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Noise Reduction
Only I have the key, and only I get to decide what’s allowed inside.
– Cheri Baker, My New Internet Habits
Cheri has found the exact kind of mental discipline I had spoken about at the end of last year.
My goals, similar to her own with regard to time spent online are nowhere near closer than when I first set them out on this blog. It should be no surprised to me, then that the first two months of this year have been marked by a general downturn in my mood, my overall health really.
This stops now.
Not only have I already deactivated my personal social media accounts barring Micro.blog, I have reset my RSS feeds and am in the midst of taking a knife to the throat of any excess with regard to email, task managers (read: Gabriel Santiago’s take on Jillianne Hamilton’s Can a Productivity Nerd Live Without a To-Do List?), and so on.
I am stripping away the noise, making firm decisions about my work set-up (minimised to better focus on the most immediate tasks), and filtering the crap away to stop it from getting into my mind.
Soon I hope to also report that I am reading more books, reading higher quality news, increasing my exercise, and getting much more writing done.
Nothing quite like some music from the wonderful Zoë Keating to hit that perfect spot where calm meets focus. 🎶
The more you learn about the modern web, the more you have to admit the reality; a handful of companies control everything and any moralistic decision to “extract myself from the monopoly!” is, for the most part virtue signalling and nothing more.
Source: I cut the tech giants…
Oh look, it’s Micro Monday! I need to talk about @hollyhoneychurch for a minute. Between the photos of the sweet precious angels, the honest and insightful blogging, and such a willingness to share on her own terms, Holly has been a source of joy on my timeline.
Three different recommendations for your consideration:
🎶
Pirates of the Caribbean Theme but it’s played on two calculators
This was the whole point of YouTube before they fucked it up.
Looking back on Dean Allen’s Twitter feed and thinking yep, that’s how it should have gone.
“Just” is a dangerous word.
Going to keep my eye out for reviews of the MP02 by Punkt., which is the best looking model I’ve seen from the recent trend of minimal function phones.
Finally listening to Hozier and wondering why it took me five years. 🎶
But does all social media use consist of these projections? No.
– @cheri, Is Social Media a Waste of Time?
Cheri is willing to keep her mind open to the possibility that other people’s lives are different from her own and that is fucking awesome.
If you have listened to the latest episode of Micro Monday, the Q&A special with Manton and were surprised to hear about the RSS feeds for categories, let me point you to @til. On there I posted about those feeds and other such info for using Micro.blog.
One of my favourite parts of making @til is when I have to use the different versions of Micro.blog. In these moments I am reminded of how;
- diverse and interesting the community can be;
- open and flexible the platform is;
- much better this social network is for my health.
Reminder: IndieWebCamp has been happening in Austin, Texas, and you can see everything on YouTube, including livestreams.
The words “David”, “Tennant”, and “podcast” are all I needed to get the end of the week off to a good start: @DavidTennantPod.
Reminder: Core Assistance is a good website and you should check to see if any of the resources can help you to improve your website. Bonus! Justin Michael is on Micro.blog: @VioletPixel
One of my favourite things about Micro.blog is the early-morning version of my timeline, made up of fellow Europeans and those from other parts of the world who are not in the midst of their late evening. There’s a different energy from the mainland US timezones.