Take A Break From Your Digital Life

-

For the past 9 years I've been really tied to technology. Not a day goes by without excessive use of it. Ever since university I'm used to using computers for more than 8 hours daily, mostly coding with about an hour or two of movies, games, etc. On one side, it's good cuz during my university years I need to really develop my skills. But then as time goes by I get too attached to it. This is not good.

Back then I used a desktop so the only thing I'm really attached to is my cellphone, still am now. Since 2003, my phone has internet connection and I can get connected anywhere. Thus, my life circles around the net. Then starting 2008 I got my first laptop. This thing really went to places with me, even on my vacation. Sad, I know, but there's nothing I can do about it. I'm simply too attached to digital stuffs.

Last weekend, for the first time in my life I had a digital break. I was inspired by a blog post by Leo Babauta, a minimalist. It was nice and I enjoyed it a lot.

So what's my digital break?
  • I didn't check my emails, I simply let the email headers slide into my mobile phone and not checking what's in it.
  • I only update my facebook status once a day. Well, plus that restaurant link I shared cuz it was nice.
  • I left my mobile phone in the vouch most of the time since I didn't get a lot of phone and I put the vouch in my wife's purse.
  • I didn't code, nor use my MacBook for working purposes. The only thing I did with it was play videos my daughter requested.
  • I only made 3 posts to my online forum.
What did I do during my digital break?
  • I took my children to get their vaccination.
  • I finally found a new house to rent.
  • I visited some relatives and had a long talk.
  • I had a long herat-to-heart conversation with my wife.
  • I slept more than 10 hours (something I can rarely do).
  • I went to a colonial styled steak restaurant with my family.
  • I took my wife to the beauty parlor for a haircut.
  • I finished reading the "Padang Bulan" book I bought the day before.
  • I enjoy life :)
Judging from the usual situation, the digital break was successful and also cleared my mind out of junk thoughts that's been clogging my mind for a long time. I can focus  more after my mind-cache was cleared and it gave me a better view of things.

Technologies are there to help our lives. In my case, that's how I make a living. This also creates the condition where I can't get away from it. Technology was created with a noble purpose but then somehow it occupied most of our lives and we became attached to it.

Then again, we are still humans. We need to socialize on the real context, not just on social media, and really enjoy our surroundings. I know that maybe you're that much attached to technology and it's good. But it's also good for you to take a break from it and enjoy reality, enjoy your surroundings. Or at least enjoy a cup of coffee to the fullest, just like the picture above.

From now on, every weekend will be my digital break and I want to enjoy it to the fullest.

How about you?


regards

-E-


Follow @femmerling on twitter

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Customizing Sanic's Logging output on Gunicorn

-
For those of you who didn't know, Sanic is a Python 3.6+ web server and web framework that’s written to go fast. It allows the usage of the async/await syntax added in Python 3.5, which makes your code non-blocking and speedy. Sanic's API is highly influenced by Flask and the API is really good. I worked on a personal project lately and found out that doing custom logging on Sanic is quite hard. You don't get a lot of information from Sanic's logging library and since it's based on the default Python 3 logging library , the information it provides is limited. My initial thought was since I will use Gunicorn, let's use Gunicorn's --access-logformat to get the information I needed. The functionality provided a lot of information and I can make use of it to get what I need. However, when you use Sanic Gunicorn Worker, which you need to use to make it work on Gunicorn, it will only use Sanic's logging output. I did a lot of googling and it seems like a lo...
Read more

Bali: A view from an Indonesian

-
Image
Coming from Indonesia, a question I get asked a lot near summer is always the same: Where should I go in Bali? As an Indonesian, I can tell you that Bali is not the only place you can go to. But if it’s your first time coming and you still want to go to Bali then I’ll share my own recommendation on places to go. I won’t share hotels or restaurants, that you can review yourselves based on the area but I’ll share possible locations and things you can do. What’s a visit to a tropical island without going to the beach? Here are my list of recommended beaches: Virgin/White sand beach, Karangasem. This is a hard to reach beach, you need to ride a boat or walk through the cliff. But it’s a really nice beach. Jimbaran. Beautiful beach with great eating place around. Legian. The beach to spend your lazy days. Seminyak. This is pretty much next to Legian, also good. Pandawa beach. It’s a really nice experience going here going through the cliffs. Lovina beach. A nice beach, not to crowded. If yo...
Read more

5 Takeaways From My Past 5 Years With Coral, Prism, Midtrans and Gojek

-
Image
A little over 5 years ago, I decided to resign from Traveloka and joined hands with my friends to help build Coral. It was an exciting project. I have a big interest in the social commerce space and Coral seemed to be a very good take at it. We built it, launched it, learned from it and in the end decided that the business model will not be sustainable. Our experiment was evidently working. Merchant's conversion rate reached over 20% on our platform but we couldn't monetise it. Then we took the decision to pivot. We took the best part of Coral, the chat-to-buy capability, and breathe life into Prism. The product helped businesses dive head first into the social commerce space with their existing platforms. One thing that a lot of people don't know was that Coral and Prism was part of Midtrans from early on. It was acquired before launch. This enabled us to do the experiment without worrying about funding. Gojek acquired Midtrans during the closing days of 2017 and Prism w...
Read more