Deep Work & Systems

Ughhhh here we go. My husband and I used to be very active, very physically connected and very fun. We started taking edibles in college around 22 years old and have not looked back since. We developed depression, horrible eating habits, and we’ve been so insecure and down on ourselves our s*x life has become stagnant. I’m not really looking for advice because we know what we need to do. I guess I just want to hear other people’s experiences? I don’t really know.

We’re 28, own a home, great jobs and good income. For months we kept saying “we have to stop getting high every night” yet we’d cave as soon as work ended. We keep talking about starting a family, but we’re both in agreement we need to turn our health and habits around first. We started eating way better lately and began working out consistently last week. We haven’t smoked or taken an edible since Sunday which sounds like nothing, but it’s progress.

It’s an addiction. It feels like I can’t enjoy certain things anymore without being high because we’ve conditioned ourselves this way for years. Gaming is more fun high, talking is more fun high, s*x is more fun high (though we haven’t even been doing that bc we lowkey hate ourselves rn), eating is better, I could go on and on.

I started writing to help distract me and it’s working. We just feel like zombies and we’ve been so lazy it’s disgusting. I don’t recognize myself anymore and I’m doing something about it.

I'm looking to have a running list of notes that I need to create, based on how many times the uncreated note is referenced by other notes. Something to the extent of:

This uncreated note is referenced by 5 other notes

Just something to give me a to-do list for the notes I still need to make. How would I go about doing this? Could bases do this?

These days I am truly learning the definition of "you can either be your own best friend, or your worst enemy". The only thing holding me back from my true potential is my biggest opp, myself. Allow me to explain.

As a child, I was smart and in accelerated classes and programs, often bragging about how I never studied and still got As. Everyone coddled and praised me and I never faced criticism because I never did any wrong. But I also grew up in a bubble, raised by tiger parents, who never allowed me to do any wrong- or anything I wanted to do ever . As a result I grew into an adult who doesnt know how to work hard for what they want, or how to properly have social interactions, who has minimal financial literacy and freedom, and who lives in fear of rejection and risk taking.

I'm 25F, living at home with said tiger parents still, unemployed for 6 months now from being let go at a high stress sales job, and in this time of joblessness I have done nothing to help better myself. Part of it is surely depression, anxiety, and burnout. But it gets to a point. I'm sick of living this way and very frustrated because childhood me would be so disappointed in who I've become. Everyones former precious smart successful girl has no aspirations and no career outlook, and no desire for anything except to play videogames all day.

I despise leaving the house because I'm tempted to spend money, or eat out, or interact with people against my will. I've gained 10 lbs already because of this new inactive lifestyle. I've never enjoyed exercise or the gym anyway, but now that I dont get out much its really showing. I like taking walks at parks but thats been ruined for me because I'm a solo female (no friends to go with me). I want to better myself, and I make to do lists and plans and often know exactly what I SHOULD be doing, but can't bring myself to do anything. And the cycle continues.

Apologies for the long post, being concise isn't a strong suit. If you are reading this, please give me some tips, tricks, words of encouragement, roasts even! I just seriously need discipline in my life. TY.

My daughter is 6 years old and this year especially, I feel like it's been really hard for her to make friends. She is super smart and was an only child for 5.5 years, so I feel like she is a little advanced or "grown" at least in the eyes of my sisters, but she is overall a super sincere, genuine friend. She loves to share and she loves to make her friends feel seen and heard, although she has no filter and that's something we're working on. She has started to get her feelings hurt more than ever before recently and I just don't really know how to help her or what advice to give her. I can't remember how I felt when I was her age or what situations I went through that could be similar. I know that now as an adult, I couldn't careless how someone speaks to me or what they say, I try to be the same person all the time; kind and helpful. I don't want her to not establish boundaries or put up with things that she shouldn't have to just because I believe in being kind (I believe you can be kind and still have boundaries).

