captain-phil

Thanks for sharing! Very helpful for inspiration and implementation.

How much do you enjoy going to bed? I mean how satisfying is it for you to lay down in the end of a day? How much conscious thought do you give to this moment of lying down? Do you already have a bad feeling about it?

For me it’s like this: I’m never in my bed during daytime. Also, I do not use my phone in the bed. I don’t watch TV lying in my bed. My bed is actually the most comfortable and peaceful place in this world that I can be in. I make my bed every day in the morning so that I can return to it and it’s perfectly prepared for my evening-self. I have a particular setup of my pillow. A small cozy blanket to cover it and the area below my shoulders. Whatever works for you. I can also recommend to get some high quality material linen.

Whenever I decide I go to bed, I’m actually looking forward to just lay down on my back and enjoy this wonderful feeling. I reflect on my day, thinking how well it feels to lay here.

The time before lying down I have somewhat a routine of dimmed lights which are located low (in altitude) in the room. There are receptors in the lower area of your eyes which become active when you have light from right above. Just try to have an atmosphere in your room similar to a sunset. Maybe try to sit down with a cup of tea. Prepare for that moment of laying down.

Another thing that helps me tremendously is to do some very deep stretching or yoga right before bed time. I feel that it’s the best possible preparation to relax. There are stretches which you hold for 5 minutes in one position. After these deep stretches, which already calm your mind down - you can feel the relaxing reeling in your legs strongly when you lay down and pay attention.

Usually sleep comes very quickly for after this routine. It came to me over time, what works for me. I’m pretty sure it’s different for you - just to give you some inspiration.

Hope it helps.

In my opinion there’s only one way to deal with this - let’s say - procrastination. The problem is that you are at mercy of your feelings when you are supposed to sit down and actually do the tasks that you set yourself up for. Feelings of doubt and fear of not being good enough may kick in and your brain will come up with all kinds of ideas to release you from the situation.

For me, the following works:

1. Craft a day plan for yourself: it doesn’t have to be super-elaborate. Just sit down every evening and decide what tasks you want to work on tomorrow. Decide for how long approximately. You don’t have to plan when exactly you’re working on what. It’s more about what tasks and how long. Also take into account how much time you actually have.

2. Once you start your day, consider your plan as fixed. No ad-hoc changes. Your feelings will come. Be prepared. You cannot change today’s plan. That’s the rule.

3. Before you start: Break down your task into the simplest step you can take. E.g. when you want to write a blog post, start with brainstorming. If you wanna code, checkout the repo and have a look at the code.

4. Set a timer for 25 minutes and don’t allow yourself to do anything else. 25 minutes is manageable and you have the feeling you can do it. After 25 minutes you have started and probably it’s already fun to work on the task. Take a 5-minute break to do something fun (listen to music) and enjoy your “success”. Then do the next round.

Hope it helps.

We actually created an entire product around this because we needed it just like you.

Check it out if you like: https://daycaptain.com

However, you can do it on paper as well.

I’m also happy to help you as a coach. I’ve a lot of experience with these kind of things.

From my experience you will be able to learn the language part very very quickly. Programming is pretty much just a subset of English language. Like with all scientific fields, there’s a very limited set of ever-repeating words used. There are certainly courses in other languages, put if I was to give you some advice, I’d encourage you to start using English right from the start and not wasting any time on getting your English skills up to speed - they’ll have a tremendous return for you.

Have a lot of fun and enjoy your learning.

What a great step. I’m happy for you that you made this decision. I wish you all the best.

Wow, amazing work. Thanks for sharing!