Lifestyle Report: March 2012

February was a month of personal development. I forgot Lent, giving up cigarettes and drugs like a week early, but whatever. It still counts. I think I’ll still smoke socially after this experiment, just not during the day. Not sure about weed and other drugs, but as long as it’s for fun and not habit I’m not worried. Luckily I have a handy checklist (since taken offline, thank you evernote) so that if things turn bad (unlikely) I’ll notice.

I also dabbled in vlogging, and intend to again. I think I’ll save the vlogs for more emotive topics. 3 – 5 minutes is enough time to persuade, but not enough time to properly inform.

I wrote my first guest post, with more in the pipeline depending on whether the other bloggers accept. In tandem to this I laid down my value system. From now on all game related posts will be written from this frame so I’ve made the post into its own page as a quick reference.

And how have I been keeping up with my 6 beneficial habits?

Sleep
This is on and off, but getting better. I’m getting a bit paranoid about how difficult this is, as poor sleep can have serious long term health effects. As a consequence I’m going to start just forcing myself out of bed, even on no sleep, then nap every day. I’ll be posting about napping and how to do it properly (yes, it isn’t as simple as going to sleep) in future. Meditation wasn’t as helpful as I hoped so I’ve ditched it in favour of napping. The biggest improvement to my sleep came from sleeping without a pillow, it’s awesome.

Work
The minimalism has lead to me ditching to do lists. My due assignments are stored online anyway, and things like laundry, hoovering etc get done as the need arises. My approach to the information diet has changed fundamentally. Now I just pick something I want/need to do, give myself an hour, and do it. If I finish early, I’ll do nothing for 10 minutes then pick something else and repeat. If the hour passes and I’m not done, I’ll have a 10 minute do nothing break then resume. This helps with focus etc and is nicer than strict meditation because I can just lie down or go for a walk. I’ve also discovered Khan Academy. This has been invaluable for patching up my understanding of some topics. Everyone in education should be using this site.

Read
Fail. My book to blog ratio is awful. No excuses, I just fucked up. I’ve added Cedo Nulli part deux to my reader. The guy’s writing style grates with me at times, too arrogant and too “fuck society” for me, but he has some good ideas so check him out. I promise I’ll finish Day Bang one day.

Money
Cash management is going fine. I’m currently applying for part time jobs to save for housing costs next year. If you know anyone in the Brighton area who needs some part time staff hit me up with contact details. The same goes for anyone needing tutoring in physics or maths up to A-Level standard.

Health
Fuck meditation, take naps. I’ve phased beer back in occasionally because it’s inexpensive and delicious, otherwise I’m still all about the cider. I now take ACV and cod liver oil before every meal (2 – 4 times a day), and have ditched grains entirely in favour of the potato’s cooler older brother: sweet potato. That stuff is the shit, I’ve only tried them mashed or boiled so far. My bodyweight training is going well. Just push ups, sit ups and squats at the moment, with a pull up bar in the post. I have some apps on my phone for those exercises. They help you train to a pre selected amount of reps. For example 50, 100, 150 then 200. I’m easily bored so the plan is to train to the minimum amounts (25 pull ups, 50 push ups, 100 sit ups and squats) then do a harder version of the exercise. For example, weighted pull ups, plyometric push ups, box jumps etc. I figured this will be more fun, and is probably healthier than just knocking out endless BW reps of the same 4 exercises.

Sex
I went out twice. Once with friends and once with an FWB. On the former I did pull. We were making out and things were going well – then she was sick. I ditched the bitch with her friends as my mind filled with images of chunder breath and false rape accusations. I was also faced with this conundrum. She’s coming down soon, condoms will oh so definitely be used.

As you can probably tell from my writing style, end of term burnout is approaching. It’s week 9 of 10 and I’m exhausted. Next year we’re switching to 12 week terms so fuck you Sussex uni. Fuck you and your misunderstanding of science student workload.

Peace.

Value

If you read game blogs and forums, you’ll see people spend hours discussing openers, negs, routines, and other calculated techniques. I’m about to save you a lot of time by explaining the principle behind these.

Value.

