I also tried doing what I called an "Internet Diet", of self-imposing working offline, and as long as I stuck with it I got a good amount done then also. In fact one thing I noticed was that if I didn't let myself have the internet, I'd start to get bored, and would naturally open up a code editor or text editor and start writing, or at least organizing the files on my hard drive or even just reading a book.
My main problem are my jobs, though. If my job absolutely requires the internet in order for me to do my job (and right now it absolutely does), then the distractions are just a few clicks away, tempting me, and I fall into its trap.
Time to get off the internet, at least for a bit.
Aspiring authors offer up a collective sigh.
But there are movies, still.
By the way, has anyone seen the 37th remake of Superman? Sorry, I meant 36th.
Hey, anyone want to invest in a new movie idea. It's gold. It's only been done 36 times before. Don't delay. You won't believe what happens at the end. Lois Lane loses 30lbs with 1 crazy dieting trick that big-Doctors don't want you to know about.
Time is running out. Don't wait. There's no time to read that book, you're missing out.
I've finished three books so far this year. The 3rd and 4th books in The Expanse series, and Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang (which includes the short story that the Arrival movie was based on). I'm about 4 chapters into Don Quixote also, which I decided I'd finally read this year.
And that's with the following distractions:
* Letting myself enjoy and complete a 25 hour visual novel video game (AI: The Somnium Files, for anyone curious)
* 15 hours of training to be an ESL tutor
* Preparing lesson plans and meeting with my ESL Learner on a weekly basis
* Taking a 6 week travel writing course at my local library
* Polishing up 4 different board game prototypes, writing rules, filming videos and entering them into two different game design competitions
* Coding two different video games I'm hoping to release sometime this year
* Writing a first draft of a short story for an annual short story anthology that my local writing group does every year
* Hosting a monthly playtest night for local game designers
* Having a wife and two dogs that demand time and attention every day
* Working at a company that has 1-2 network outages each week (at least the past month and a half) that requires me to sit for hours after work coordinating with network and server teams to fix the issue
* Getting mentally prepared and brushing up technical knowledge for the inevitable interview gauntlet I'll need to undergo to find a new job.
I'm sure there's things I'm leaving out. This is all since January 1st this year, btw.
I also write novels off and on, I just don't have any finished yet. Lots of first drafts from participating in Nanowrimo for 10 years. It's a lot harder for me to revise and finish them, though, especially with juggling all my other interests (game design and development usually takes priority). Planning to attend a writer's retreat in two weeks to try to get one in a state that I don't mind other people reading it and giving feedback.
Also despite all this, I waste a ton of time on the internet and really need to nip it in the bud if I want to keep juggling so many balls in the air. And I do still see most Marvel movies. Not DC movies though, except Shazam!
I survive now with 7GB LTE data and public WiFi.
That was the only solution for me to get out of the habit of mindlessly browsing the web, watching YouTube etc...
So i have 230MB Data per Day, that's enough for me to get work done and some casual browsing.
If i wanna watch a YouTube video i have to get out out of the house, walk to the next WiFi, download it, go home and watch it.
- Open Reddit/FB/IG, browse briefly
- Switch to a news site, scan headlines, get irritated with almost-clickbait headlines
- Switch back to Reddit/FB/IG by reflex, even though I know nothing's changed.
The last time I lacked near-24/7 internet access was when living abroad in 2007. I'd go to an internet cafe daily, where once I was done with emails, IMs etc, I'd save a folder of HTML pages (mainly message board threads) to my USB drive for offline reading. It made my browsing experience much more time-efficient, as my Internet use had a clear starting point and an ending point, sort of like a newspaper.
The thing I like about Rust's setup is that things just work out of the box. `rustup doc` opens a page containing the Rust book, Rust by example book, all of the API documentation and more -- all for the version of Rust that I currently have installed. `cargo doc` builds all of the documentation for all of the crates that I am using in my current project. All of the documentation is for the versions of the crates I'm using. It's just very seemless.
The really cool part of the Rust docs is that all of the API documentation (and crate documentation) has links to the source code. So if I can't understand what the documentation is saying, I can read the code. It's incredibly helpful. I must use that feature 5 or 6 times a day.
But, yeah, Zeal is quite useful and I really should set it up again for my Ruby stuff.