Two recent examples:

1. My daughter takes dance lessons on Tuesdays. One of her little friends takes the same lesson. They haven't really been around each other since last summer because they went to different schools and her friend was pulled out of the before/after care that they both attended, but they were really close last summer and whenever my daughter would attend the weeklong dance camps. Last week, her friend arrived to dance with a few of the other dance moms and kids, they were playing with squishies (my nemesis) and my daughter walked over to her and asked if she could play also and her friend told her no. My daughter asked her why the other girls could play but she couldn't and her friend told her, "Well it's because we know each other's moms." ... ok. (for context, we had a playdate scheduled for the coming up Friday that the mom actually rescheduled to the next Friday) I told her to brush it off, you have a ton of squishies at home to play with (even though it crushed me inside). They started the lesson and about 10 minutes through my baby comes out to the lobby to tell me that her friend and another mutual "friend" were talking about her and she thinks she wants to cancel the play date. I told her that we can do whatever she wants to do but she should go back in there and ask the girls why they were talking about her. I could see on the TV that as soon as she went back into the room the little girl ran up to her. I later found out that the girl ran up to her and said "can't you wait for our playdate!!!" and my daughter asked her why she was talking about her. She told my daughter that she wasn't talking about her, she was talking about her ice cream sandwich. IDK weird. I tried to talk to my daughter about it on the way home and she was just so confused. She didn't know if they were really talking about her or not, and she didn't know if she wanted to cancel the playdate any longer since her friend told her that they weren't talking about her. She did tell me that when she first got into the lesson room, she was standing next to her friend when her friend said "lets get some personal space." This is very valid, the child might want some personal space and my daughter could very well have been invading it - that didn't bother me much. but seeing the hurt on my babys face and her telling me that her tummy felt yucky just crushed me. I told the mom what my daughter told me and she said she would handle it.

2. My daughter was enrolled in a before and after care program that she initially LOVED. Over time she started to hate it, like HATE IT. She hasn't gone all summer long. After talking to her, I found out it's because one of the teachers gives her a hard time. My daughter says that this teacher is so mean to her and is always yelling at her about something and being sassy to her. I talked to the director who reassured me that the teacher in question has never raised her voice, but I didn't really think that to begin with. I told the director that my daughter just feels like she's always being picked with/on and the only child at that. My nephews go to the same before and after care and have also told me that this teacher is always nit picking with my girl, even though sometimes my nephews are on her side and other times they are the ones getting her in trouble (this is just kids I guess).

My point is that.... everywhere my daughter goes, there is someone who is making her feel like shit. My mind says that the common denominator is the problem (that would be my daughter, lol) but my heart is telling me that it's something else. She is having trouble making connections, getting her feelings across or getting her feelings hurt and I am TIRED OF IT.

I will admit that she is a bit sassier when I am around, idk the science behind that but whenever I am not there and she is just with my sister, my mom or grandmother, etc. she is good as gold. She is even an angel when it's just her and I! but the minute that someone else is around or even on the phone she sometimes gets smart mouthed and sassy.

I am just looking for advice or an encouraging word. It's important to note that I do not live in lala land and think that my daughter does no wrong -- I will not make excuses for shitty behavior; she can be sneaky and manipulative, but she is also soft and sweet and such a good friend.

thank you for reading.

For a while, I couldn’t understand what was happening to me.

Things that used to take 20 minutes suddenly felt like they required an entire afternoon.

I’d look at a simple email and think, “I’ll answer this later.”

Then later became tomorrow.

My to-do list kept growing, and the more it grew, the less I wanted to look at it.

The weird part was that I wasn’t doing anything because I didn’t care. I actually cared too much. I was constantly thinking about what I should be doing, even when I wasn’t doing it.

So naturally, I started blaming myself.

Maybe I’m getting lazy.

Maybe I’ve lost my discipline.

Maybe I just need to push myself harder.

Pushing harder worked for a little while.

Then it made everything worse.

What eventually helped me was realizing that burnout doesn’t always look like collapsing from exhaustion. Sometimes it looks like procrastination, brain fog, irritability, avoiding small tasks, or feeling strangely disconnected from things you normally care about.

I started paying more attention to the mental load I was carrying instead of only looking at how productive I was.

And strangely, once I stopped fighting myself so much, it became easier to actually get things done again.

I’m curious if anyone else experienced burnout this way.

Did you ever mistake burnout for laziness at first?

I've been blaming my phone for wrecking my attention for years, so last week I tried something stupidly simple.

Every time I caught myself opening Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, or just unlocking my phone for no reason, I wrote down what I had been doing immediately before it. I expected the answer to basically be, "I was bored."