Flirty back handed compliments (negs) work not because of some psychological voodoo, but because they lower the woman’s value relative to yours. Cold reading works because it telegraphs that you have value for being able to intuitively understand people. Value as a whole can then be broken down into 3 components:

Primal value, emotional value and logical value.

Primal value is based on instinct. Physical attractiveness (can’t be changed easily, but can be optimised), preselection and leader traits (the latter two could broadly be called social value). These are all easy indicators that bypass thought processes and rely on instinct. If a girl sees a hot guy, with other women around him enjoying his company, who displays the level headed alphaness of a natural leader, she is saved the effort of painstakingly calculating his value by relying on instinct. The inverse of this is when an animal sees a predator. They don’t sit there and analyse whether a lion will attack; they think “shit there’s a fucking lion!” and get out of there.

Emotional value is based on feelings. A man who can evoke an emotional roller coaster in a woman whilst maintaining control of his own emotions (except for the rare occasion) has high emotional value. Emotional value is telegraphed through mystery, intrigue, and social intelligence. All these traits can be learned, and examples include aloofness, ambiguity, tactfulness and just being interesting.

Logical value is least important. Logical value is the bullshit checklist you hear girls and guys who don’t understand girls talking about. Things like salary, career, hair colour, eye colour, being “sweet” etc. Nice guy traits. Whereas the other two components of value can get you laid on their own, logical value cannot. Logical value’s function is to give you a boost if you’re nearly there with the other two (the “well I might as well sleep with him” effect) and to give a woman a reason to keep you around. If you want to repeatedly sleep with a girl you need to have enough logical value that she can rationalise your relationship to her friends. Hence, the amount of value required depends on how much the girl cares for the judgement of her friends.

Next time you’re deliberating trying a new technique or idea, think about it in terms of how if will effect the three components of your value, and act accordingly.

Lifestyle Report: February 2012

My first month back at uni has been interesting. I tried MDMA for the first time, got 2 new notches, found housemates for next year (still hunting for an actual house) and actually experienced some proper snow! (rare for the UK)

Pretty.

So overall quite a fun month, but how have I been keeping up with my beneficial habits?

