105 hours: Control computer internet use

I use a set of tactics and principles to manage my time. I call it 105 hours.

It helps me allocate the 105 hours I have in the week.

I work, write, and read books on a computer.

But it's so tempting to do so much more on the internet.

This is how I control my computer internet use.

The struggle started with work

I walk into the open plan office during my first programmer internship.

I didn't know what to expect but was assuming the highest level engineers writing the most sophisticated code to control the most sophisticated hardware, entirely focused on their work, just like in the movies. Perhaps a realistic counterpart to the Matrix's green characters of unintelligible code scrolling through every screen.

Instead, when I glanced at the screens, two-thirds of them were just browsing the news or social media – a screen on the current political scandal, another on the sports news, and a third chatting with somebody else online on social media.

Wait, what's going on? Aren't we supposed to be working?

Yes, I was that naive. And didn't realize how quickly I'd join them.

It got worse when my internship became a full-time job. We now had private cubicles instead of the interns' open-plan office, and whatever magic the intern to employee transition was supposed to do for my ability to focus fizzled.

The deadlines kept piling up, though. I knew I couldn't focus literally 100% of my time at work, but I knew I could be less distracted and that I wasn't really recovering by reading the news or social media.

I could do better work than I was doing, which required better control of my internet use.

Work blocked my social media!

Something interesting happened when I got my next job, though, something hard to imagine today: work blocked some websites on our computers!

And they were lax about it, too: they didn't block news websites, but they did block social media.

So I'd try to go to my favorite social media website and would get a "403 - Forbidden." Out of habit, I'd try again five minutes later, to the same result.

Back then, in the stone age of technology, we didn't have smartphones, so not being able to access social media at work meant not using social media at all during the workday.

Can you imagine?

There were plenty of complaints and justifications, and I was one of the most vocal of them. "I will just as equally get distracted with something else" and "I can control my own time on this" were common. "As long as I'm meeting my goals, what do you care what I'm doing?" was a frequent one.

The truth is that I did get distracted, though. I was reading the news, browsing websites, spending more time than I intended browsing around, and even doing online shopping!

That started me in the way of pursuing commitment devices: tactics to prevent me from doing what I didn't want to.

Commitment devices for better control

Gretchen Rubin talks about commitment devices in her book Better than Before.

The idea of commitment devices is to set things up such that we're prevented from doing things we don't want to do, which often limits our choices to those we want to do.

According to legend, novelist Victor Hugo’s eccentric commitment device was to order his servant to take away his clothing for the day. Left naked in his study, with only paper and pen, Hugo had nothing to do but write.

Rubin, Gretchen. Better Than Before: What I Learned About Making and Breaking Habits--to Sleep More, Quit Sugar, Procrastinate Less, and Generally Build a Happier Life (p. 97). Crown/Archetype. Kindle Edition.

In the book Deep Work, Cal Newport cites many similar commitment devices, including extreme ones which he calls "Grand Gestures." J.K. Rowling going to a $1,000/day hotel every day to finish her last Harry Potter novel, Bill Gates's "Think Week" where he'd retreat for a week without internet or phone but several books, and Peter Shankman buying a roundtrip ticket to Japan to write a manuscript free of distractions under a tight deadline.

To achieve this state, Shankman did something unconventional. He booked a round-trip business-class ticket to Tokyo. He wrote during the whole flight to Japan, drank an espresso in the business class lounge once he arrived in Japan, then turned around and flew back, once again writing the whole way—arriving back in the States only thirty hours after he first left with a completed manuscript now in hand. “The trip cost $4,000 and was worth every penny,” he explained.

Newport, Cal. Deep Work (Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World) (p. 125). Grand Central Publishing. Kindle Edition.

But we don't need to choose between distraction or global warming.

It'd be a hard choice for me, anyway.

Commitment devices work

People shell off $1,000/day for a hotel room or $4,000 for an airplane trip to write for a reason: it works.

Availability begets action. It's intuitive, but we sometimes resist it: sure, we know it's easier to read on an airplane, but we want to be able to read anywhere! "Why can't I just do everything I currently do except control myself more?" we ask ourselves.

The first step is embracing the belief that more control comes by reducing our internet availability, not by magically increasing our willpower.

Here is how I reduced mine.

1. Separate personal and work computers

I always use a personal computer for personal activities and a work computer for work.

Separate computers allow me different contexts for internet control: I want to check work emails when working but don't check any emails on my personal time, for example.

If your first thought is, "But that way, it'd be much harder to check work in the evening or my personal email during the day," that's precisely the point.

2. Grant lists for websites

Instead of block lists for websites I can't visit, I use grant lists for websites I can.

The implementation for this is straightforward, although not very elegant: on Firefox's "Network Settings," I change my proxy to "Manual Proxy," point it to 127.0.0.1, and add the websites I can visit on "No proxy for."

Any websites not on the list are now impossible to visit.

This turns my browser from a general-purpose machine into a specific-purpose machine for my intended internet use.

3. Clearing cookies

My Firefox browser is set to "Never Remember History," meaning cookies are deleted whenever the browser is closed. This forces me to re-login every time I use a service, further increasing my friction for using them.

It's also good for digital privacy, a nice bonus.

4. Focus apps for work distractions during meetings

Focus apps block apps and websites temporarily. I use them at work to block Slack and email during meetings.

Almost everybody I know struggles with focusing on meetings because of Slack.

When I join a meeting and activate my focus app, it will auto-close Slack and prevent me from reopening it. When the meeting ends, Slack will automatically start again. Very convenient.

For macOS, I recommend Focus by Brad Jasper.

5. Connect and disconnect my personal computer

My personal computer stays disconnected from the internet, including when I'm writing – I will connect when I publish.

I started by toggling Wi-fi on and off. Then I would delete my Wi-fi network, which forced me to re-enter my password to reconnect, adding friction.

Now, I physically connect to the internet by plugging a network cable. When I'm done using the internet, I literally pull the plug.

To me, there's something special about the physical experience of connecting and disconnecting by pulling a cable around.

Experimenting with commitment devices

We are wired to think conveniences are good, but that's only true if the activities they enable nurture our values.

The tactics I use to control my internet use can be counter-intuitive, but they're also easy to try.

Imagination is a poor substitute for experimentation.

As Thoreau says, "What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new."

Often my "old me" says that I can't do something, and my new me finds out that I can.

Or, at the very least, I learn something in the journey.