It wasn't.

Most of the time I grabbed my phone within a few seconds of something becoming even slightly uncomfortable. Difficult email? Phone. Couldn't figure out the next paragraph of something? Phone. Cleaning reached the annoying part? Phone. Even while reading, I'd reach for it the second I hit a page that required a bit more concentration.

That was a pretty uncomfortable realization because apparently my attention span isn't randomly disappearing. I've trained myself to escape the moment my brain encounters friction.

The craziest part was how fast it happens. Sometimes I hadn't even consciously decided I didn't want to do the task yet, and my hand was already reaching for the phone. I counted 47 unlocks one day, and maybe 5 of them were because I actually needed something.

For the last few days I've been trying one rule: when I get the urge to check my phone while doing something, I have to wait 10 minutes. I can still check it after that. I'm not doing some hardcore dopamine detox thing.

But half the time the urge disappears once I get through the annoying part of the task.

Has anyone else dealt with this? I'm starting to think I don't need better motivation as much as I need to relearn how to tolerate being mildly uncomfortable for five minutes.

I am a college student with ADHD and set a goal to clean up my house some over the summer. The house has always been a mess since my mom is a bit of a hoarder, but it's significantly better than what it was years ago. It's been three months and it feels like it's worse than before.

At first, everyone told me to focus on my own room because that's the main thing i can control, blah blah blah. I tidied it up, but had virtually no storage other than the closet, so I wanted to get a bookshelf or something. Instead, my family was telling me i should paint my room. I didn't even care that much about the color of my room, but everyone kept telling me it was easy and quick to paint a room. I didn't think things through and started prepping my walls which took a lot of work since i didn't have the right tools at first and my walls are in not great shape. After all that work, I couldn't figure out how to move people/pets in my house around to actually be able to paint. My walls have just been in this ugly, unfinished state for almost two months now. I also still don't have a bookshelf, so nothing has a place and my room is always a mess.

I tried ignoring my room and working on other parts of the house and yard. I did some cleaning and some rooms were a little better, but i haven't maintained them and now they're basically back to how they started. I haven't maintained the yard at all either and now the invasive i cut down earlier have grown back bigger.

I didn't work this summer or see friends very much, I just sat in my room or paced around the house telling myself to do something and breaking down when i wasted another day.

I was supposed to move in to college early yesterday. I got up early to get my things together and just ended up not going. At this point, I've still barely packed anything, so I'm definitely going to forget half of my things.
I don't know what to do and I don't have anyone to talk to about any of this, but I'm so sick of being so incapable all the time.

I'm going to be brutally honest: I've been coasting on autopilot for the better part of three years, and I'm finally disgusted enough with myself to want to change.

My current baseline is embarrassing. I haven't stepped foot in a gym since 2023. My diet consists of whatever is fastest, washed down with more Diet Coke than actual water. I sleep whenever I crash, wake up whenever my body gives in, and consistently miss morning commitments because I just don't feel like getting up. I work from home with zero structure, so my productivity is a joke – I'll cram a week's worth of work into a panicked Sunday night and tell myself I'll do better next week. Spoiler: I never do.

Mentally, I'm drowning in noise. I scroll TikTok for hours, binge podcasts to avoid silence, refresh news feeds obsessively, and fall into the xxx rabbit hole more often than I'd care to admit. Socially? I have acquaintances, but no real friend circle to meet up with, no partner, and no shared activities that get me out of my own head. I feel like I'm watching my life from the outside, and I hate it.

I know motivation is a myth at this point. I've waited to feel ready for years, and that feeling never comes. So I'm leaning into the idea that I need discipline, not inspiration. I've read about 75 Hard and similar programs, and while I'm not going to follow someone else's blueprint, I want to design my own 30-day "hard reset" with strict daily non-negotiables:

• Wake up at 5:00 AM – no snooze, no exceptions.
• Go to the gym every single day – even if it's just showing up and moving for 30 minutes.
• Eat a clean, simple diet – no takeout, no junk, just whole foods.
• Work with discipline for set hours – no procrastination, no cramming.
• Zero junk media – no TikTok, no doomscrolling, no porn, no mindless YouTube.

