I’ve been spending more time on my phone than I think I should. So for the past week I made a conscious effort to reduce my screen time. I blocked access to social media sites to reduce temptation and left my phone on a dock in the living room inspired by Cal Newport’s phone foyer method. My rule was that if I wanted to check it for anything, I’d have to go there instead of carrying it with me. I even locked my tablet in a locker to make access just a bit more difficult.

Mindless scrolling was replaced with reading books during breaks and after only a few days I found I didn’t miss my phone at all. Social media is blocked except for messaging apps to keep in touch with friends and family. I don’t know if Youtube should be considered as social media but I use it only for tutorials and guitar lessons, so it didn’t make my ban list. A week into this little behaviour change, I’m happy to report that my screen time was just under an hour per day. It would’ve been even less if you don’t count Spotify.

This still seems like a lot, especially if you consider that I spend all day in front of a screen for work already but it’s a decent start. Let’s see how the following weeks go.

I enjoy reading through Manu’s People & Blogs series and find it particularly interesting how people approach their writing and publishing process. I thought it would be fun to share my own, especially since my approach is maybe a bit less organised and more focused on the freedom to write and publish posts as I go.

Since this blog is primarily for my own enjoyment, it should come as no surprise that I write for myself. Don’t get me wrong, I welcome you (and anyone else) who’s reading this, and I hope you find my writing entertaining too.

In my process, any new post starts with a thought or an idea that I capture in my backlog in Things. Sometimes, I skip this step and write a draft directly in iA Writer, which I did for this post.

From there, I like to see where the writing takes me. I don’t like to overthink structure or do massive (if any) research. It’s usually a stream of consciousness, then I proofread and edit if I find anything out of place. Once everything looks good, I hit “Publish” and move on. While I appreciate the freedom of this approach, I know it can sometimes lead to mistakes.

Honestly, sometimes I’ll miss things and publish typos or random extra words, but since this isn’t your old print newspaper I can easily fix those afterwards. No pressure.

The other day my son was happily flipping through pages of his many books. Sometimes he enjoys reading by himself and I thought it would be nice to sit with him and read my own book. Now it’s no secret that I really like my Kindle, but the issue is that he gets distracted and wants to play with it as soon as he sees it.

That’s when I remembered I had a couple of unread physical books on a shelf. Surely he wouldn’t be interested in those, especially since there were no pictures. So I grabbed Tales of Ordinary Madness by Charles Bukowksi and sat down next to him. We were both reading in silence, sometimes looking up to interact with each other, exchanging glances or laughing together. It was awesome.

I really enjoyed Terry Hayes’ previous book I Am Pilgrim so I was really excited to get my hands on his latest release. My friend who initially recommended it to me mentioned back then how everyone has been waiting for The Year of the Locust for years. After doing a bit of research on my own it turns out most people didn’t believe it was ever going to happen. So here we are, finally.

Is this long-awaited book everything I’d been hoping for and more? I’m afraid not. And it’s not even close. The first half of the book is enjoyable because I got to experience the tight writing style that kept me glued to I Am Pilgrim. The setting is quite different yet familiar. Fans of Terry Hayes will feel right at home within the first few pages. But once you’re about halfway through the story starts to take an unexpected turn which really threw me off.

Obviously I won’t get into details to avoid any spoilers so I’ll just say that unless you like science fiction, you’ll have a hard time with this one.

★★☆☆☆

I love music. However when I was a poor college student I couldn’t afford to pay for albums–digital or physical. So once I got a job I subscribed to Rdio and later Spotify. The value proposition seemed almost too good to be true. You can listen to pretty much everything anywhere for the price of an album every month? Unbelievable.

But when I bought a new car about 10 years ago I did something strange. The car came with a very basic audio system, which meant no USB ports or bluetooth for streaming. I figured one day I’d get around to replacing it with something fancy, but there’s no rush. In the end I never did.

Instead I started buying CDs again like it was 1999. Even though I already paid for Spotify. Even though I’m into minimalism and dislike clutter. I do like some sweet cover art though.

As someone who usually listens to random songs on shuffle mode it was refreshing to get through an entire album from start to finish, as the artist intended. I also enjoy the ritual of picking an album for the ride and being constrained to what’s on there instead of being spoilt for choice in my digital Spotify library. Maybe it’s part nostalgia, part laziness but I see no reason to change for now. I realise it’s silly to spend money on albums I technically already have and I don’t plan on collecting a large amount CDs anytime soon–they all have to fit in the glove box, so curating is key.

Anyway, a while back I was pleasantly surprised when I came across this article about CDs, cassette tapes and VHS and I’m happy to see I’m not the only one still attached to discs.