The Notebook Rule

Before any interaction with a screen, I write down, in a notebook, what I intend to do. Then, as soon as I’m done doing that thing, I walk away (close the laptop, put the phone down, literally walk away, etc).

For the past year or more, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about how the primary challenge we face, as people living in a modern western society, is not surviving in a resource scarce environment, but is instead managing to not gorge ourselves to death, literally/physically or figuratively/spiritually.

These companies, the attention economy itself, and the consumerist society that gave birth to it, deploy vast resources to turn as many people as possible into passive consumers, to reduce us to our eyeballs and our wallets. Because the more control a company can get over those things, the better their stocks will perform.

First, consumerism turned... See more

The Notebook Rule

Over the past couple of months, I’ve been fault-testing something I’m going to call The Notebook Rule.

It goes like this:

Before any interaction with a screen, I write down, in a notebook, what I intend to do. Then, as soon as I’m done doing that thing, I walk away (close the laptop, put the phone down, literally walk away, etc).

21 Signs You Might be a Digital Dope Addict

Check all that apply:

1. On average, you engage in passive scrolling at least once a day


2. You check your phone (or some other screen) within minutes of waking up


3. You check your phone (or some other screen) within minutes of going to sleep


4. You check your phone for no reason


5. You have a hard time sitting still (or s

... See more