On Living With Intentionality (I'm going without the internet* and my phone for the next 4 months)

* Well. I'm not counting Claude as the internet. And a couple of other things. And I think I only have a 26% chance at succeeding. But I'm committing to it!!!

TLDR here. “Too Long, Didn’t Read”, the summary of this post.

My previous blog post included the following to do items:

• DONE set up daily call with people to plan and talk about day

• TODO do the Alexey method tomorrow morning upon waking, go to Coffee Rush

• TODO schedule many Focusmate sessions

• TODO fix Clearspace on phone and computer—email developers if need be

• TODO spend ~30 mins investigating how to fully get rid of my phone (iPhone 13 Pro Max, maybe I just need to get a small iPhone? but that still seems too powerful)

• TODO buy a new planner journal thing. small. portable. keep it physical, not digital. can always update digital later.

• TODO schedule a lesson with 3 people

• TODO talk to a doctor about Zoloft

• TODO spend an ~hour writing down exercises from The Adult ADHD Tool Kit (read it 4 years ago, it’s been a long time)

So I've only officially done one of these, lol rip. BUT. I've done something more important, which should fix all of these things. I've committed to going the next 4 months without internet* usage. With some small caveats.

Background

Childhood

I spent ~most of my childhood in front of a computer screen ("no, you actually spent the majority of the time sleeping or at school or whatever!!" ok yeah I get it but you know what I mean). It started around age 11 (2013). When we moved to San Tan Valley (terrible place, don't move there), I moved my Mom's Compaq Windows Vista laptop into my room.

• Wikipedia says Compaq basically died in 2013. Good riddance. That laptop was awful.

I started to spend many hours on the computer (mostly on YouTube, but I was also starting to explore Wikipedia). I didn't venture much elsewhere (which is kind of good, kind of a shame? I think with some Googling I could've ended up on LessWrong which would have ~probably been good). My Mom's computer wasn't good enough to run Minecraft, so that had to wait until my Mom got me a Toshiba Windows 8 laptop for Christmas 2013 (I think). Thank you Mom, even though it was probably difficult to save that much money at the time.

Then I was off to the races, Skyping my friends (and strangers) and having, to this day, some of the most fun I’ve ever had. I quickly started to realize I had a problem (too much electronics and internet usage), but I didn't know what the proper solution was. I felt I was already balancing my electronic usage by going to my Dad's house, where I didn't have a phone or effectively any computer usage (although I balanced this out through mind numbing TV usage).

At my Mom's house, I spent nearly all of my time in my room, on the internet. Like, 3-4x as much time in my room as my sisters. I could tell it made my Mom uncomfortable, but she let me live the life I wanted to live, and let me take control of my own life like the autonomous person I was, and I was and still am grateful for that.

• Maybe my internet usage wasn't a problem? If I wasn’t on the internet, I probably would’ve used the majority of that time to watch TV anyways? I wasn't going to play more guitar. I wasn't going to become an autodidact. I probably wasn't going to get into cooking with my Mom. And plus I was hanging out with my friends, just virtually, so it wasn't like I was a complete loner. We were just playing virtually instead of outside.

• Plus, I have always had different interests than my Mom and sisters, so I was often bored with them, i.e. at the mall, and I think my Mom was pretty cognizant of this and let me pursue the things I wanted to pursue.

One potentially negative outcome: I cut the amount of reading I was doing in half, and then some. In 3rd grade, if I recall correctly, I had spent 6500 minutes (~110 hours) reading, which was quintuple the next highest, even though I was in a gifted class where we were all supposed to be voracious readers. In 4th grade I read ~4,000,000 words as tracked by Accelerated Reader. I think the highest was around ~7,000,000 though. In 5th grade, I had fell to ~2,000,000, and in 6th grade I rushed at the end of the year to try to hit ~2,000,000 words. By the time 7th grade started, I was barely reading (almost definitely less than a million words a year).

• 2,000,000 is still a lot of words, and I was still above average in my class, but I was no longer quintuple above the average. So, big change on a personal level.

  • I understand it would've been impossible to read 35,000,000 words, but I should've been reading the most in the class given my historical pace.

• Naively, I had some justification like, "well I already read all of the interesting books!" I actually didn't learn how to find good books until 2024, so maybe I was kind of right given my limited information at the time.

This was also the story of many of my friends, who stopped reading once they ended middle school. I don't know if this is a problem with Gen Z specifically or if other generations fared similarly (if anyone has any sources, please point me to them).

• Surely Gen Alpha reads way less than Gen Z?

In high school, I started to develop an addiction to consumption. Of silly consumption. I wasn't playing games with my friends anymore—I was doom scrolling on insert platform of choice. Doom scrolling is not good for teen/child development. It was also messing with my schoolwork.

