I figured out what keeps me up at night. I got a bit more done today, most of it in line with what I had planned. The only real side track was a technological ID10T error that I was stuck trying to resolve, through email, with someone who is barely functionally literate.
Stomach ulcers aside, I hit my goal on grind for #NaNoWriMo today. 4,300+ words today, and I’m almost where I want to be with it but I can already feel that I want to begin editing. I know that’s the bulk of where my work will come in but frankly I still fight the urge to edit as I go. That’s a bad practice. It kills productivity and wastes time but I feel the need to nitpick each sentence. It’s not that I am a perfectionist so much as I don’t like putting out absolute garbage. To be sure, my posts aren’t of world class quality, but I do my damndest to make sure I”m not phoning it in everytime I sit down in front of a keyboard. I pour my guts into what I do, and saute it in my sweat.
I don’t half ass anything I do. Never saw a point in it, and if you’re here, you probably don’t either. In line with this, I’ve been thinking long and hard about what’s causing my insomnia. It’s not just that I’m tired at night but can’t drift, it’s that my mind won’t shut down. Which would be a fantastic problem to have if I had enough energy or clarity of thought to put that brainpower to work.
Instead I’m left with days were it feels like all my RAM is being used just to keep from shitting myself, falling back, and drowning in it.
Late at night though? Differential equations while balancing a checkbook. Well, that’s what I would be doing if I could focus it instead of the hamster running the wheel in no direction in particular.
However, last night, I believe I cracked the case. I figured out why I’m keeping myself up at night and while I would explain it in this one, I feel it has enough depth to deserve its own post.
I’m getting a bit closer in my fiction writing as to including the amount of descriptions I want. Perhaps it is just my natural voice but I find it hard to write long sentences filled with five-dollar adjectives about the grandeur and majesty and oceanic-depth of hue of a goddamn blue pen.
I actually increased my workout a bit today. I moved my cardio up to 1.5x and the rest of the workouts up by .75x what they were. It’s nothing fancy, as I don’t live near enough to a gym to be doing weights, but I’m not going to let that stop me from getting my heart pumping. For strength, I have been considering some body weight exercises until I move closer to a gym. Or at least to where there is one within a reasonable driving distance.
Along with exercise and hitting my goal for NaNoWriMo, I also successfully avoided all junk media today. I watched my first youtube video since October today. It was a video of Jack Donovan discussing the concept of masculinity. It’s about 7 minutes long and delves briefly into how groups try to relabel masculinity to mean whatever they want as a means by which to control men who wish to feel masculine. I highly recommend the video. If you’re on my blog, you likely know who Jack is. If you don’t, he’s wrote some great books on the subject of masculinity and how to be a man. The Way of Men is probably his most famous book and it comes highly recommended by everyone who has picked it up. Grab you a copy while it’s so cheap.
Though I didn’t get the extracurricular work done today I had planned for the article for Wednesday, I did finish all of my To Do save for the book I’ve been meaning to find time to crack into. Unfortunately, research for my second article got in the way of reading, and the technological snafu interrupted my ability to get any writing done on that once the research was near done.
Either way, I’m definitely going to have it up by Wednesday, barring an absolute computer or internet meltdown. I’m getting a bit tired already, as it is getting late and I have an early day ahead of me, but if I find myself laying awake again tonight I’m just going to get back up and grind all night and sleep tomorrow. I’ve pulled allnighters before and productivity beats dozing for 5-10 minutes and then back up or just staring blankly at my ceiling in the dark wishing I would pass out.
Today has been a good day, and I have a lot to do and a lot to think about, with a few article ideas given to me by readers and things mentioned offline. I made a great bit of progress on everything so today’s scores are
1) Foregoing of mindless media consumption. 10/10
2) Having a clear daily plan and deadline goals to meet. 9/10
3) Exercise and write everyday. Period. 10/10
Daily Total: 29/30
Yesterday’s Total: 15/30
Total To Date: 247/300
Legends of Men 
Thanks for posting your progress here. So if you can’t sleep, you just continue working to be more tired the next day?
I find that NoNothingNovember really cleans up a lot of distractions that are keeping us away from our goals. I start seeing the effects 1 – 2 weeks in.
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Laying in bed tossing and turning for hours does nothing. If I’m going to be sleepless and exhausted the next day anyway, at least I can get work done in the mean time. I’d give up the extra few hours of exhausted grinding to have more meaningful, rested work the next day if I had that choice. If I could just choose to go to sleep, I would.
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On the Manosphere, a lot is given to working hard, long hours pursuing your personal grind. But sleep is so important. Performance always suffers without enough shut eye. It’s good you got a handle on the cause of your insomnia.
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Handle on the cause. I’m working to fix it. Once I make my progress, I’ll be outlining what I did to cure myself of it. I appreciate the acknowledgement.
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