The folks building the internet are very, very good at exploiting our weak points to keep us scrolling.
I've recently gotten way more aggressive about managing my screen time because I realized I had become incapable of just sitting in silence and peacefully focusing on a single task — even while working I was constantly using my phone to open Reddit or Twitter or Discord, for reasons that I couldn't explain. My brain needed constant dopamine hits to function and spending more than a few minutes on any particular task was extremely difficult.
I've had a lot of success recently by leaving my phone in another room and replacing as much of my non-work screen time as possible with slow, screen-less activity — writing in a notebook, reading real books, walking through the neighborhood (with my phone left at home), gardening, cooking. Basic stuff, but all things that had gradually disappeared from my life as my smart phone and laptop took over every part of my brain.
The first few weeks of this were pretty tough, I was constantly looking to where my phone normally would have been and I had to relearn how to just focus on one thing at a time. Now that I'm in the groove my brain feels dramatically more clear and calm and the urge to grab my phone every 30 seconds has mostly faded away. I'm getting more comfortable feeling "bored" again. As a bonus, I've regained my ability to read novels — I've read more fiction this year than I did in the last 10 years combined.
Interesting to see the process and royalty rates from a big (tech) publisher.
I wrote and self-published a book (really a web app structured like a book) on Ruby on Rails to Gumroad earlier this year and so far I have made ~$4,000 after Gumroad's small cut. Based on the royalty rates quoted here, I expect self-publishing is probably going to produce more raw dollars for most people, even those like me with no name recognition or built-in distribution channel for their book.
Of course, even with more money in self-publishing, the hourly rate I've made from writing is a small fraction of what I would have made filling that time with consulting work instead. I expect that in the long run, going with a traditional publisher would be more valuable just from the prestige attached to publishing a "real" book rather than going the self-publishing route. I've gotten a few consulting leads from my book, but a self-published book carries very little weight with most folks.
Thank you for sharing this piece. Navigating a loss like this in a purely remote environment must have been incredibly challenging — grieving feels like an exercise that we do best together in the same physical space. Sometimes you just need someone to give you a hug.
The hardest thing I have ever done as a manager was gather my team into a room and let them know that one of our team members, a young woman just beginning her career, died in a car accident. The accident happened the night before my wedding. I came back to work 36 hours after my wedding, and a few days before leaving for my honeymoon. The first email in my inbox was from a friend of hers telling me what had happened. I walked into work to an office full of people wanting to hear about my wedding and instead I had to tell them that someone they knew and cared about was gone.
She sent me an email sharing her joy about my wedding that I didn't read until after I had already learned of her death.
Six years later and the memories are still painful.
I've recently gotten way more aggressive about managing my screen time because I realized I had become incapable of just sitting in silence and peacefully focusing on a single task — even while working I was constantly using my phone to open Reddit or Twitter or Discord, for reasons that I couldn't explain. My brain needed constant dopamine hits to function and spending more than a few minutes on any particular task was extremely difficult.
I've had a lot of success recently by leaving my phone in another room and replacing as much of my non-work screen time as possible with slow, screen-less activity — writing in a notebook, reading real books, walking through the neighborhood (with my phone left at home), gardening, cooking. Basic stuff, but all things that had gradually disappeared from my life as my smart phone and laptop took over every part of my brain.
The first few weeks of this were pretty tough, I was constantly looking to where my phone normally would have been and I had to relearn how to just focus on one thing at a time. Now that I'm in the groove my brain feels dramatically more clear and calm and the urge to grab my phone every 30 seconds has mostly faded away. I'm getting more comfortable feeling "bored" again. As a bonus, I've regained my ability to read novels — I've read more fiction this year than I did in the last 10 years combined.