I feel like I am on the cusp of making a bit of a major shift in
how I use my computers.
In general, I think I want to be on them less. This is both in
part because I want to be outdoors more often and also do other
time-demanding things indoors, especially reading, and in part
because I am becoming aware of just how much of my time in front
of a computer is spent doing pointless, automatic habit-driven and
distraction-inducing activities that I just do by virtue of being
in front of a computer as a kind of default indoor state.
I also want to get better at actually finishing useful computing
projects, instead of having them pile up endlessly, and working on
things in fits and starts. The automatic distraction factor above
partially explains why I've been bad at this, but I think a lack
of serious, directed goal setting is involved, too.
I am thinking that I want to try to address these things with a
"double whammy" shift in usage habits.
Whammy the first: Because most of the automatic time-wasting
behaviour is internet based, I'm going to experiment with "offline
first" computing. I'll use the RF kill switch on my laptop to be
offline by default, and only go online when I actually need to,
for as long as I need to to complete some specific task.
Whammy the second: In order to be more productive with my reduced
computing time, I'm going to set myself weekly goals, or at least
weekly "focal points". I'll decide that, e.g., this week I'm
going to study Plan 9, or try to get PostmarketOS working on an
old phone, or give some long-overdue love to AV-98, and that will
be the primary reason I pick up a computer for that week. One week
per task should be enough time to allow for unforseen complications,
and means I can take a few evenings off to do other things without
making it impossible to meet my goals.
Obviously, this coming week's goal will be to rejig all of my
tooling and workflows to work smoothly with the new "offline first"
principle!
None of this is to say I'm going to give up reading or writing
gemlogs, phlogs, toots, emails or things like that. I will
still make time for this, but expect it to happen in occasional
concentrated bursts more than any kind of steady flow.
