Immigration to China

Read part 1 of Fighting Internet Addiction here >>

It’s been over a month since I wrote the first article about internet addiction and implemented several steps to fight it. Now is a good time for an update of how things are going.

Of course the irony of blogging about fighting internet addiction does not escape me . However, the blogging process itself is not information consumption, but rather information production. And that makes all the difference, since consumption is at least 10 times easier than production and therefore results in 10 times more wasted time.

First of all, it’s been a lot easier for me to take most preventative steps, like the sticky note routine, than I expected. That said, some things still took me by surprise! I’m really used to using sticky notes right now. I don’t stick them on top of my laptop as originally intended, but they always lay right next to it, making it impossible to forget about the procedure.

I thought removing Google Toolbar would make me go crazy, since I used it so much before. In reality, I didn’t miss its absense at all. I do miss not having access to Favorites and Bookmarks though. It’s weird to realize that I now remember only about half of all the websites I used to visit from day to day. There’s still a nagging feeling that I’m missing out on some important info by not visiting those sites, but I just don’t remember what they are! From this it’s safe to conclude that they weren’t that important to begin with. This clinging to existing thought patterns, expressed as a desire to visit a web site, is a sure sign of an addiction.

Don’t miss the iGoogle homepage at all. Still checking email more than once a day though, since my Gmail account acts as an archive of all kinds of info for me. Maybe it’s better to keep that info in an archive on my hard drive instead, so that I’m not distracted by email whenever I need to research something from my past?

Really getting used to the premium version of Gmail without the ads. It does feel simpler and a lot less cluttered than the free version. Highly recommend it. Also, I’m always processing my Inbox to empty (by either archiving or deleting all incoming emails), that really makes it feel squaky clean!

In addition, I’ve set up more restrictive filtering rules for my new inbox, only allowing personal emails to come in. That way, I can check my new inbox more frequently than my old one, but not miss any important emails. To think about it, can any email be that important? If it’s something really urgent, people can always just call me on my cell…

As often in life, sometimes it’s the little changes that generate the most impact. For me, it was hiding the browser status bar. Wow this was a big one! It turns out not seeing the URL of the link makes me very uneasy, it’s like I associate the domain name to something like a brand in my mind… I realized just how often in the past I hovered over a link and analyzed where it was pointing to, somehow always processing parts of that information in my head. Right now, without having that information, I question whether I should click on it at all. I really craved having the status bar back the first few weeks, more than I craved anything else that I’ve eliminated. It seems like the status bar was, in some peculiar way, in the center of my internet addiction! How bizzare!

WorkTime Discovery

A few days ago I was searching for an app that would let me track the time spent online. I stumbled upon a cool little app that’s called WorkTime that lets you track not just online, but any application usage time.  Ironically, it seems like WorkTime was developed for companies to spy on their employees (it has smartly configurable Offline and Hidden modes), specifically what people are spending their time on the whole day. Well, I use it to spy on myself! WorkTime reports my computer usage by day, week, month, and application. For example, it tells me that I spent over 40 hours in front of the computer just this week alone, including over 25 hours online! It also tells me exactly how much time I spend browsing particular websites. This is an awesome app to keep my internet addiction in check and to observe progress. At only $30 for the home edition, it’s worth every penny.

Two other little changes that I made was to create my own browser search provider and disabling URL autocomplete. Most browsers have a search box toolbar that’s associated to a default search provider, usually Google. You can override that fuctionality to search any website (eg. your blog) by creating a custom search provider. I’ve set it up to search i2china.cn, creating a closed system information-wise, so that I don’t accidentally fall back into my old surfing patterns. Disabling browser autocomplete for web addresses forced me to memorize the important urls and not be distracted by suggestions from previous browsing history.

As a result of all of those changes, I’ve been spending less time in front of the computer per day. Definitely enjoying more reading and walking outside. Experiencing higher alertness and awareness even in the evenings, which was unusual before.

I realized that I should never start my day by consuming information (both online and offline sources like books). Just one day of delaying my daily walk until the evening and starting reading/surfing the web in the morning threw my whole day off and made me really restless and depressed. I realized how much I missed my morning walk, how much meditation/relaxation it gives me each and every morning, and how much energy and clarity I have throughout the day after it. It’s worth getting up one hour earlier than necessary to have this enormous boost in my day.