I really have no intention of publishing this, so if you see this, you're breaking the law.

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In these trying times, sometimes not even an egg from Danny Devito can dissuade you from feeling down and unproductive. Maybe it's just me, but I've been feeling unusually stressed the past few days. Perhaps the work that I've postponed and creeping deadlines are starting to get to me.

To try to get myself under control in order to focus on what's important, I've written myself a pact. Before I get to it, though, I need to explain its guiding principles.

I've you've been following Martin from Wintergatan (amazing guy, btw) and his progress on building the Marble Machine X, this will sound familiar. I wanted to set reasonable goals and start a dopamine detox.

Firstly, I wanted reasonable goals so I could go to bed knowing I accomplished something of value and be pumped for the next day. What constitutes as a reasonable goal? A reasonable goal, to me, is a goal that does not rely on outside factors and only relies on what you, as a person, do. For example, aiming to finish a project isn't reasonable since it relies on external factors: if your house went up in flames, you likely would be more preoccupied with that rather than with your project. A reasonable goal also cannot be too ambitious. Setting too big a goal will lead to you going to bed each night failing to reach your goal. However, reasonable goals will ensure that you will go to sleep a champion every night. For example, "I will work on this project with determination for today" is a reasonable goal. No matter if your house burns down, you will still have succeeded in fulfilling your goal.

The second component of my pact is a dopamine detox. I am quite the dopamine junky, meaning sometimes I get distracted all too easily. Martin restricted himself to only check social media once in the morning and once in the evening as well as stopping listening to music while working. He's reported feeling more productive. Simply removing distractions and leaving yourself to your own thoughts can boost working efficiency significantly.

When Martin introduced these topics as certain aspects of his work that he is working on, his words resonated with me deeply. I'm not going to go into detail about my own pact since it contain some private matters, but it follows much of the same patterns as Martin's plan for productivity.

That's enough rambling for tonight, Gui. Maybe you should get to sleep instead of staying up doing this kind of dilly-dallying.