Getting things done in August

Had a bout of bad procrastination the last couple of days, realized I needed to do something about it. Noticed that it's the 31st of the month, with one hour to go till the next month starts.

So here's the plan:
During the whole month of August, I won't touch the net without specific research purpose. No news sites, no digg, no reddit, no blogs, no RSS feeds, no pr0n, no technology tutorials, no flash games, no forums, nothing.

Watch me get stuff done!

Plans on how to use the freed-up time:
- Improve my Spanish by finishing the first novel that I read in the spanish original. Pretty tough going, need the dictionary a lot, and manage about 10 pages per hour (only 500 or so to go...), but I'll do it.
- Mountainbike, jog, work out or otherwise exercise every day
- Do some networking. E.g. calling up all my former college buddies who've graduated, and offering to buy them dinner in exchange for picking their brains about how their job search went.
- Reducing the pile of unread books on my "stuff I should read before graduatin" list

Changes

My self-improvement program is continuing full steam ahead:
Completely changed my diet by just radically cutting out anything that's fatty, sweet or fast food, and stocking up on fruits and vegetables. Stopped jerking off almost completely. Stopped wasting so much time on the net. Got into the habit of getting up at more or less the same, early time every day.

These changes are gradual, but steady, and I'm already noticing how I get more stuff done, while being more relaxed (because I'm getting things done, so I don't have to worry about not getting stuff done...Stress doesn't come from having a lot of work, but from being behind with your work). And most importantly, I just feel better.

It's amazing how, after you eliminate a bad habit, after a while you don't crave the thing you used to do before any more.

One more observation: Self-discipline doesn't work. If you have to force yourself to do the right thing, you'll slip back into your old bad habits really fast. You have to *want* to do the good thing. It's a mind game: "I can't eat that chocolate (but I really want to)" is a losing proposition, you will only be successful when your way of thinking becomes "I don't want to eat that chocolate (but my bad habits try to make me).