Day Four Without Social Media: Real Connection

On my fourth day without social media, I noticed how email has reshaped my morning.

I know I should protect my sacred hours by staying away from distractions first thing in the morning. Anyways…

Checking my email for health insurance paperwork changed my mood. And soon I was thinking about my book pages stats and sales. They’re not a feed, but as addictive as social media. I lost track of time checking stats.

Avoiding feeds was easier when I closed my laptop and went to a cafe to chat with my family. It wasn’t just coffee. And by choosing a local cafe, we supported our community over major chains.

We embraced social media’s promise of connecting us via the internet. But we’ve forgotten to truly connect in real life.

TIL: How to Remove a File From a Git Commit

I’ve hired AI as my code reviewer.

When I write code, AI reviews it. For that, I feed Copilot with a diff to review. But I always have to Google how to diff two branches.

To avoid Googling it every time, here it is:

$ git diff development..mybranch > diff

Today, by accident, I committed the actual diff. So I had to remove it from a commit. I wasn’t sure if I needed a git rebase or something else. I had to Google it.

Again, to avoid Googling it every time, [Source]

$ git reset --soft HEAD~1  # Undo the last commit, keeping the changes
$ # Do your thing
$ git commit -c ORIG_HEAD  # Commit, using the last message

Et voilà!

Day Two Without Social Media (And Two Lessons On Financial Freedom)

Dear diary:

Today was my second day without social media. I’m starting to notice the changes. I took notes as the day went by and tracked my feelings.

I started reading another chapter of Financial Freedom by Grant Sabatier. Main lessons?

#1. Financial freedom is about time. Having more time for you. Using time to make your money work earlier and for longer.

#2. Money is infinite. We can’t make more time, but we can always make more money.

After my reading time, I joined a meeting with my contracting client.

I was so tempted to check my email or fire up LinkedIn. That’s usually what I do during long, unproductive meetings. That’s how my meeting time looked. For this one, my only contribution was, “Yes, that’s correct!”

Instead of scrolling, I took a receipt and doodled circles. I drew a big circle in the middle, then smaller ones, then smaller ones…until the page was full. That’s a drawing exercise I found the other day.

Big observation: When I feel like procrastinating, I used to scroll. Now I count to three, finish a tiny task, and sustain for five minutes.

Day One Without Social Media: What I Learned

Yesterday I began an week-long experiment: no social media, no feeds. I’m writing this at the end of the first day of the experiment.

Here’s what I noticed after one day without social media:

#1. Start with an intention. Usually before working, I check my email and log into Medium and other accounts to reply to comments. Today I didn’t need a website blocker since I started with an intention: no social media.

#2. Read more. I filled the slot before working with a book. I picked Financial Freedom by Grant Sabatier. Then after lunch, instead of scrolling, I kept reading another book. Yes, I read more than one book at once—One strategy to read more books.

#3. Time for side projects. With the extra time, I worked on my February book project. The first draft is ready. And after a day’s break, I’m now editing it.

#4. An alarm as reminder. The other day, I found out about the 3-alarm method. I’m using it to remind me of a “Do Nothing” time to embrace boredom.

I'm Taking a Week Off Social Media And Feeds

A post on social media convinced me to quit it for a week. Ironic, right?

The other day, a LinkedIn connection shared that “we don’t owe the Internet consistency.” It was an invitation to disappear from social media without apologizing.

That’s what I’m doing this week.

To cut phone time and embrace boredom, I’m quitting feeds for a week. That’s Medium, LinkedIn, dev.to, YouTube…

Quitting feeds frees up between 45-60 minutes each day. Yes, that’s how long I scroll down feeds on average, even when using social media consciously. Every time I open a social media app, I remind myself: “creators don’t consume.” A reminder to spend time making, not scrolling.

Even though I’m disappearing, I’ve scheduled posts so my system runs without me.

I’m planning to use that extra time to read books and finish my February book experiment. I will share the results soon.