The Old Computer Challenge v2: Day 0 Summary

Day 0 of The Old Computer Challenge v2 went well. Even though it’s a Sunday, I’ve had to work a bit - which also meant I had to go online. Such is the life of a startup co-founder, I guess. I didn’t mind though, as it created an opportunity to listen to a live stream of up&coming Opera singers, and as a lover of ALL good music (thank you, Mańka), I couldn’t imagine a better reason.

Other notable events and thoughts:

• It was a very good idea to set up a separate machine, that is strictly off-limits for any “work stuff”. In the past, I’ve always maintained a “backup PC” of some sort, fully set up to get me going in case of an accident with the main rig (which actually happened once); so while right now after the last incident I don’t have such backup, having a “no work stuff allowed” computer actually helps me with my work/life balance.

• Staying offline allowed me to focus on the moment. Whether it was chatting over the lunch, or hacking away on the side project, I felt there was more “me” in the “here” and “now”.

• Outside of work, I didn’t go online for more than a couple minutes at a time, and that was mostly to download missing dependencies for a side project, or publish the posts. I don’t think I’ve clocked more than 10 minutes total.

• Even though I haven’t put any effort in blocking social media, mail, news, etc, during the time I was online, I haven’t felt any urge to go there and waste my time. Over the past few days, I’ve spent some time thinking of how I would strategically use my 1h/day allowance to download the news in my RSS reader, to later have things to read offline, or use youtube-dl to download videos to watch later, but in the end I haven’t even looked at any of it.

• I’m already writing a second blog post on the same day, which doesn’t happen often.

• I’m happy!