1. Get up early.
   Making progress here. I’ve learnt the ability to force myself out of bed and have zombie days, catching up on sleep later. One persisting problem is that one late night fucks me over for a good few days because I’ll be wide awake when I want to be asleep. This happened recently where a particularly enthusiastic ONS kept me up til 6am. I experimented with herbal sleeping pills last month too, valerian root extract. They put me to sleep but contrary to the claims of health professionals I experienced side effects. Namely derpression and lack of sex drive. This sucked because I got no work done, and couldn’t even be motivated to engage in my favourite hobby. I ditched the pills and in the coming month will be taking up daily meditation to try and help sleep (more about the meditation later).
2. Work efficiently.
   This is going fantastically. Since I started my information diet, I’ve been on top of things at uni and in my personal life. I’ve also adapted the diet slightly for days when I’m busy with commitments to other people. Instead of sticking to each section for the allotted time, I pick an amount of work I want to do, then go until that goal is accomplished OR the timer runs out. For example – 1 assignment, 1 blog post, tidy my room, one chapter of whatever book I’m reading and 5 items off my google reader. I picked up the idea of mnmlist and I really like it for days where I have social arrangements and not much work due in the coming week. Another tool I’m experimenting with at the moment is Evernote. I won’t explain what it is or how it works, but in relation to habit #2 I keep a to do list on there. It’ll have a list of tasks for Tiers 1, 2 and 3. Then when I’m at whatever stage of my information diet I simply pick tasks from the appropriate section of the list. This makes planning easier as I can add and remove items without overflowing a messy notebook. I also have evernote synced to my phone so I can view and edit my list on the go, and show any blog posts drafts to people (I write these on evernote too).
   Another thing I’m looking into is problem solving meditation. Allowing your subconscious mind to work at problems while you relax. I’ll report results next month.
3. Read books.
   I’m still on Day Bang. Embarrassing, I know. I do however have a reason: spending hours on mnmlist and zen habits. I really like these sites, although I don’t agree with all of Leo’s ideas (such as veganism, shaving your head and not owning many clothes), I learned a lot from these two blogs. In future I will be writing a post about minimalism and what it means to me, as well as practical tips for simplifying your life without going HAM on it. Needless to say I’ve added those two sites to my google reader, along with G Manifesto, University of Man and Danger and Play. These are 3 fine game/lifestyle blogs and I strongly suggest you take a look at them. Chad Daring has stopped Single White Male to focus on his cooking blog Chef in Jeans, so I swapped them around. I dropped Delusion Damage because he no longer posts, as well as Dalrock and The Spearhead because, to put it bluntly, I’ve lost interest in intergender politics. I’d rather take my knowledge of psychology and game, and use it to my advantage, embracing the differences between men and women, than argue about how some things are unfair on men. Caveat: I still follow both of these authors on twitter in order to catch the odd article that interests me. Dalrock in particular is a talented blogger and I still read and enjoy his work. For my comedy needs I’ve added Bronan the Barbarian to my reader.
   I’m also using Readability to save articles that I find in spot checks (via bbc news and twitter) and that get sent to me during the day for reading later. It’s a handy tool for removing distractions from your browser. For me, open tabs are too tempting to ignore and work, so Readability suits me well.
4. Manage cash effectively.
   Overdraft cleared, yay! Also it turns out i get a £1000/year bursary from my university, which is pretty handy and helped pay off my Amsterdam trip. I’ve reduced my budget to £95/week in an effort to save cash for next year. This will become essential when housing deposits etc are needed. Also currently hunting for a part time job or, failing that, a summer job. I’m holding off on the summer jobs until I have a house sorted so that I know which town to apply in. I’d rather not return to retail as it’s fucking shit, but the service industry still looks to be the strongest contender for me.
5. Live a healthy lifestyle.
   Currently eating semi paleo (i.e. still having pasta before exercise because I’m naturally skinny and do not want to lose weight). I’ve completely ditched soft drinks in favour of water, milk, black tea and green tea, my alcoholic beverages of choice are currently cider and soco with lemonade. I’ve ditched beer after reading that it fucks up your testosterone levels more than normal alcohol, thanks to the amount of oestrogen in hops. If you don’t believe me you can google that shit. These dietary changes have definitely made me feel better, and my new budget has meant less weed, booze and cigarettes which is a silver lining to being poor as fuck. After spending the whole summer and first term getting stoned a lot I’ve got a bit bored of it, I see it more as a treat now. This might also be because I’ve got out of the “less get fucked up for the sake of it” mentality of British students. That said, although I drink less often I still binge, which suggests I may have not got out of that mentality, but have instead opted for alcohol because it’s more conducive to sex.
   In addition to these changes in my diet I’ve started taking apple cider vinegar 3 times a day, and cod liver oil capsules every morning. Again you can research these yourself but I’ve found that my concentration, motivation and energy have all increased.
   This month’s health experiment is the already twice mentioned art of meditation. De-stressing is important part of being healthy so I’m gonna experiment with this and see what happens. I’m also getting into body weight training at home. I’m not concerned with getting swole because, believe it or not, I like being slim. Progress on this will also be reported in good time.
6. Get laid.
   2 new notches. The first was via social circle game and is now semi regular. The other was a one night stand that I’m considering hitting up again just because she was really good in bed. The interesting thing was that the ONS was a direct consequence of wearing a suit (this is why you should read G Manifesto), which she kept commenting on the whole night. I’ve also realised that I’ve got some of the easiest contrast game to run. The contrast? Being well dressed and sociable, even though I’m studying Physics. The stereotype of a physics student (I blame Big Bang Theory) has done so much for me just because I can shatter it’s expectations. In the coming month I’ll be wearing my suit out more often, as well as working on my ONS game. My rotation game is still going strong.

My sex life makes me feel like this.

So there’s my lifestyle report for february 2012, I’ve got some nice posts lined up for the coming month. I’m also working on increasing my traffic enough that blogroll swaps with the writers in my google reader would be mutually beneficial.

Peace.

