It that really uninteresting to anyone but me Log post. Hell I am not even going to promise to write more interesting posts at the moment. I am OK with that for now and I hope you are to.

Haskell

I am working my way through the Haskell Book and boy is it long. I am pretty sure I have sunk about 100 hours into to so far and am only just over Halfway. It is a bit of an epic.

I now understand Monoids, Semigroups and am on way to understanding Functors! In the previous chapters we spent a fair bit of time with QuickCheck. Dispatching function calls based on the return type required is interesting and slightly perturbing to say the least. I am just not used to it!

Perhaps I missed it but I would have enjoyed making this more explicit in the text along with even a simple explanation how how the types are derived. I kind of remember it from studying it ages ago but a refresher would have helped a great deal.

I am learning from it, although at this point I am not convinced I will continue to use Haskell after I finish the book. Although I probably have another hundred hours of study to go so all it's complexity my be so ingrained that it feels like second nature.

I am using Emacs to edit Haskell and once I get over a 100 lines in a file is starts to slow down a fair bit. This puts me off using it in anger! Perhaps VSCode is better?

Productivity

The change to my approach to doing at home projects seems to be working. The current approach is just work on one thing, the Haskell Book. It is taking a bit of will power to keep this up, particularly as it is such a long project.

I am going to review at the start of March. I may increase it to two projects at any one time. A major one and a minor one. I would only work on the minor for at max an hour a night (if that).

I don't think I am going to try to work on more then two things at any given time ever again. Two would be optional. If I need a focus month then I would only focus on the major projects.

A project could flip between major or minor focus depending on the month. Only review once a month at the start. If any project finishes then the other one becomes the sole focus. It they both finish then I would probably be very surprised.

Having said that single focus is really working well even if it takes a bit of will power to maintain that. Maybe 4 weeks focus and then a week handling small things things. I want to fit in a few things like physical Maths books in a way that in manageable with say making something.

If this all sound slightly confused it is because it is. Perhaps it indicates I need to reduce the number of things I want to work on and increase focus. A couple of weeks before I have to make a decision!

It may be useful to start tracking my hours again, so I have an object measure of the time I spend on tech stuff.

Health

I didn't start to run again. The plan to start running was a diversion tactic by my brain to avoid the Gorilla in the room. Caffeine! I have been drinking too much for too long.

Applying the 80/20 rule I now don't have Tea or Coffee in the week. A few cups of coffee are drunk at the weekend. Mostly because the children like to catch up with a coffee.

Oh boy, those withdrawal headaches were bad. Some people say it takes them weeks to get over it but most of the noticeable symptoms went away after a three days.

Sleep feels so good now! I felt this improving before quitting coffee but my ability to focus in the evening has gone through the roof.

Weight is continuing to trickle downward. It is my only objective indicator my life style changes are having a positive physical effect.

With so many changes made since the start of the year I feel the need to log them just to remember them. Not very few of these are 100% I am very much apply an 80/20 or perhaps 90/10 approach here. Here is the list

• Decided to not worry about anything.
• Started intermittent fasting
• Massive reduction in consumption of wheat.
• Massive reduction in refined sugars
• Massive reduction in Coffee consumed.
• Massive reduction in Dairy consumption.

There is a more explicit restatement of the first bullet point but you get the idea. Dairy is the new one and I am still partial to a good bit of cheese just not during the week. The dairy reduction didn't really make me feel any different but I think I will keep it around a little longer.

I may get stricter and further reduce things, At weekends I am really relaxed about the rules :).

Sleep is the battle ground I still feel like I am not quite getting enough but I am not quite ready to tackle that one head on. The coming week or two I plan to start doing Yoga every day (during the week). I have decided to not start running again until my weight has dropped it little lower. I am trying to avoid running feeling like a slog.

Most of my exercise has been walking but as I am running out of ideas for dietary changes it is probably time to look at physical side of things a bit. Well I still have some dietary changes I could make but I want to bed in the changes I have made so far so they are really solid.