Nate Meyvis

Going-analog update

Here and here are my first posts about "going analog." Some updated notes:

  1. Most importantly: I'm still doing this.1
  2. I find it more efficient and more pleasant to manage my to-dos with pen and paper. I almost never referred to completed to-do items after the fact: here as elsewhere, I had the feeling of aggregating valuable data, but almost never actually used that data.2
  3. Having stretches of screen-free time is great, but a stretch of analog time interrupted by focused computer time seems to give at least most of the same benefits.3 There seems to be something distinctively valuable about avoiding the phone (and "content feeds" on any device).
  4. Here is James Somers usefully speculating about how generative AI could help motivated people use screens less, especially by making it easier to translate between digital and analog representations of things. Imagine generating a printout of your digitally maintained to-do list in the morning, annotating it throughout the day, and then sending a digital image back. An AI-enabled system could parse it and update your digital productivity system accordingly.
  5. As appealing as I find Somers' vision, I haven't done anything in that vein yet. This is partly because my handwriting is largely unintelligible to LLMs and partly because I haven't put time into building out the relevant systems, but largely because I am so often finding no reason to translate analog artifacts into digital form (see above).
  6. I'll double down on the claims that (i) a lot of our analog experiences are temporally extended (e.g., thinking about a book as you're reading it or having a conversation in your head after it's happened); (ii) phone usage truncates a lot of them in damaging ways; and (iii) this is an underrated psychological effect of phones.
  7. As I've written before, basically none of this is requiring willpower. I'm surprised at how naturally I've rearranged tasks so that "analog time" is productive and so that necessarily digital activities aren't impeded. The whole project is just a lot easier and simpler than I'd have guessed.
  8. But, again, my life is unusual along many dimensions, and I am just one person. I don't intend this quite as advice, and certainly not as an expression of superiority. For reasons both of kindness and of rhetoric, I'd be happy if the "analog blogosophere" substituted some calm reporting for some finger-wagging.
  9. I have thought about what flip-phone life would be like, but have no plans to get rid of the iPhone. I still have a lot of use for a great pocket-sized computer and camera.

  1. One problem in consuming Internet "lifestyle" notes, broadly speaking, is that something experimental or radical-sounding, even if it is sincerely reported, might be short-lived. This is particularly true if the writer, like me, is quite willing to try things and also quite willing to abandon experiments. "Yes, I still believe this" and "yes, I'm still doing this" are underrated post topics and are another example of why most people should not worry about post analytics.↩

  2. To be clear, there are many areas in which I collect data about myself and do find it valuable later. Completed to-dos just weren't one of them.↩

  3. As I've written before, being a certain sort of modern programmer involves some before- and after-hours babysitting. I find it unobjectionable (and indeed fun).↩

#going analog #lifestyle #productivity