Update on the mind candy fast

6 days into the mind candy fast. It's been helpful, but challenging. Definitely going to keep it up, though, because I like the direction things are going.

I started a fast from "mind candy" on Saturday. Here's how it's going as of Thursday morning.

  • While it's definitely been hard, I have really enjoyed spending my time more effectively on longer things that I actually care about. I've played around with Home Assistant a little bit more (though that will probably cost me money because now I want more home automation stuff), read more longer things like books and actual articles instead of headlines and comment sections, and started watching shows that have been on my "maybe someday" list for a while.
  • It was much easier over the weekend. Kept myself occupied playing around with the network, tweaking the website, going on a date, and playing with my kids. Plus Sunday was just crazy busy with meeting after meeting. My work schedule isn't quite so structured this semester—I teach all my classes in the fall, so I am just working on research until August—so it has required more willpower to stay on track during the work day.
  • Bad habits die hard. Whenever I sit down, or when I'm waiting for kids to get out of an activity, or if I am switching between work tasks, I start to feel the itch to pull out my phone and do nothing. There were times I'd sit and just swipe left and right on my phone trying to decide if I was going to stick with this or not. It's getting somewhat better, but I can tell it's still going to take some re-training to not reach for my phone when I'm a little bored.
  • I still listen to podcasts while I do the dishes. It's a little reward I give myself and IT DOESN'T COUNT AS CHEATING!
  • When my kids start their evening routine, I usually have about half an hour to do what I want. I used to spend this playing video games, but I've decided I'm not going to play if no friends are on, since I enjoy it significantly less. So instead I've usually used the time writing these posts, which is hopefully a more long-term beneficial activity.
  • I wish I was getting more feedback on my writing. Likes on LinkedIn are nice, and I can see that people are reading with my self-hosted privacy-focused analytics, but I'd love to know what's clicking and what's not. It still feels a little like I'm shouting into the void. Which, really, is okay. I'm mostly writing this for me, because writing is thinking, and I want to think better. Still, I'd love to talk about this stuff, so I'm going to start adding "Discuss this post on LinkedIn/BlueSky" with a link to my posts about the posts.

So overall I'm happy with how things are going. I think the full detox is going to take a long time, but I'm happy with the direction it's going, and I'm happy with how my brain feels, even if it's still fighting me on this.

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