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Computing less, but with more focus

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.