• I mean, it's not like I was only doom scrolling, I was also texting my friends etc. And I was very involved with school, i.e. marching band. But my rest time, I wasn't spending very restfully, very intentionally.

• I'd similarly argue that watching TV is not good for development, but it feels less nefarious. Evidence probably says so too.

COVID probably made things even worse? I was supposed to be meeting lots and lots of people in a new exciting place, that didn't happen. Enter depression, doom scrolling, etc.

Today

To give a perspective on how bad it has been in the past: I have had periods of time with 7 hours of consumption a day (if I'm being honest, most periods of college have been near-ish to this amount, except Fall 2023, which I previously wrote about). Today I had ~4 hours of consumption, in a day where I could've really used those 4 hours to get things done. I had 4 hours of consumption, but can barely remember what I had consumed. I had 4 hours of consumption, but there was no intentionality behind any of it. I had 4 hours of consumption, but can think of a million other things I could've done with those 4 hours that would have made me happier. These include:

• Writing

• Meditating

• Reading

• Walking

• Seeing a friend

• Visiting a new place

• Calling a friend

• Wandering

• Daydreaming

• Something spontaneous, like taking the train to Princeton, New Jersey, visiting Jon von Neumann's and Kurt Gödel's graves, and then taking the train back (which could actually be done in 4 hours!!)

Gen Z averages 6-7 hours outside of school and work. I think this is really scary and terrible! Other people have said as much, although I haven't read their books, i.e. The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt.

In Spring 2024, I took a class called Existential Despair, taught by Professor Justin McDaniel. Pretty awesome class. It ran Mondays from 5pm-midnight. You show up, turn in your phone, and get a book (fiction / literature) in return. Then you sit down and read the book cover to cover. Once you're done, you talk about it with whoever else is done. Big group discussion at 11pm.

• I sort of wrote about it a while back but it's unfinished. The final product will probably end up in my still-a-work-in-progress digital garden.

I ended up reading ~15 books. I'm pretty sure that's more than the 4 previous years combined (not counting a reread of Harry Potter in there). 15 awesome, spiritually enriching, devastating books. Addtionally, I met so many cool people. We had such great and complex conversations because:

1. there was no technology in the class to distract anyone

2. everyone had just read the book, knowledge fresh and intact

Mid-semester over Spring Break I went on a 10 day silent Vipassana meditation retreat and had similar feelings. Everyone was putting in the work to try to have an enriching experience, in a way that is almost definitely not possible with the use of technology. At least, you'd have to spend so many more days to have the same level of experience that we all did in just 10. Maybe 3x.

• Again, potentially the greatest part of the experience was the absence of consumption, rather than the meditation itself.

• I think I've written about this before? On Day 4, I skipped having complete control of my thoughts and let my mind wander for ~7 hours. I converged upon an alternative life where I became a high school band director that teaches a calculus class or two and maybe teaches a 0 hour course on whatever I feel like (e.g. philosophy). It was fucking awesome. I had never let myself feel what that reality would be like, even though I had thought about it. Something something, if I were to feel it, then that might make me want that reality more, but I actually want the working-on-AI-safety reality, so I should not do that at all costs. But that didn't happen! I was just incredibly grateful that I let myself have that experience, it gave me immense peace. I was also shocked that I could have such a consistent daydream over such a long period of time—I don't know if I've ever done anything like that, even as a bored kid.

McDaniel also teaches a "monk class", where students give up all technology for the semester (e.g. are allowed to use typewriters but nothing more sophisticated), live on less than $50 a week, and spend a month in silence. The course might also involve a travel component to South / Southeast Asia? I don't know. McDaniel previously spent ~3 years as a monk in Thailand(?). I think he did so right after undergrad. He got his PhD in Philology of Sanskrit after, and now does research in Buddhism and Religious Studies.

Ever since I'd heard of the class, I thought it was super interesting. There are a couple things that prevent me from taking the class though:

• It's not being offered this semester, but I graduate in May lol

• I need to email people, use the internet to troubleshoot problems, apply to jobs, use Slack, etc. etc. The infeasibility is not the consumption or the inability to keep up with friends (although it would be difficult).

  • I mean, I technically could go without the internet because none of my courses technically need the electronic component next semester, but it would probably end up hurting me more overall than helping.

But... maybe I could get 95% there? And maybe this would be good for me. Like, really really good. Like, the best thing I could ever do for myself up until this moment in time, and potentially the best thing I will ever do for myself ever again.

What does 95% of the way there look like?

Block all websites on my computer, and then whitelist the following

• claude.ai (indefinite usage)

  • Claude will be my main work horse this semester. Claude is just like, having access to a super awesome brilliant friend who I pay $20 a month to do tasks with me. It's not internet.... kind of joking kind of not.

