4 ms·

I did a project once where I put my phone away before bed (switched off and in another room) and kept it off for the first few hours of the day, along with my w

by andai 2y ago

I did a project once where I put my phone away before bed (switched off and in another room) and kept it off for the first few hours of the day, along with my wifi router. I usually got so much done during that time that I'd prefer to keep them off for a few more hours, even after I was "allowed" to turn them back on.

warner25 2y ago
> along with my wifi router I'm all about eliminating phones, but I'm curious to know what you accomplished for several hours without network connectivity in general. Whether I've been working from home or in an office, a network outage basically meant taking the rest of the day off because nothing could actually get done.
- LoganDark 2y ago
  > I'm curious to know what you accomplished for several hours without network connectivity in general. Making your bed, organizing your room, taking a shower / getting a haircut, doing laundry, whatever. You know, the stuff people tend to get behind on.
  - Aeolun 2y ago
    People get behind on taking a shower? Amongst that list it seems the only one you can’t skip out on. Unless you start putting on dirty laundry. That’s probably worse.
    - OJFord 2y ago
      Depends what you mean by 'get behind on' I guess? I'm a 'morning' showerer, because my hair looks insane before a shower, but if there's nothing to particularly make me need/want to look presentable (obviously I'm not properly dressed having not showered either) particularly early then yeah I can get behind on showering.
    - pbhjpbhj 2y ago
      It kinda blows my mind if not only have you never missed taking a shower but you can't even imagine a situation in which that mighty happen. That aside, people have depression, or no access to a shower, and so miss showering for weeks even. Amongst other reasons.
      - Aeolun 2y ago
        I find it hard to call something ‘get behind on’ if you have no ability to do it in the first place. Getting behind on something implies it is possible and you choose (conciously or unconciously) not to.
    - LoganDark 2y ago
      Without going into too much detail... ADHD exists.
- geerlingguy 2y ago
  Presumably some of the other 1,000 things to be done. On my procrastination list right now: replace bathroom faucet, replace bathroom fan, replace belt in car, clean out garage floor, dust servers in my rack, move rack to new location, decommission old server in rack, clean wood floor, clean oven, caulk around the bathtub, finish reading about 20 books I have only read halfway through... could go on and on.
  - tayo42 2y ago
    Most of that list would require me to have YouTube or something up explaining how to do to, so I'd need a network to be productive lol
    - eimrine 2y ago
      It will not help you because bathroom fans may have different ways to disassemble them, car belts may have different bolts position etc. You either can work with electricity wires or not, no third option, and the difference is mostly comes from having read or not having read the book (every country has a different one). For me the list is so boring that it requires me to have a device yelling some podcasts while I am solving such a mind-numbing issues.
      - RussianCow 2y ago
        > You either can work with electricity wires or not, no third option As someone who has used The Internet™ as a reference for more projects than I can count, I strongly disagree with this. There is definitely a middle ground where you know just enough to do some basic things on your own and feel comfortable venturing a bit deeper, but not without some help. > It will not help you because bathroom fans may have different ways to disassemble them, car belts may have different bolts position etc. I dunno, I can usually find at least one guide online for how to do a specific thing with a specific model of something. Search "change timing belt $year $make $model" and you'll get at least a handful of videos walking you through the whole process. Having said all of that, this entire discussion is a bit moot because it's easy enough to download YouTube videos or tutorials locally ahead of time and pull them up on a tablet without internet access.
- s1artibartfast 2y ago
  I'm guessing this wasn't for a remote work day. Things I need to do tomorrow include oil change on my truck, laundry, trip to the hardware store, fix the sink, and call my parents. I don't need the Internet for any of those, and checking the news can social media when I roll out of bed won't help anything. At worst, it might derail my day.
- NiloCK 2y ago
  ... writing code? git commits are local things.
- andai 2y ago
  It was a solo project involving mostly creative work: curriculum design, game design, programming, writing tutorials. I found myself missing Google for language and API related questions frequently, so I used DevDocs, a website that can also "install" itself in the browser to work offline. For the stuff I couldn't find there, I just made a note to Google it after lunch and worked around it or switched tasks. Note that this was before LLMs got good at programming / saying mostly true things, so there was no loss from not having access to them. Recently I've been experimenting with local LLMs, though they're not quite there yet (the ones I can run at least), and they're already fun enough to be distracting!
safety1st 2y ago
Yeah so the smartphones and socials can be difficult addictions to shake, but this is the flip side of it: when you do put them aside for an extended period of time you often see your productivity absolutely go through the roof. I started sticking my phone in my bag or in another room during my afternoon work session and my productivity with that time doubled, in terms of actual output - tasks completed, lines of code written etc. and probably better ideas generated. I started turning it off after dinner as well as running a simple script that blocks FB, Reddit etc. on my desktop - my "productivity" with my evening time also basically doubled, whether it was books read, games played, extra work done, time spent with people who matter, keeping my place cleaner, etc. just more life happening basically. The more hooked you are, the more massive the benefit of quitting cold turkey. Once you see it a couple times the dynamic inverts and it gets harder to go back. From personal experience, yeah of course if you rip the phones out of the kids' hands they're going to experience a variety of improvements... that's what happened when I ripped it out of my own hands. I do find it interesting that this study saw little in cognitive improvements - it was only a 21 day study. I thin they are there but they're a long burn, reading books for instance is a skill that has returned to me but it's been very slow and gradual, I should probably lean even harder into turning off my phone and any short-form socials trash.
- card_zero 2y ago
  Damn, I should get my smartphone out of the bag and start using it, and develop a TikTok habit. Then I can put it away again, and my productivity will double! Which is to say that I find this claim highly unlikely. You're very lucky to have such immense latent productivity that was just waiting for the smartphone dam to burst.
  - madmask 2y ago
    I noticed something similar. Productivity does go up if you don’t replace social media with other forms of entertainment. After a while one gets bored and starts doing more stuff, either work or hobbies
  - safety1st 2y ago
    You can choose not to believe me if you want. Yes, turning the phone off doubled my productivity. I can't imagine why you wouldn't believe this, if you've ever had coworkers, and observed them spending half their time on their phone at work. It's a distraction which hampers sustained attention and deeper thinking - as well as eats up actual minutes of time, some raw percentage of your work hours inevitably goes into garbage content on the phone instead. I find the people who are skeptical about the idea that the phone frustrates doing deeper thinking, are often the ones who have never done it. This is why they don't see the value in it.
grecy 2y ago
We have our wifi router on an old school power timer. It turns off at 10pm and back on at 8am. It’s a great signal I need to go to bed.
slavik81 2y ago
On the other hand, I locked my phone in a rental car and it took a week for them to mail it back to me. I was surprised, but I found that it made very little difference. I did not feel like I had any more time than usual. The only real impact was that I was locked out of anything that required two-factor authentication.
- rmbyrro 2y ago
  losing 2fa gives me anxiety. google auth is sync'ing now. it's a terrible idea from a security standpoint, though, which gives me even more anxiety... i guess i can't avoid security-related anxieties
  - sebmellen 2y ago
    Use an open source TOTP manager and sync your codes using something like Standard Notes, not your regular password manager. This gives nice redundancy and two layers of security while staying synced.
    - bearjaws 2y ago
      Ente Auth + $100 old android phone for backing up to. Old phone stays in a safe, and only pull it out to add new TOTP codes.
      - zwarag 2y ago
        Why is this getting downvoted?
  - teaearlgraycold 2y ago
    1password fixes this
  - FollowingTheDao 2y ago
    I am with you on this, which I why I now use as many services I can that do not use it. Starting with my email.