Lifestyle Report: January 2012

Last month I wrote a post entitled Six Beneficial Habits in which I detailed 6 behaviours I intended to live my life by. Not being a New Year’s Resolution type I set about my improvement journey as quickly as possible and at the end of the post I wrote this:

 In the spirit of telling other people my goals so that I’ll look like a cunt if I don’t fulfil them, I will be publishing a monthly “lifestyle report”, where I write about how I’m keeping to each rule and how living life like a boss is going.

This post is the first in a series of lifestyle reports that will follow the Six Beneficial Habits model, until each is consistently fulfilled. At that point I’ll think of some new things to improve and the process shall begin again.

Onto the report:

1. Get up early.
   This is proving harder than expected. I’m managing to get up before midday now which is still an achievement, however minor. I have succeeded in getting up for something, which is a behaviour I hope to carry over to uni next week so that I stop sleeping through lectures. A surprising barrier to a decent sleeping pattern is my sex life. I seem to attract girls that like to fuck, watch a film for a bit, fuck again, then sleep. Unfortunately, this problem will persist until my dick grows a magic reset button. I am not partial to the idea of viagra so I’m just gonna learn how to function on less sleep and make up for it the following night.
2. Work efficiently.
   This goal is going so-so. The uni work has taken a back seat to blogging and reading. Despite this I’m applying myself to ticket sales for an important show my band have coming up. The promoter likes my professional vibe and we’re being treated well as a result. As an aside if you’re in a band, acting like a pro with an alpha attitude will get you far more respect than wannabe rockstar.
   
3. Read books.
   I got a Kindle for Christmas! I was pretty chuffed with this because it was actually a surprise. I’ve noticed three things from using it. a) You get over the whole “preferring the feel of a book” thing very quickly, b) it makes you read more due to the fact that you can just download books whenever and c) thanks to b), any money you would have saved from buying ebooks over paper copies is spent on more ebooks. Since getting the Kindle I’ve read through Bang and am currently reading Day Bang. The astute among you will have noticed that I started a game related blog having not already read those books. This is because I learnt most of my game from Roissy’s blog, only recently discovering Roosh. I then blazed through most of his blog before getting the books. I prefer this way of reading because early investment is off putting and because the Roissy-esque inner game is far more beneficial to your life in general than any specific technique.
   I’ve been reading blogs daily. I’m very aware of the risks of information overload, but I just can’t help myself. Currently my google reader contains the following:
   Chateau Heatiste/Roissy
   Dalrock
   Delusion Damage
   Freedom Twenty-Five
   Generation Nihilism
   Gmac’s Black Book
   In Mala Fide
   Playing the Devil’s Advcoate
   PMAFT
   Roosh V
   Sex 3.0
   SiME – Obviously
   Single White Male
   The Alpha Persona
   The Badger Hut
   The Chef in Jeans
   The Spearhead
   xkcd
   
