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• PUT A SLEEP TIMER ON MAC FOR WHEN WATHCNG NETFLIX FOR MAC

I use a time-tracking application for Mac called Timing, but time blocking apps could also do the job. Most can display the task you're currently working on right on the screen, which is a helpful reminder of what you intend to be doing.

If you want to use your computer as a tool, however, you need to focus on your priorities, and that means being intentional about what you're doing whenever you're using a device. The apps you use aren't neutral: they have their own priorities. Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, once said that sleep is Netflix's main competition, which really drives home the extent to which internet companies want to dominate your day. The internet is optimized for "engagement," which is a fancy word app developers use for taking up as much of your time as possible.

You might even feel tired afterward, despite not being sure what you did during that time. It's really easy to sit down at your computer and lose a couple of hours doing nothing in particular. By remembering that a computer is a tool and implementing some strategies that put it to good use, we can get more done-and then log off. It's possible we can never go back to that mindset, but there's no reason we shouldn't think about our relationship with our computers. We'd turn the computer on for a specific purpose, complete that purpose, and move on. But there was value in the purpose-driven way we used computers back then, and the hardware limitations were part of what created that mentality. Old computers weren't great, and trying to use one for day-to-day tasks would be a nightmare. I bring this up not to advocate for some lost golden age. Distraction wasn't an issue because hardly any distractions were available (and the ones that were available took forever to load). In 1990, the computer was a tool, and people used it like one. It's striking how much the limitations of the computer forced him to focus on the task at hand. Computing was an accompaniment to life, rather than the sieve through which all ideas and activities must filter.īogost goes on to describe using the Macintosh SE to load Microsoft Word and write the article, and then doing something no one does anymore: turning the computer off. They were modest in power and application, clunking and grinding their way through family-budget spreadsheets, school papers, and games.Ī computer was a tool for work, and diversion too, but it was not the best or only way to write a letter or to fritter away an hour. Nobody used every hour-many people wouldn’t boot them up for days at a time if the need didn't arise. That computer sold for $3,900 in 1990, which is about $8,400 in today's dollars, but people used it a lot less than we use computers today. I couldn't help but think about this when I read a beautiful Atlantic article by Ian Bogost, which he wrote using a 30-year-old Macintosh SE. The internet isn't a place we visit anymore-it's where we all live. When's the last time you "surfed the web" or "went online"? I haven't really heard those phrases used unironically since the early 2000s, which makes sense.