by andai 2y ago

warner25 2y ago

> along with my wifi router I'm all about eliminating phones, but I'm curious to know what you accomplished for several hours without network connectivity in general. Whether I've been working from home or in an office, a network outage basically meant taking the rest of the day off because nothing could actually get done.

LoganDark 2y ago
> I'm curious to know what you accomplished for several hours without network connectivity in general. Making your bed, organizing your room, taking a shower / getting a haircut, doing laundry, whatever. You know, the stuff people tend to get behind on.
- Aeolun 2y ago
  People get behind on taking a shower? Amongst that list it seems the only one you can’t skip out on. Unless you start putting on dirty laundry. That’s probably worse.
  - OJFord 2y ago
    Depends what you mean by 'get behind on' I guess? I'm a 'morning' showerer, because my hair looks insane before a shower, but if there's nothing to particularly make me need/want to look presentable (obviously I'm not properly dressed having not showered either) particularly early then yeah I can get behind on showering.
  - pbhjpbhj 2y ago
    It kinda blows my mind if not only have you never missed taking a shower but you can't even imagine a situation in which that mighty happen. That aside, people have depression, or no access to a shower, and so miss showering for weeks even. Amongst other reasons.
    - Aeolun 2y ago
      I find it hard to call something ‘get behind on’ if you have no ability to do it in the first place. Getting behind on something implies it is possible and you choose (conciously or unconciously) not to.
  - LoganDark 2y ago
    Without going into too much detail... ADHD exists.
geerlingguy 2y ago
Presumably some of the other 1,000 things to be done. On my procrastination list right now: replace bathroom faucet, replace bathroom fan, replace belt in car, clean out garage floor, dust servers in my rack, move rack to new location, decommission old server in rack, clean wood floor, clean oven, caulk around the bathtub, finish reading about 20 books I have only read halfway through... could go on and on.
- tayo42 2y ago
  Most of that list would require me to have YouTube or something up explaining how to do to, so I'd need a network to be productive lol
  - eimrine 2y ago
    It will not help you because bathroom fans may have different ways to disassemble them, car belts may have different bolts position etc. You either can work with electricity wires or not, no third option, and the difference is mostly comes from having read or not having read the book (every country has a different one). For me the list is so boring that it requires me to have a device yelling some podcasts while I am solving such a mind-numbing issues.
    - RussianCow 2y ago
      > You either can work with electricity wires or not, no third option As someone who has used The Internet™ as a reference for more projects than I can count, I strongly disagree with this. There is definitely a middle ground where you know just enough to do some basic things on your own and feel comfortable venturing a bit deeper, but not without some help. > It will not help you because bathroom fans may have different ways to disassemble them, car belts may have different bolts position etc. I dunno, I can usually find at least one guide online for how to do a specific thing with a specific model of something. Search "change timing belt $year $make $model" and you'll get at least a handful of videos walking you through the whole process. Having said all of that, this entire discussion is a bit moot because it's easy enough to download YouTube videos or tutorials locally ahead of time and pull them up on a tablet without internet access.
s1artibartfast 2y ago
I'm guessing this wasn't for a remote work day. Things I need to do tomorrow include oil change on my truck, laundry, trip to the hardware store, fix the sink, and call my parents. I don't need the Internet for any of those, and checking the news can social media when I roll out of bed won't help anything. At worst, it might derail my day.
NiloCK 2y ago
... writing code? git commits are local things.
andai 2y ago
It was a solo project involving mostly creative work: curriculum design, game design, programming, writing tutorials. I found myself missing Google for language and API related questions frequently, so I used DevDocs, a website that can also "install" itself in the browser to work offline. For the stuff I couldn't find there, I just made a note to Google it after lunch and worked around it or switched tasks. Note that this was before LLMs got good at programming / saying mostly true things, so there was no loss from not having access to them. Recently I've been experimenting with local LLMs, though they're not quite there yet (the ones I can run at least), and they're already fun enough to be distracting!