The goal isn't perfection. It's to prove to myself that I can override my feelings and just do what I said I would do, for 30 consecutive days. After that, I'll reassess what's sustainable and what isn't.

Here's where I need your real talk:

1. Has anyone here done something like this – a strict 30-day (or longer) reset with rigid daily rules – while starting from a place of zero discipline?
2. How did you survive the first week when your brain screamed at you to quit? What actually got you out of bed at 5 AM on day 3 when you were exhausted?
3. Did the momentum carry over after the initial challenge ended, or did you crash back to old habits?
4. If you could go back and redesign your reset, what would you do differently? What rules were actually helpful vs. just performative suffering?

I'm not looking for gentle encouragement or "be kind to yourself" advice – I've had enough of that. I want to hear from people who have dragged themselves out of a similar pit using sheer, stubborn structure. Did it work? Was it worth it? And what did you learn about yourself in the process?

Thanks for reading – I'll be updating this thread as I go, for better or worse.

Preface: Sorry about any issues on mobile.

I plan to keep locations in maps but there is all kinds of quick info that I want/need like info for and about doctor's visits. I am going through IVF so I write down quick Qs on what I want to ask them.
I also log calories (working on losing weight) and my mood.

I mostly use the app for journaling.

I just want to make sure I am not using it for too much.

I'm stuck in this negative cycle and I don't know what to so. I've been trying to get my life together for years now and I had many attempts but I wasn't able to. Now I'm 23 and I'm so far behind I have no choice but to do things. But I just can't get over the grief of not having taking more action in the past. It makes me want to give up. Everyday I wish I was younger. I wish I took more action in the past. And that's causing me to procrastinate more. My screentime is like 15 hours, I spend all day on reddit. I can't let myself think so I distract myself with social media constantly. I need to be studying and finding a job but I can't do it. I can't work when I'm in a bad mood (which I need to work on because it's not sustainable.) I need to overcome this negative cycle but I don't know how. I have thoughts of giving up everyday. I just feel like everything is pointless. How do I get out of this cycle and get things done? And how do I get things done when I'm in such a negative mood? The rumination is literally CONSTANT. When I try to get things done, I have constant thoughts that i'm a loser and that I shouod've done more before so ai just quit and distract myself because of how painful it is. If anyone has experienced this, what helped you quiet your mind?

Been using obsidian for years and today I decided to finally pay for premium but as the title says Paypal is banned in my country so I wasn't able to do that. I've never heard of the other payment methods so I don't trust those myself.

If not possible I could do with an app thats on windows, ios, and android at the same time with free synch too, if that exists.

I am not sure if the title is an appropriate way to look at things but here it is...

I feel like my days kind of fly away from me most days.

I write out a to-do list the night prior and try to stick with it.

I often get all my tasks done, but it feels exhausting.

I usually have 5-8 main priorities for the day. It is usually a combo of work and personal objectives.

I am often working till 5-8pm nearly everyday.

Including weekends.

But I do work from home, so I often do other things like workout, play with the dogs, etc throughout the day.

Not sure of that helps or hurts my situation though…

So it's never a full on working non-stop type of thing.

I am self employed so most days I get calls, emails or un-planable tasks that pop up in my day.

Even my off days I am still lightly working or have to do something due to the un plannable events.

I am Just struggling with what to do, most days I feel like I am overwhelmed, maybe a bit anxious as well...

I'm 21F and I am very very out of shape. I weigh 130lbs so I'm not too worried about weight loss, moreso about building strength and endurance so I stop getting fatigued from walking up the stairs or carrying something heavy. I also have a few health problems that could be much improved by simply exercising regularly. The hard part is that I deal with depression and heavy heavy procrastination. Every time I have tried going to the gym and implementing a workout routine, it doesn't last longer than a week or two.

I need an incentive like a reward or some sort of motivation to get me going to the gym twice a week. I've decided to use my apartment gym since I feel like that would be the absolute easiest for me to access and I don't have to worry about money. I've considered doing a reward system per week then maybe after a little doing per month or something where I take myself out to a nice dinner or buy myself a gift. My dad also gave the idea of paying him $100 at the beginning of the month and if I go all 8 days, I get the money back. Please help with ideas or what has maybe worked for you!

tl;dr - in need of advice to get me going to the gym as a very out of shape, major procrastinator.