   Looking back that list is pretty long, I should probably trim some fat off my google reader. Either way I’ve been reading nearly every post from those blogs since I originally posted Six Beneficial Habits. That’s a fuck load of reading from almost the best information source.
4. Manage cash effectively.
   Great success! Books are a bit cheaper now with my Kindle, but that is negated by increased reading. However, by living below my weekly budget I’ve reduced my overdraft from £300 to £180. Four money saving tips I picked up: Firstly, Spotify unlimited is the fucking shit. I haven’t bought another CD or download since getting it.  I’m not gonna get into a moral debate with people who insist I should just torrent music (I’m in a band, allow the hypocrisy), so the cheapest way for me to legally get enough music was a Spotify Unlimited subscription. At £4.99 a month, it really is a bargain. You get no ads, unlimited streaming and an opportunity to support a revolutionary company that has the balls to challenge the corporate music model. I chose not to get premium because my phone can’t run Spotify.
   The second money saving tip – I found somewhere that sells cheap, quality condoms. Let’s face it guys, cheap brands  are shit and the free condoms they give you  at hospitals suck as well. Typically a 12 pack would cost around £8, with some premium (read: ribbed/dotted/thin/heat/tingle) varieties costing even more. Thankfully I found NHS Freedoms Shop. This is a government subsidised initiative where you can order Durex condoms over the internet. Prices? 144 condoms for £14. Fucking bargain. I can’t recommend these guys highly enough and would also like to point out that I make no financial gain if you choose to buy from them.
   The third tip – asking for shit. Seems trivial I know but people always accidentally over buy on certain foods, I’ve had a fair amount of free fruit and veg from people who went shopping with their eyes bigger than their stomachs. This also applies to friends who work in retail. Nearly all of them are given staff discounts and many are allowed to benefit their friends and family with these. I’ve personally netted myself a cheap phone contract by this. 24 months of saved money is not to be sniffed at.
   My final money saving device is Quidco. This is a cashback site, basically you find a deal then navigate to the online retailer through their portal, and then by tracking your cookies it gives you cashback on your purchases. Seeing as I do my grocery shopping online this is pretty handy, and after 1 purchase through the site it now automatically tracks every time I use the same retailer. What makes Quidco really awesome is that you can add your own credit/debit cards to your account, and earn automatic cashback if you shop at participating retail stores.
   *That link to Quidco is a referral link.
5. Live a healthy lifestyle.
   After a shaky start I’ve pretty much quit smoking except for on nights out. Mission accomplished. I’ve also managed to cut out most of the beige blue pill fodder. I’ve reduced alcohol and drug consumption, but have no intention of stopping entirely.
   Unfortunately, I have completely failed on exercise. Too many distractions to just go outside and train, combined with lack of a gym or weights, have been my downfall. Rest assured I will be hitting the gym hard when back at uni as I have already seen a decline in my body and I am not happy with it.
6. Get laid.
   Still going strong. I’m reaping the benefits of regular sex with freedom, despite claims of impossibility from old school friends. As far as they’re concerned I’m blessed with either luck or some kind of long term date rape drug. As far as game related experiences go, I’m experimenting in just flat out ignoring uni girls who I haven’t fucked. I’ll pop back into their lives when I damn well feel like it because this is more convenient for me and stops text/facebook chats going stale. I haven’t been out much over the holidays but I will be applying the visualisation technique from Day Bang to my night game when I go back to uni to combat approach anxiety; we’ll see how that pans out in due course. I’ve also come to the realisation that I’m gonna have to spend more money on clothes than I’m used to. Although this fucks with habit number 4 I think it will be worthwhile in the long run.

So some progress overall, but not a whole life turnaround. This is not bad for 3 weeks and I’m happy with my direction at the moment. Come back next month to see how I’m doing. Until then, peace, love and other pleasant things.

Six Beneficial Habits

I finished University for Christmas on Friday, and now have 4 weeks to do, frankly, fuck all. I could spend this time clubbing, smoking weed and playing video games; and I imagine I will spend a significant portion of the holidays doing that.

However, I still need something to do with the remaining time. Rather than get a job like my Mum suggested, I have decided to dedicate my break to self improvement. I am going to pick up positive habits that hopefully will have been internalised by the time I’m back studying again. This makes more sense than taking up a new year’s resolution because I’ve currently got 4 weeks free time, which would be wasted if I waited ’til new years.

So without further ado, I present my very own:

Six Beneficial Habits (to be internalised)

