Going to bed by 10pm and stop playing World of Warcraft - Day 1
Tags: career, productivity, mentalhealth
Published: 2018-05-15 23:52:02

---
title: Going to bed by 10pm and stop playing World of Warcraft - Day 1
published: true
description: First entry on the journey to go to bed by 10pm and stop playing World of Warcraft. 
tags: #career, #productivity, #mental health
---

Good day, boys and girls, aannndd undecided! 

Welcome to the first entry on my journey:

1. Go to bed by 10pm
2. Stop playing World of Warcraft (again).

If you have no idea what's going here, I invite you to [read the introduction to this challenge](https://dev.to/josegonz321/going-to-bed-early-and-stop-playing-world-of-warcraft---kick-off-18b3/) for better context.

## First Timer❓

HI! My name is Jose.😃👋

This is my second challenge...more like a journey that I thank you for joining.

My first journey consisted on [not checking social media in the morning](https://dev.to/josegonz321/what-would-your-life-be-without-social-media-in-the-morning-1g2l) which ended up with a [pretty good wrap up on the adventure](https://dev.to/josegonz321/no-social-media-in-the-mornings---wrap-up-1ifm).

These are not 7-day challenges to be tossed away. No sir! 

The aim is to replace some not-so-great habits with better habits. Of course, **at the heart of all this, it's you!** 

The main goal of sharing this to inspire and/or motivate you to take action on your side.


Let's begin this journey.

## Day 1️
1. **Coming home** 🏠
    First day is always the roughest. It's always hard to fill that void that an old habit left behind. Doubt clouds your mind. Your inner judge has you.

    > What am I going to do? Am I going to hold up? Is this really worth it?

    Anxiety kicks in. You might feel sick to your stomach. With-drawl rears its ugly head.

    It's normal. 

    That's what I felt when I came home. Even though I wasn't rushing, I didn't know what I was going to do after dinner. I didn't want to think about it, but my inner judge was getting louder and louder. 

2. **After dinner** 🍽️
    I decided to finish two task I have been postponing for a while: fix my air-circulating vents and vacuum the carpets. Simple, right? It is. But it's not easy when you log into a game right after dinner each afternoon.

    Did I get both done? Hell yeah! The air is not hitting my face directly anymore (this means I won't get sick from that cold air).

    And my carpets? Dude, I was so in the zone I did the stairs, the two bedrooms and even the first floor which has the study room. My house smelled like soothing lavender after I was done. Hell, I even broke a sweat while doing all that work!

    How long did all of that take me? 45 minutes. No kidding!

3. **After kids in bed** 🛏️🛏️
    This is where things didn't go too well. No, I didn't play WoW! To be honest with you, I uninstalled the game and cancelled my subscription the day before. 

    I violated one of the family rules/agreements: **Do not handle finances after 8pm.**

    I wanted to re-strategize our finances in [YNAB](https://www.youneedabudget.com/). I thought it'd take me 30 minutes tops, but ended up being on the computer past 10pm. Needless to say, I failed on going to bed by 10pm.

    It's alright, though. I knew this task wasn't an urgency of any kind but I felt better after I got my ideas out on physical paper and then on the YNAB online app.

4. **Bed time** 🛏️💤
    The missus left me alone. She saw me violating one of our rules and didn't say a word. 

    Unfortunately, my head was still thinking too much and didn't want to slow down. After brushing my teeth and getting my running gear for the next day, it was already 11pm.

    Damn! Don't get me wrong. I was pretty relax but the brain didn't want to shut down. I decided to meditate to calm down my thoughts using [Headspace](https://www.headspace.com/) and stretch my legs. 🧘

    After a good meditation session of around 30 minutes, I decided to finally lay down in bed. I wasn't entirely happy going to bed so late (in my book at least). 

## How did we do? 🤔

1. **Get to bed by 10pm?** ❌
    Even though I didn't meet this goal I was happy I checked off two things in my to-do list, re-strategize my YNAB, and didn't have to fight the urge to play WoW.

    It won't be every day that I do those things mentioned above. I'm not going to harp on myself for something with positive net results.

    Now, this won't mean I will continue to do things after 10pm. After all, my goal is to be in bed by 10pm. Unless it's a real emergency, it can wait until next morning.

2. **Stop playing World of Warcraft** ✅
    Awww, yissss! This is the real winner for me. I'm glad I wasn't suffering from too much with-drawl and/or anxiety like in the past.

    Don't assume it was easy! I still had passing thoughts and urges to install and fire up the game.

    Btw, my eyes hurt a lot less today! One of my main issues I wanted to resolve as well. Yay!

## Conclusion

It was a rough start and not where I expected it to have it. But it wasn't anything crazy either. 

In contrast to my previous challenge, my day 1 was my real first day on this journey!

I appreciate your time and thanks for reading. 🙂

What will your journey say?

Till tomorrow!