I have been without a PC for a number or days now, having actively removed PC activity from my daily routines weeks ago. Essentially, my phone and my watch are my only computers.

As a result, I have learned that I never had a tolerance for lengthy reading on a small screen in the first place let alone having not developed such a thing ever since owning my first smartphone.

This is the first time in over a decade that I have not used a PC on a daily basis, and whilst I yearn for a tool with which to work on @til the fact remains that this process has cleared my mind of an unhealthy reliance on the web as my only source for information and, well, just about everything else.

I am looking forward to the continued rediscovering of the good habits from my pre-online life and developing a much better balance of my time and energy in the future, should I ever own a PC again.

(Note: either way, iOS remains an unreliable tool for lengthy writing and I doubt that will ever change for me, for a whole host of reasons)

Today I Learned is now in maintenance mode.

I am currently sitting at our desk in what we once called the office. Now it’s the utility room. This change, like so many others over the past two and a half months, has been monumental and yet so small.

Lots of things are happening, some of which I may or may not talk about but altogether can be summarised thus: I’m finally taking my work seriously, giving it the space and resources needed to get the job done at a basic standard let alone anything approaching good. All in all, this is a good thing, and made all the easier due to lots and lots of changes since even before the COVID-19 pandemic became the wrecking ball of change with which we are all currently attempting to grapple.

As for Today I Learned, well, the unfortunate truth is that I do not have the resources to spare for its continued operation and so the recent hiatus has now become a full maintenance mode which, as the previously linked announcement states, means there will be no publishing of any kind for the foreseeable future.

I find it difficult to express my gratitude for all of the support from the Micro.blog community for Today I Learned. So I’ll just say this: if you’re feeling pessimistic about the web and the world in general, please take part in the Micro.blog community for at least a few months and you’ll find yourself living in an example of how the world can be a better place. Without this community I wouldn’t be in such a positive place as to handle monumental change and actually thrive, it’s as simple as that.

Over the next few months I’ll probably continue to be elusive as far as posting is concerned. At the moment I’m mostly reading feeds, reading in general, watching the various forms of video available via the web, and playing lots of video games. In many ways I’m in a maintenance mode of my own; I have increased the volume of input from the world, this amazing world we’ve made via the web, whilst simultaneously decreasing my output. This process has been… necessary. Vital even.

So I’m off to continue focusing on the most important parts of my life, and enjoying a summer of much needed self reflection.

I hope everybody who reads this is well and doing what is needed to live in this our strange pandemic-influenced time.

I’ll see you in the replies. 👋