1. Get up early.
   I fell into a nocturnal sleeping pattern towards the end of term, I would typically go to bed around 5 – 6am, waking up around 4pm. This problem arose from sleeping through hangovers rather than suffering from them conciously and sleeping like a log the following night. It made me miss most of my lectures and generally suck at life. I will get up at 8 every morning, conceding to a 10am start if I’ve been out the night before.
2. Work efficiently.
   Another habit that I’ve needed to change all my life, but ironically never got round to. This came to a head recently when I didn’t finish a final assignment in time (luckily I had already passed that course). This goes for uni work, but also for things like internship/job applications, blogging and (more topically) Christmas shopping. I will get all work I’ve been set over the holidays, along with my christmas shopping and internship applications, done by this time next week.
3. Read books.
   I believe there is a hierarchy of information value, determined by its means of transference.  In ascending order: magazines, TV, tabloids,  newspapers, social media, websites*, forums, blogs and books. I don’t read magazines and tabloids, and use newspapers only occasionally for local news. I will, reduce my time on all other information sources except for books, and use that saved time to (you guessed it) read some fucking books!
4. Manage cash effectively.
   My budget after rent (bills are included in rent) is £136 per week for this academic year. Unfortunately I tend to blow money easily on things like Portal 2,  bottles of Southern Comfort, novelty rolling papers, kebabs and nights out at expensive bars (cheap clubs are great, but sometimes they get a bit samey). I’m around £300 overdrawn at the moment, with the weekly amount coming in directly and rent being paid from a separate fund. My mission currently is to clear my overdraft and find additional sources of income that aren’t soul destroying retail work. I’ve applied for a maths tutoring scheme that is paid, and am currently looking in to affilate marketing as a means of additional income. In the future I hope to monetize my blog, but I have fuck all readers at the moment so patience is necessary.
5. Live a healthy lifestyle.
   First the good – I eat well. I can cook, and enjoy doing so. My diet is healthy, avoiding simple sugars and over refined food, sticking to meat, veggies, dairy, fruit, nuts and some complex carbs. I will do a post about my diet in the future, but in short I would compare it to a “skinny man’s paleo. I am naturally thin so a paleolithic or ketogenic diet would be a poor choice for me, plus I love indulging in some nice pasta. The difference is rather than eating a massive bowl of pasta + sauce I’d rather have far less pasta to make room for some salad and a tuna steak.
   The bad – I’ve slacked on exercise, smoke cigarettes and weed, and binge drink. I don’t have access to a gym in the holidays because I’m living at home, I will however be adopting a body weight exercise routine until I’m back at uni, where I will be hitting the gym hard but efficiently. Inspiration: I took Frost’s 2 x 15 minute workout program and adapted it to my skinnyman needs.
   I will no longer smoke fags during the day. I like cigarettes, and they are an invaluable social tool when going out, given that in most clubs the smoking area is the only place where you can have a normal conversation. Furthermore, a well timed cigarette when you’re drunk is fucking amazing.
   The weed and alcohol stay. I don’t smoke weed enough for a statistically viable chance of health problems, and as long as I still boss my tests at uni I see no reason to stop. As for booze? I may binge drink, but I’m a lightweight. I average 2 nights out per week, drinking 5 – 10 beers a night. Given that your average bottle is about 1.5 units, this equates to 15 – 30 units per week. The suggested weekly limit for a man is 21 units. Thankfully, QI said this was bullshit and I, like any self respecting British subject, trust Stephen Fry over our don’t-do-anything-fun government. You also may be interested to know that regular drinking is actually worse for you than binge drinking, providing you don’t get in some retarded accident.
   
   
6. Get Laid.
   I hardly need to preach the benefits of sex, so I won’t. This subtitle is misleading, as I have no intention to simply post who I’m fucking in what arrangements. It’s boring, creepy and girls I sleep with read this blog. This habit encompasses game, and improving it. Given that I’m home for a month, and considering my current circumstances, I’m gonna work on improving my text/facebook game and approach anxiety (post coming soon). Recent game related experiences include ignoring someone for two weeks until they start flirting with you again, and noticing that lifestyle game is a great way to get people to come home with you. Namely “wanna come smoke a joint at mine?”
   Unfortunately, she was a noob and chundered from one joint. Oh well, on to the next one.

As you can see, these habits are generally useful, and good rules to live your life by. In the spirit of telling other people my goals so that I’ll look like a cunt if I don’t fulfil them, I will be publishing a monthly “lifestyle report”, where I write about how I’m keeping to each rule and how living life like a boss is going.

Til then.

* “Websites” refers to sites where the content is not user generated.

I’ll be paying more per month on a “better” student loan system

While doing some research for an article I’m writing about the new student fees, I stumbled upon an interesting piece of information. On the £3k system that I’m on, my repayments will be 9% of my income over £15000. On the £9k system, I would be paying 9% of my earnings over £21000.

(Not surprising how I have to go to two different government websites to get some simple information. I wonder if they make it this awkward to find deliberately.)

To put this into perspective:

So on the new system although you have a larger, longer lasting debt; you actually pay less per year. Now although long term debt does suck, if I was in my early twenties earning around £25k per year, I think I’d rather have the extra £540 in my pocket.

I could go to amsterdam for a week on that.