Balance is difficult

Ur approach is good, forced modified behavior will many times fix the underlying issue. Think of fobia treatment and/or forced smiling that actually made people happier.

damn such a nice freeroll, any freerolling slots vacant for me?

On January 24 2012 23:12 Daut wrote: Its been a struggle to balance playing poker, working out, hanging out with friends, and learning new things all at the same time. I'm the kind of guy who gets real obsessed about things for a little while, then move on to something else, move back to the first thing, etc. I've never been good at keeping my life balanced. Ill spend a week playing skyrim and doing nothing else. Ill go on a bender and go out with my buddies 3-4 nights in a row then stop. Ill play a bunch of poker for 2-3 weeks then ill take a month off.

I don't think this is necessarily a bad way to live. I take on activities almost the same way and I've questioned whether or not I needed to balance my life.
I think the idea of having time structure in our lives is overvalued. We are raised to believe that time structure is a good thing (example: go to school every weekday from morning - early afternoon, eat breakfast in the morning, lunch at noon, dinner in the evening. Typical full time job work from 9 - 5). But is this really the best way to live?

I think spurts of focus are more effective in terms of productivity. Personally, being focused on 1 thing at a time has been the most effective way in which I have learned new things. This may or may not be true depending on personality but I think you can explore what works best for you.

funny what money is when you play poker.

and it's a good thing imo.

Get organized for what though? An addictive personality got you success in poker by being addicted to it long enough to work hard and make it big. To go against this is to go against what you are. Besides, most people who are trying to do what you are speaking about in this blogpost actually DO NEED to get out more, grind more, workout more: I don't think you need any of those b/c it's clear to all of us that you have a healthy social life/girl life/money life/ur not fat

I'm sure you already know that balance is overrated. There is no need to balance when no one is exploiting you. Delete blog and stick to your roots

Meh an every day rigid schedule doesn't seem optimal. Just going to make yourself workout when your body should rest, play poker when you're not in a good state to play, learn mexican when you aren't going to absorb most of it, or hang out with one of them when you don't have anything interesting to do together leading to being bored of the situation or worse each other.

I'd think setting the goals weekly or maybe bi-weekly would be optimal. Days with no obligations to rest or go on an adventure or whatever are good for you imo.

On January 25 2012 00:03 RaiNKhAN wrote: Get organized for what though? An addictive personality got you success in poker by being addicted to it long enough to work hard and make it big. To go against this is to go against what you are. Besides, most people who are trying to do what you are speaking about in this blogpost actually DO NEED to get out more, grind more, workout more: I don't think you need any of those b/c it's clear to all of us that you have a healthy social life/girl life/money life/ur not fat

Also this

On January 25 2012 01:07 Stim_Abuser wrote: Meh an every day rigid schedule doesn't seem optimal. Just going to make yourself workout when your body should rest, play poker when you're not in a good state to play, learn mexican when you aren't going to absorb most of it, or hang out with one of them when you don't have anything interesting to do together leading to being bored of the situation or worse each other. I'd think setting the goals weekly or maybe bi-weekly would be optimal. Days with no obligations to rest or go on an adventure or whatever are good for you imo.

You explained this quite beautifully sir. I agree with all of this

its not like this schedule is all that rigid. im awake about 18 hours a day, i only need to play about 4, work out 1, hang out 1, rosetta stone 30 minutes. that still leaves about 11-12 hours of me time if i want it.

the reason i did this was because i only come up to vancouver a couple weeks a month to play and a lot of times i have trouble finding motivation to play each day when i dont want to. but since im only up here once in a while i need to be playing while im here. really gotta force myself to buckle down and do it.

the working out thing is something i should really be doing every day or at least 6 days a week. in any given year i generally work out about 175 of the days, but i would like to up that to 300-330.

the spanish thing is something thats been in progress for years and ive just gotten nowhere. i need to force myself to do it because i would like to learn more languages after this as well. and i dont think cramming is a good idea for something like that. id rather learn a little at a time and let my brain engulf the language slowly over the course of 6 months

the friends part, yea i probably could have skipped that, but my 4 friends live together and i wanted a freeroll for each of them so someone didnt feel left out

also one of the biggest faults i have as a poker player is complacency. i win 3 buyins and quit, or i get back to even in a good session where im playing wella nd quit.. really end up limiting my profits/potential. for someone who plays lower stakes than he should already, i need to make up for it by upping volume, but i dont. this will help me do that

On January 25 2012 01:07 Stim_Abuser wrote: Meh an every day rigid schedule doesn't seem optimal. Just going to make yourself workout when your body should rest, play poker when you're not in a good state to play, learn mexican when you aren't going to absorb most of it, or hang out with one of them when you don't have anything interesting to do together leading to being bored of the situation or worse each other. I'd think setting the goals weekly or maybe bi-weekly would be optimal. Days with no obligations to rest or go on an adventure or whatever are good for you imo.

+1, balance is to have everything in your life, not forcefully make your every day a boring routine.

Balance is everything. look at Nadal, Tiger Woods, MJ and Kobe, Durrr
lol

Cool Idea, incentives should work, not because you care about the money, but because you get social pressure/support from having the money to talk about with friends

Isn't working out 300 days in the year vastly over training? I thought 2 sessions per week was bordering on overtraining if you hit the same muscles.

This won't work. I've never seen you need something like this to make you motivated to work harder. It's similar to how people make New Years Resolutions about issues or things they want to improve in their life and believe the time to start is on January 1st, instead of right now.



Expectation: Roomates make about $350

On January 25 2012 03:47 RaiNKhAN wrote: This won't work. I've never seen you need something like this to make you motivated to work harder. It's similar to how people make New Years Resolutions about issues or things they want to improve in their life and believe the time to start is on January 1st, instead of right now. Expectation: Roomates make about $350

ive never been a hard worker my entire life. everything has come easy to me so i never had to work for anything. i figure out a way to do something half assed and get the job semi done without having to put any effort in. thats what im trying to change.

300 days a year isnt overtraining if you know how to rest yourself while still being active. my current routine is to do a tough full body workout 2-3 days a week, do a couple cardio sessions on other days, and do activities 3 days a week. activities are jiu jitsu, snowboarding, rock climbing, yoga, etc.

i think you guys also underestimate how much time on a daily basis goes towards me sitting in front of my computer staring at twitter, reading mma websites, loading LP, rinse repeat. i would say on average i can look at 5-8 hours in any given day and not be able to point to a single thing of value done.

and my definition of value is very loose. to me any of the following are valuable uses of time: poker, working out, hanging out with friends, playing a video game, reading a book, marathoning a tv show. all of those are something tangible that i gain from. refreshing a few webpages for hours on end is a total waste of time and its what i end up doing a LOT.

im very certain that something like this that forces me to be slightly more rigid while still leaving plenty of time to relax, go on adventures and do whatever it is i do while im doing nothing will help me in the long run.

On January 25 2012 03:54 Daut wrote: 300 days a year isnt overtraining if you know how to rest yourself while still being active.

not to derail but can you elaborate on this (how to rest yourself while being active)?

speaking of working out, how's bjj?