  • If I find myself abusing Claude (e.g. treating it like Character.ai, seems very unlikely) then I will tell someone and limit my usage to 1 hour a day.

• chat.openai.com (indefinite usage)

  • In case I switch for some reason

• google.com (indefinite usage)

  • To allow usage of google suite—websites from the search engine will be inaccessible

• amazon.com (15 mins a week, I will pick a date sometime this week)

  • In case I need to buy stuff

• gmail.com (twice a day for 15 mins each)

  • I will allow myself to message friends, except I will mostly be telling them to hop on a Zoom call with me (more about Zoom below)

• apartmentsatpenn.appfolio.com (indefinite usage)

  • To pay my rent

• capitalone.com, and my credit union (indefinite usage)

  • To look at how much money I have

• sayler.substack.com (indefinite usage)

  • So I can publish content!! But not view other people’s content.

• My future digital garden url (indefinite usage)

  • Probably brandonsayler.com

• github.com (indefinite usage)

  • I can't imagine I abuse this? If I do, I will bring it down to 15 mins a day

• Stack Exchange and Stack Overflow (15 mins a day)

  • I basically never use either

  • I'm worried I will start to scroll and read answers for fun, hence the 15 mins a day limit

• x.com/brandonsayler (indefinite usage)

  • That way I can still tweet and respond to tweets but won't be able to see other people's tweets

  • This feels like blogging so it's fine. And then I will also Tweet more!

• slack.com (indefinite usage)

  • I will not allow myself to abuse DMs. If I find myself doing so, I pre-commit to telling Arunim so he can revoke my Slack privileges

    • Even better: I will pre-commit to being honest with Arunim about all of my Slack usage everyday

    • I am not allowed to have informal conversations with people over Slack

• handshake and 80k job board (15 mins a day)

  • I will allow myself to temporarily whitelist job websites, and then blacklist them again. I don't think this will get out of control, since how much time can I spend on a company website anyways?

• lu.ma and partiful.com (15 mins a day)

  • For party invites. How will I send party invites out? Good question lol, I'll figure it out.

• path.at.upenn.edu (indefinite usage)

  • My school website

• libgen.is and associated mirrors (15 mins a day)

  • To download books for my Boox Palma

  • Time limit so I don’t end up somehow doom scrolling for books

• focusmate.com (indefinite usage)

  • To work with other strangers (and friends!) and maintain focus

• arxiv.net (15 mins a day)

  • So I can look at papers

  • Time limit so I don’t doom scroll for papers

• dhamma.org (indefinite usage)

  • So I can put on meditation recordings

  • If I abuse this, I'll let Arunim know

• desmos.com (indefinite usage)

  • To graph stuff

• overleaf.com (indefinite usage)

  • To LaTeX stuff

• Zoom / Google Meets. Zoom is like phone calling but with more intentionality. And it is also really useful for me from a networking perspective (indefinite usage)

  • I can't schedule Zoom calls last minute. I can't Zoom call someone and have them get a notification for it like a phone call. It has to be planned. And the next call will be planned in that Zoom call. Meeting with intentionality. e.g. most phone calls that I do, I just call people at random until someone hopefully responds.

  • Especially since I’m only allowing myself email once a day in the morning. It has to be planned in the morning or it doesn’t happen at all.

  • Notably these will all happen in public... bit of a bummer.

  • Seems like the happy medium that will make my Mom feel OK about it.

    • I told my Mom and she is happy with it :)

• calendly.com/brandonsayler (indefinite usage)

  • This might make it easier to schedule Zooms, but it’s not fully set up correctly. I’ll make this a priority.

• Anything else that seems very reasonable

  • e.g. if / when I begin the ARENA curriculum, I'll whitelist it.

Things I will consider whitelisting after two weeks:

• happycow.net

• greyhound? and peter pan, mega bus

• Some concert websites

• Spotify

  • I'm currently allowing indefinite offline listening

• 15 minutes of linkedin.com on Monday Friday every week

  • For networking purposes

• Google Maps / Apple Maps

  • I want to keep it blacklisted because I want to be more spontaneous and find things, but maybe I will get lost

• Saving a bunch of blog websites that I deem notable to Omnivore so I can read them on my Boox Palma

  • e.g. Anthony DiGiovanni's blog

• 15 mins of phone calling a day? a week? That way I can call someone if needed, if they’re otherwise difficult to get a hold of. The issue is that this would make me turn on my phone, which I want to avoid at all costs.

Things I will consider blacklisting after two weeks:

• Spotify

  • Maybe I should force myself to go consume live music

  • Also, force myself to go without constant musical stimulation

• focusmate

  • If I find it isn't useful for me, and/or I abuse it to meet with friends I wouldn't otherwise meet with

  • You absolutely should find me on focusmate and work with me! https://app.focusmate.com/user/sayler

• Zoom

  • I don’t think I will fully blacklist, but I might limit myself to one Zoom meeting a day, if I find myself filling my schedule with Zoom meetings to neglect other work

What notable computer applications will I allow?

