I was unhappy with the way internet has been taking control of my life. (ex. I have been starting my day with YouTube far too often, which leads to skipping tasks on my morning routine). To fix this, I decided to start Project Focus, doing it for a month (Mar 18 to April 17).

Introspection after completing challenge

It was a very successful experiment that helped me get much better control of technology over the my life. I’m proud that I stayed committed to this project all the way through. I lapsed once and paid 10CAD for that. Looking forward to try something similar in future.

Details

Mission:

• I’m going off the internet from 7pm to 7am everyday for the next 30 days.
• Placing severe restrictions on the websites/apps I use 24 hours a day.”

Implementation details:

• I’ll put all internet-connected devices in a bag, and put them in the common area of the house. Ravi and Anirudh are free to monitor anytime. If I happen to use the devices, I’ll pay 10CAD. (Exceptions: when I come home late, when I have a hard deadline that needs internet)
• Strongly limit usage of: facebook, instagram, youtube, netflix and cricket websites. Doing this by blocking them on my devices. If I have to use them, I’ll have to unblock and then login manually which is two additional steps. (I’m not restricting my access to gmail, twitter, whatsapp and messenger)
• Restricting notifications for most of the apps
• Might make a few changes in the initial days of the experiment to figure out what’s optimal. (ideas to try out in the initial days: food meditation, figure out better sources of entertainment)

Sources of entertainment: podcasts, music, reading fiction, texting/calling friends/family

Tracking progress

My thinking and how I felt over the course of the experiment, I wrote the updates at the end of each internet-free session.

• Day 1: Mar 18 Just complete day 1 of the task, and I immediately see the benefit. I’ve completed my morning routine and I’m feeling much more motivated to get work done during the day. Excited to keep this going.
• Day 2: Mar 19 Completed the second day of the mission, and it’s been good. I’m generating momentum for the rest of my day during the 0-distraction morning routines. Quite happy that I made this commitment. (used i/n for a few minutes though, just for work)
• Day 3: Mar 20 Stuck to the protocol on day 3 as well, read a book during the interenet free time, got a few interesting ideas from there.
• Day 4: Mar 21 I read about 1 chapter in my textbook during the internet free zone yesterday, things slowly seem to be falling in place.
• Day 5: Mar 22 I read about 1.5 chapter in my textbook during the internet free zone yesterday, but I see that I’m nowhere close to my optimal. I think it takes some more time to reap complete benefits of Project Focus. Quite excited about how it’s gonna change me by the end of one month.
• Day 6: Mar 23 I went offline from 5.30pm to 8am; wanted more internet free time so that I could focus on reading textbook. I did spend a lot of time reading, but I only got a rough understanding of what’s going on. I did not enjoy reading because I wasn’t understanding much. I think I need to improve my reading strategy (take notes on flash cards? read like if it was a GRE RC? maybe read slower?).
• Day 7: Mar 24 Didn’t do much during the internet free zone, cooking shopping and reading non fiction for a while. Maybe I should extend no-internet till 9am or 10am in the morning to reap more benefits.
• Day 8: Mar 25 I wasn’t that productive. Hard to pinpoint why, maybe the textbook was a little too hard for me. Maybe I was tired from the day and should’ve taken a nap to recover.
• Day 9: Mar 26 “It was productive, spent time analysing a paper deeply. Followed up by reading ““the magic of thinking big”” because I had nothing else for entertainment. Got a few interesting ideas from there.”
• Day 10: Mar 27 Was just sitting idle with distracted thinking. Was tired after a productive day at work, so it was understandable that I didn’t do productive stuff. Just 15 mins of reading non-fiction, podcasts and sleeping. Atleast had a good night sleep.
• Day 11: Mar 28 Decided couple of days back that this will be an off day, so watched a movie on netflix before going to the internet-free zone. Read non fiction before going to sleep.
• Day 12: Mar 29 Read non-fiction for sometime as I put myself to sleep. Seems like low pressure if affecting me a lot. I need to put more pressure on myself so that I can get things done and make the best use of these interenet free zones.
• Day 13: Mar 30 Hanging out with my brother tomorrow, had to stay in touch, so not following the rules today
• Day 14: Mar 31 Broke the rules. Seems didn’t turn out as effectively as it could, need to restrategize. Will be working with a new strategy from tomorrow.
• Day 15: Apr 1 30 minutes of study, sleep and shopping. Need to work for longer in the internet free times.
• Day 16: Apr 2 2.5 hours of deep work, went well. Trick: you’re allowed to do nothing, but just sit in front of the book.
• Day 17: Apr 3 2 hour of deep work, took meeting calls. Went well. :D
• Day 18: Apr 4 Studied policy gradients and material weight illusion for couple of hours.
• Day 19: Apr 5 Went well, read articles written by Feynman. Need to do things like that more often.
• Day 20: Apr 6 Went well, was working on understanding the A2C code.
• Day 21: Apr 7 Slept peacefully from 10pm to 7am
• Day 22: Apr 8 Slept peacefully from 10pm to 6.30am
• Day 23: Apr 9 Got quite some work done, slept from 1am to 8am
• Day 24: Apr 10 Some work, good sleep
• Day 25: Apr 11 Had lot of project work, slept at 5am. Used the internet
• Day 26: Apr 12 Cheat day, just poster presentation for project today
• Day 27: Apr 13 Went well, thinking about interesting ideas
• Day 28: Apr 14 Used internet for a few hours more, needed for assignment
• Day 29: Apr 15 Used internet for 90 mins more to complete assignment. Went 0 internet for remaining time.
• Day 30: Apr 16 Very productive, I’m hsppy
• Day 31: Apr 17 Used it from 6.20am, didn’t have enough self control