy and don’t like to be touched and can be snippy when sober. Ugh just thinking about it is stressful.
Let’s start off with a positive, I have officially completed dry January. I don’t struggle with alcoholism, but it’s good to be off the stuff.
The second thing is that I want to learn how to cope with ADHD. I’m worried about some of the strings attached that will come with getting meds, but if I should try to do so anyways then by all means.
good on you mate!
I just finished the cycle of assessments for my Adhd and I’m really glad I did it. I haven’t gotten the results yet so idk if I’m going to get medication, but it’s satisfying knowing that I did at least one thing for my own wellbeing.
Congrats on the clean time!
This week marks my second month smoke free, still going strong
Hell yeah, keep going and keep us updated
tyty, will do
hey congrats comrade that’s a huge W for sure.
Tyvm!
roll call
If anybody else wants to be added to the roll call, just let me know
I was going to say that I made no major progress this month, but that’s actually not true! I don’t really have issues with waking up in the morning, but on days where I don’t have anything scheduled I would often just rot in bed on my phone for hours and hours, which is bad enough on its own but has all kinds of knock-on effects. I solved this with a stupidly simple rule I set for myself: don’t unlock your phone until you’ve gotten out of bed, gotten fully dressed, and made your bed.
I know that sounds like a “just do it” kind of solution, but for me it literally solved the problem overnight (at least so far), and I’ve had zero problems with compliance. I think the reason that it was easy to adhere to is that it’s not so much that I’m addicted to checking my phone as I have trouble tearing myself away from it. So if I just don’t start looking at it, my desire to look at it isn’t that great. I recognize that this may not be true if you’re fixated on being up-to-the-minute on news updates or responding to social media replies or whatever, but that hasn’t been an issue for me for many years.
It usually goes one of two ways: I either hop out of bed right away, or I just lay there and think about stuff. They’re both positive–either I get a nice early start to the day, or it gives me time to process things, do problem solving, or just be without immediately running away from my thoughts by flooding my brain with stimuli.
So yeah, that’s been the big positive change! Other than that, I’ve also been doing more meal prep, which is good.
On the negative side, I’ve also been snacking more because my roommate keeps buying snacks and sharing them with me–I’ve had to tell them to keep them in their room when practical because I just can’t control myself with snacks even though I’m pretty stringent with my regular meals. Hoping that will help me cut back a bit. For me, the best kind of snack is one that requires significant time to prepare, since I can set my portion size in advance and there’s little risk I’ll go through the whole process again just to have a bit more.
I also haven’t been working on my project much at all this past month. I let scope creep get the best of me and really burnt myself out…I really need to just call this part good enough so I can move on and build up some momentum again. I’m going to make a commitment right now: I’ll work on it for at least 30 minutes today and report back!
edit: whoops, I forgot lol. Well, I put in a few hours today, so hopefully that makes up for things! Made some more progress and reacquainted myself with the codebase. Not a sea change or anything, but I think as long as I consistently work on it I’ll get it done without too much trouble. My goal is to work on it at least an hour a day until it’s done.
that’s a pretty good tip good job figuring that one out!
I’ve been consistent with running lately and back on my stretching game. Right now struggling to write a song.
good job keeping limber!
What instrument are you playing? I’m always struggling to finish a song. Most of the time I write 70% of a song, get bored by it and move on without finishing it
I play clawhammer banjo. I tend to approach my songs lyrics first and build off from there. It’s missing another verse and some embellishments, but I’ll get back to it after the remaining 12+1 I need to work on.
That’s wild to me, I always write all instruments for the song and then try to fit the lyrics on top.
The banjo is such a great instrument. I might fuck around and buy one. I already play the guitar so I figure it shouldn’t be too hard to learn it. Do you have any tips for buying a first banjo? What is the difference between a clawhammer banjo and a regular one?
So if you want the best bang for your buck, Deering’s Goodtime models are the best out there. Their starter instruments are amazing for the price, but their high end models are where you’re best off going to a different company. They’re also a Scientologist company, so feel free to buy it used. Washburn also does a good job on the cheap end, and their six-string banjotars mean you wouldn’t have to learn a new tuning. It seems like I’m spending a lot of time on money, but unlike the guitar–where $200 will get you a solid instrument–the various parts in most banjos means you want to clear the $400-500 range for a new instrument.
Clawhammer is just the style. It’s a strumming style involving your fingernail and thumb. Scruggs is the Bluegrass-style where you play with fingerpicks. There’s numerous other styles, but those are the most popular. For Bluegrass you want a super loud instrument, so you’ll want a “closed-back” resonator banjo. For other folk styles, open-back is preferred, but not necessary.
You’ll likely want either a five-string or a six-string as mentioned above. While four-string banjos exist, they’re unheard of for most clawhammer styles. That’s more of a ragtime or Irish Trad. kind of style.
In my opinion, one of the best online sources is Brainjo. But if you want to just strum some basic tunes out the door, the book Clawhammer Cookbook is solid for the first 20 or so pages before it goes to shit. Pete Seeger’s book is also solid, but it’s out of print to my knowledge. For Bluegrass, Scruggs wrote and excellent book and most of the standard shelf material is solid enough.
Any other questions, feel free to ask. I’m sort of obsessed with this instrument, as you’re generally forced to when learning something a bit more niche.
i made multiple covers of anime songs which was a goal i set out to do and is almost complete
Pinned! I’m back on the horse quitting vaping. 24 hours sober at this time. I treated myself to some sushi for lunch to celebrate.
Recovering from having COVID this past week. Pretty much the only way to have topped off an absolute dogshit January.
Aside from just testing negative, at least it seems like it was also at the root of most of my dad’s recent struggles throughout the month after coming home from the hospital for a separate health issue. As long as he shows he’s regained his strength I should be able to start dedicating some time to working out again. Going to have to see how hard I can push myself though. When I had COVID two years ago it took me a while to build my stamina back up.
glad to hear you’re on the road to wellness!
My January was dogshit
due to health stuff but I still tried to keep fighting and make progress. Hopefully February will be better so that I can get back on the horse
