Life Reboot 2020 — April

I feel like I closed my eyes for just a couple seconds on April 1st, and when I opened them it was April 30th. This month just flew by in a blur. But given the current state of events in the world and the extra stress and anxiety it’s causing for the majority of the world, myself included, I’m not sure that’s such a bad thing.

But as it’s April 30th, it’s time to continue my 2020 Life Reboot series of blog posts.

For anyone who has stumbled across this without any context, this is a series of blog posts about my goal to reboot my life in 2020 and be all around more successful and happier.

I will rate each of the following on a scale of 1–10 and my thoughts on each rating for each month.

• Read More Often
• Creative Writing (D&D/Novels/Short Stories)
• Web Design (Website Portfolio/Online Courses)
• Finish Video Games
• Healthy Eating
• Regular Exercise
• Sleep Better
• Spend far less time idly browsing the internet (Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr/TVTropes)
• Socialise More Outside of D&D

• Read More Often

10/10. Whilst I haven’t been reading as much fiction lately due to shifting to working from home and being undecided what I want to read next, I have been reading plenty of non-fiction as research for my books and for my D&D campaign.

By the end of May 2020, I will have continued with reading non-fiction as well as pickup some new fiction to read.

• Creative Writing (D&D/Novels/Short Stories)

6/10. Current world events as well as general exhaustion have impacted my productivity somewhat. I’m still getting some of my projects done, such as further D&D prep of both my current campaign and the next. I also began writing the outlines for Book 4 of The Wayfarer Chronicles and have slowly begun writing the first draft.

Editing Book 2 is taking it’s time, whilst I am over halfway through, it still feels like I’m missing something from what has already been edited. In the original draft, one of the PoV characters just kind of vanishes for a good 10 or so chapters, so I have to figure out what they could be doing that contributes to the overall plot.

By the end of May 2020, I will have finished editing Book 2, be up to Chapter 15–20 of Book 4’s outlines and have written up to at least Chapter 5 of the first draft.

• Web Design (Website Portfolio/Online Courses)

3/10. Some progress has been made. I’ve been doing coursework and some portfolio work. Not to a level I’m satisfied with however. Sitting through the courses is easy, the theory makes some sense. But I’m having trouble putting it into practice and am struggling to focus when I sit down to code. I’ll need to work on this.

By the end of May 2020, I will have finished at least one website consisting of CSS Grid or Flexbox along with HTML and CSS.

• Finish Video Games

8/10. I finished Mega Man 6 and 7, 7 was a challenge but I eventually got there. I decided not to try and complete 8–10, as 8 was a chore to play and I’ve played 9 & 10 in the past, and don’t particularly care for either. No point trying to force myself to play something I don’t like.

Final Fantasy VII Remake was released on April 1st in Australia because of current world events, so I picked it up on day 1. I finished it on the 18th of April, it was a great game and I was mostly happy with it. No spoilers in this post, way too soon.

I also finished Pokemon Let’s Go Eevee last weekend after not playing it for awhile. It wasn’t bad, but it definitely won’t be in my top 5 Pokemon games. This weekend I’ll be starting Dragon Quest XI, which I’m to understand will take me roughly 70 hours to beat. So hopefully that 70 hours is all good and not just padding to reach some arbitrary minimum deadline.

After that, the remake of Secret of Mana. I never played the original, so I’m curious how it’ll be. And over the Easter long weekend I bought Animal Crossing, so I’ve been spending a good amount of time playing that. Like it has been for so many during these trying times, it’s been a source of relief for me. But I have no goals with Animal Crossing except to continue enjoying playing it until I eventually someday stop playing.

By the end of May 2020, I’ll have finished both Dragon Quest XI and Secret of Mana.

• Healthy Eating

7/10. This particular goal has been going well. I’ve been craving ice-cream lately, so I decided to buy some yogurt, which has been a very nice substitute given how unhealthy ice-cream can be.

I’ve also been making it a point that when I eat meat to have more chicken then I do beef, as well as lots of salad. The healthier snacks are going rather well, with plenty of muesli bars.

By the end of May 2020, I will continue to do all of the above. I really don’t have much way to improve this beyond keep on trucking in the right direction.

• Regular Exercise

4/10. Semi-regular exercise has become a thing. It has become a mix of walking, the dumbbell routine my PT came up with or just a lot of little stuff adding up during the day.

By the end of May 2020, I will have this be regular exercise, also make sure to have better posture to stop any pain.

• Spend far less time idly browsing the internet (Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr/TVTropes)

6/10. I’ve been making a point to allow myself time to idly browse in the morning and afternoon so I can still spend some time doing whatever before work or my own projects. Overall a huge improvement.

By the end of May 2020, I’ll minimize the time a bit further for the sake of productivity.

• Socialise More Outside of D&D

8/10. Current world events have made this very difficult to do, but fortunately we live in the digital age and that along with Animal Crossing is making things much simpler. But trying to adapt and be positive.

By the end of May 2020, I will socialize through services like Discord or Facebook Messenger a bit more then I currently am.

So overall, a total of 56 out of 90. Still a step in the right direction, even if it isn’t over 60 out of 90 like I wanted. So I’ll aim for 60 in May.