safety1st 2y ago

Yeah so the smartphones and socials can be difficult addictions to shake, but this is the flip side of it: when you do put them aside for an extended period of time you often see your productivity absolutely go through the roof. I started sticking my phone in my bag or in another room during my afternoon work session and my productivity with that time doubled, in terms of actual output - tasks completed, lines of code written etc. and probably better ideas generated. I started turning it off after dinner as well as running a simple script that blocks FB, Reddit etc. on my desktop - my "productivity" with my evening time also basically doubled, whether it was books read, games played, extra work done, time spent with people who matter, keeping my place cleaner, etc. just more life happening basically. The more hooked you are, the more massive the benefit of quitting cold turkey. Once you see it a couple times the dynamic inverts and it gets harder to go back. From personal experience, yeah of course if you rip the phones out of the kids' hands they're going to experience a variety of improvements... that's what happened when I ripped it out of my own hands. I do find it interesting that this study saw little in cognitive improvements - it was only a 21 day study. I thin they are there but they're a long burn, reading books for instance is a skill that has returned to me but it's been very slow and gradual, I should probably lean even harder into turning off my phone and any short-form socials trash.

card_zero 2y ago
Damn, I should get my smartphone out of the bag and start using it, and develop a TikTok habit. Then I can put it away again, and my productivity will double! Which is to say that I find this claim highly unlikely. You're very lucky to have such immense latent productivity that was just waiting for the smartphone dam to burst.
- madmask 2y ago
  I noticed something similar. Productivity does go up if you don’t replace social media with other forms of entertainment. After a while one gets bored and starts doing more stuff, either work or hobbies
- safety1st 2y ago
  You can choose not to believe me if you want. Yes, turning the phone off doubled my productivity. I can't imagine why you wouldn't believe this, if you've ever had coworkers, and observed them spending half their time on their phone at work. It's a distraction which hampers sustained attention and deeper thinking - as well as eats up actual minutes of time, some raw percentage of your work hours inevitably goes into garbage content on the phone instead. I find the people who are skeptical about the idea that the phone frustrates doing deeper thinking, are often the ones who have never done it. This is why they don't see the value in it.

grecy 2y ago

We have our wifi router on an old school power timer. It turns off at 10pm and back on at 8am. It’s a great signal I need to go to bed.

slavik81 2y ago

On the other hand, I locked my phone in a rental car and it took a week for them to mail it back to me. I was surprised, but I found that it made very little difference. I did not feel like I had any more time than usual. The only real impact was that I was locked out of anything that required two-factor authentication.

rmbyrro 2y ago
losing 2fa gives me anxiety. google auth is sync'ing now. it's a terrible idea from a security standpoint, though, which gives me even more anxiety... i guess i can't avoid security-related anxieties
- sebmellen 2y ago
  Use an open source TOTP manager and sync your codes using something like Standard Notes, not your regular password manager. This gives nice redundancy and two layers of security while staying synced.
  - bearjaws 2y ago
    Ente Auth + $100 old android phone for backing up to. Old phone stays in a safe, and only pull it out to add new TOTP codes.
    - zwarag 2y ago
      Why is this getting downvoted?
- teaearlgraycold 2y ago
  1password fixes this
- FollowingTheDao 2y ago
  I am with you on this, which I why I now use as many services I can that do not use it. Starting with my email.