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Simplicity must be possible.

Two stories that I know I should be learning from:

  • Paul Graham on overcoming distractions. By creating an Internet-Only computer.

    Quote:
    I now leave wifi turned off on my main computer except when I need to transfer a file or edit a web page, and I have a separate laptop on the other side of the room that I use to check mail or browse the web. (Irony of ironies, it's the computer Steve Huffman wrote Reddit on. When Steve and Alexis auctioned off their old laptops for charity, I bought them for the Y Combinator museum.)

    My rule is that I can spend as much time online as I want, as long as I do it on that computer. And this turns out to be enough.


  • NY Times on overcoming clutter. By giving everything away.
    Quote:
    Chasing a utopian vision of a self-sustaining life on the land as partisans of a movement some call voluntary simplicity, they are donating virtually all their possessions to charity and hitting the road at the end of May.

    “It’s amazing the amount of things a family can acquire,” said Mrs. Harris, 28, attributing their good life to “the ridiculous amount of money” her husband earned as a computer network engineer in this early Wi-Fi mecca.

    The Harrises now hope to end up as organic homesteaders in Vermont.

I can't quite see myself going as far as homesteading... but I always get that uncanny feeling when I read stories like these that it really IS that simple to make a change.


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Andre Kibbe's picture

Separate computers for writing and internet

Lately when I’ve writing at home, I have two “axes” set up: my laptop, for when I need internet access, and my Alphasmart Neo 2 for writing.

It’s been an interesting experiment. Unlike Graham, who has his internet computer in another room, my laptop is swivel-and-roll distance from my Neo. Theoretically, I still have instant access to all of the glorious distractions a connected laptop has to offer, but the mere fact that the two functions — word processing and internet access — are physically compartmentalized makes me hyper-aware of when I’m abandoning writing for browsing in a way that I was largely unconscious of before.

When I’m writing, I now know I’m writing, and when I’m surfing, I’m equally conscious of it. Like Graham, I have a “rule” that I can spend as much time as I want on the internet — as long as it’s on the internet computer; which isn’t hard to enforce, since I can’t “enable” wifi on the Neo. With no real effort, just added awareness of where I’m spending my time, I’ve reduced my distractions significantly.

About grant

grant's picture

Bio

grant lives in a palatial suburban estate in West Palm Beach, Florida, surrounded by chickens, dogs, cats, children and semi-animate piles of clutter. Older, irregular writings on various topics can be found at Flying Fists, although lately he spends more time trying to get people to join him recording songs of discovery (and reading the latest weird science headlines) at The Guild of Scientific Troubadours.

He is an Aquarius, a vayu/kapha body type with a tendency to stagnant liver heat, and remembers when the internet was just a bunch of UFO enthusiasts and HAM radio nuts dialing up to local BBSes to post on something called FIDOnet.

His day job is writing about unexplained phenomena for Sun, a magazine that has yet to catch up with FIDOnet’s amazing technological breakthrough, but can be found on dead trees in supermarkets nationwide.

 
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