Recently im trying to do a few things of mine like projects or smtg which require long term effort and consistency but the thing is I somehow always get distracted and the main thing that always distracts me is my phone and that's because I need to do that work on my phone as I don't have a pc or smtg so can someone help me actually stay consistent at doing those I'm trying since like last year and achievevwhat I'm trying to

I’m 29 and I’ve spent roughly the last 10 years procrastinating, avoiding responsibility, isolating myself and constantly telling myself that I’ll change “from tomorrow.” I’ve had very little consistency with anything. I’ve quit jobs, abandoned plans, spent huge amounts of time in my room, and developed terrible habits around scrolling, porn, masturbation and avoiding difficult or uncomfortable things. My physical health has also suffered, and I have chronic health problems that make me even more aware of how badly I’ve neglected myself. I know I’m responsible for a lot of this, and I’m tired of understanding my problems without actually changing them.

Career-wise, I’ve never really found anything I felt I belonged to. I’ve worked in call centres and other jobs, but I hated the idea of spending the next 5–10 years in a corporate environment. People keep telling me that at my age I should stop thinking so much and learn technical skills, coding, digital marketing, etc., and get a job. I may try digital marketing because I have a relative who works in the field and has offered me part-time work while teaching me things like Google Ads and practical marketing skills. I’m not against working or earning money, and I know I need financial independence. I just don’t see myself building my entire life around a corporate career.

The thing I actually care about is literature. I genuinely want to study English literature properly because I never really got the chance to experience a normal education. I completed my BA English Honours through IGNOU, but I never had the regular college experience. For years, whenever I passed through a university area near me, I would look at the students, classrooms, professors and whole atmosphere and feel like I had missed a huge part of my life. I keep thinking that if I had been given the choice at 18–20, I would have gone to a regular college and studied literature. Now I’m considering preparing for CUET-PG and doing a regular MA in English Literature at 29–30. Part of me wants the academic environment, the discipline, the chance to meet people and make friends, and the chance to actually become a better reader, writer and speaker. I also genuinely love novels, especially classic, gothic and darker literature.

I also want to start a YouTube channel around that interest. I don’t necessarily want to make boring “educational” videos. I want to talk about novels, gothic/classic literature, stories, folklore, culture and eventually other things I’m interested in, in a conversational and entertaining way. I want to build something of my own rather than spend my entire life working for someone else. My relative has said I can work part-time while studying, so in theory I could do the MA, earn some money, and slowly build the channel alongside it.

But here’s where I’m stuck: I have a terrible history of not committing to anything. I’ve spent ten years thinking, planning and fantasizing about changing my life, but when the actual work becomes boring or difficult, I run away. So I’m scared that I’ll prepare for CUET, get into a college, and then repeat the same behaviour there. I’m also scared that maybe the MA is just another respectable way of postponing getting a job and taking responsibility.

Should I commit to the MA and use it as a chance to rebuild myself while working part-time and building something of my own, or am I simply finding another way to avoid entering the real world? And more importantly, how do I actually break a 10-year pattern of procrastination instead of just making another plan about breaking it?

I'm 18 and I want to get my life together and build a better life for myself.

Because of that, I want to get rid of the bad habits in my life (porn, doomscrolling, etc.). But even if I remove all of those things from my life, everything doesn't suddenly become good.

First of all, having a good life isn't just about avoiding certain things. You actually have to take action and do something, but I don't know what I can do.

I want to do something that genuinely changes my life, not just something that makes me feel good temporarily. That's why I'm more interested in concrete actions rather than things like meditation. The problem is that I genuinely don't know what those actions should be.

I'm also not living in the US or another high-income country. Where I live, the average monthly salary is around $200, so I don't really know what I can realistically do to improve my situation.

I don't even know if I should go to university. AI is already making me question what kind of career I should pursue, and I don't have much money either.

What do you think I should do? I'm starting to feel like I'm going to die from overthinking all of this.

Hello fellas, I want to start using Obsidian in my development/coding along with Claude Code to perform more efficiently.

Can anyone here please guide me on how I can start using Obsidian like a youtube channel or source of info?

Yes I know I can do it on my own I'm just checking if someone already has explored it then he/she can share the resources with me.

Dm and Comment Section is open 😺