A little while ago I decided to take a look at the screen time tool on my phone, which is pretty good at reporting time but quite terrible at enforcing time limits on my young one's phone, for whatever reason.
I learned three things.
Now, the past self, current self and future self all have different preferences and priorities it seems. That said, current self is happy to make some changes to make future self a bit happier with results.
I already gave up TikTok after a while because I found it too compelling. I've found tons of great content on Instagram, but really it can absorb as much free time as I have, which is something that has been echoed by smarter people.
So, here is the list of apps I've been using a bit too much, and how I might replace them.
I don't really use other media apps or sites that much. Reddit is a lot less interesting than it once was.
By far the most notifications I get are from various security cameras and devices. I should probably tweak the hours, as there's little point during times of traffic to get a notification that tells me there are cars or people passing by.
Next up is WhatsApp and Messages, although those are much more reasonable.
All in all, I've managed to cull out most of the notifications I don't care about at this point.
I still follow a number of blogs, but I've gotten good at picking out exactly what I want and can catch up in little time from my desktop. My reader of choice is elfeed together with eww.
The whole thing also brings to mind an old post from Tim Urban, Your Life in Weeks (and the handy visualization tool to quickly look up where I am).
Why I was using this is a great question. There's probably more than one answer, but I think We're Mostly Trying to Escape This Moment is probably a good lens through which to look at this. The reason why we might want to do that may vary (waiting for a child to fall asleep can feel like a forever task), but it's useful to think about what else we might do - or even, as Leo suggests, what we might gain from sitting in the discomfort.
In any case, I hope to spend more time doing the things I love and have a more lasting impact, rather than things that amuse me momentarily, however fun and effortless those might be.
Happy pondering!
Tags: housekeeping philosophy tutorial