Thinking about attention again

20 October 2021

I’ve read, and re-read, CGP Grey’s blog post (a.k.a Project Cyclops) about wrestling back his focus and attention from online systems that feed on it. I’ve tried it a few times before, but this is the first time I’ve written about it publicly. So, effective immediately:

• No hacker news
• No reddit
• No twitter
• No MacRumors, ArsTechnica, Techmeme, AnandTech…

These activities are fine (but with some conditions):

• Podcasts (only while running, or at the gym)
• YouTube (during meals)
• NetNewsWire (once a day)

Why am I doing this? For the same reason CGP Grey spelt out in his blog — I want to spend more time doing things I care about: research & study, reading, writing, cooking, building easy-to-use and delightful software tools and apps, and watching films.

Update

This is much harder than I thought it would be. I find myself replacing the time I would sink into the outlawed activities with others that seem ‘alright’ — Wikipedia, Letterboxd… There isn’t any magical solution, other than to be mindful with what I’m doing.