• Apple Notes (indefinite usage)

• Logseq (indefinite usage)

• Any coding IDE of choice, including internet access through it for AI coding help (indefinite usage)

• Arc browser (indefinite usage)

  • Unless Safari is easier to block stuff on

• Goodnotes (indefinite usage)

• Apple Calendar (indefinite usage)

• Contacts (indefinite usage)

• Nothing else of importance will be allowed

Turning off my phone for the entire semester.

Originally I was going to allow my phone with approximately the same things as my computer, plus some nice-to-haves like Uber and Maps.

However, having your phone in your pocket is evil. I also fear it will nerf what I'm trying to do, which is in large part live with complete spontaneity. Having e.g. maps doesn't allow this. Not having uber maybe hurts spontaneity, but it's worth the value of not having my phone. I don’t want to have to see a million Screen Time screens everyday. It will hurt my morale.

What will I allow on my iPad?

• A tuner (indefinite usage)

• Goodnotes (indefinite usage)

• Claude (indefinite usage)

• Camera (15 mins a day)

• Clock (indefinite usage)

• Voice memos (indefinite usage)

• Contacts (indefinite usage)

• Photos / Google Photos (15 mins a day)

• Duo (indefinite usage)

  • Two Factor Authentication (TIL it’s authentication and not authentification)

• Books (indefinite usage)

  • Sometimes it's nice to read on a big screen

• Sketchbook (15 mins a day)

  • In case I want to doodle

Notable things I will not allow on my iPad:

• Browser usage

  • Too complicated to filter everything

• Spotify

  • I will be able to listen to new music on Spotify with Wi-Fi, something I don’t (yet) want to be able to do

What other devices will I allow?

• My Boox Palma, an e-reader device I will carry with me wherever I go. I'm not worried about abusing it, e.g. spending all my time reading and no time being mindful. If I find myself doing this, I will start throwing it in my phone lock box.

• My Amazon Alexa. It controls my lights. I can ask it questions like, "what's the weather like outside?". I will probably allow myself to ask it nearly anything, including restaurants and directions. I am OK with this because I'm hearing this in an auditory format, not through a screen. If I find myself abusing it, I'll tell Arunim.

Notable activities I'll be allowed to do:

• Drink alcohol, go to bars

  • If I become an alcoholic, I'll let someone know. In an ideal world, I'm someone who gets buzzed less than once a month, although drinking 1 or 2 beers every once a while without getting buzzed seems fine, since I enjoy tasting craft beers and the like.

• Go to movie theatres

  • If I find myself abusing this, I'll let someone know and keel back. But I don't think I'll abuse this (I don't like movies all that much).

• Read as many books as I'd like, including fiction

  • I don't think I will abuse this, but if I do, I'll nerf my Boox Palma in the phone lock box

Notable things I won't be allowed to do:

• Watch movies / TV at home or someone else's home.

• Use the internet at someone else's house. Cafe is OK, School is OK, nothing else is.

Anything else I haven't mentioned?

I won't allow myself to use the internet at my house. That means a few important things:

• All assignments have to be submitted outside the home

• Pretty much all my homework will be done outside the home

• I expect to only write, and rarely code, at home

• I have to leave my house to check my email

• Alexa will be my only device that is allowed to connect to the internet at home

I will turn my phone on every ~2 weeks for 10 mins while someone is peering over my shoulder. I am only allowed to send some prewritten message to anyone that has texted me, saying, "hey I am without my phone right now, here is my blog post about why, feel free to email me and request a Zoom".

That's a lot of things to block... how are you going to accomplish that? When are you going to block all of those things?

There are a few methods:

• Clearspace

  • I used this to block most of my iPad apps. You can block one app for free, and block unlimited for $50 a year (well worth it).

  • It makes you take a breath each time you open an app, then choose from some pre-selected options how much time you want to spend in the app. It will kick you off the app when time is reached.

  • You can choose when you add the app how many times a day you’d like to be able to open it.

  • You can always surpass this limit, but doing so will send a notification to any friends of your choosing.

  • (updated 1/19/25) Unfortunately, Clearspace can be buggy (they claim this is Apple’s fault). Sometimes when you try add an app to Clearspace, the Screen Time lookup section crashes. Very unfortunately, that means I can’t properly block Slack, which was my intended solution for Slack usage twice a day 15 mins each. Still don’t know exactly what I’m going to do. I tried using a script Claude wrote to block on my computer but it didn’t work that well. Might have to use Slack in browser and write some sort of browser extension to only let me use it twice a day.

• Uninstalling all unnecessary applications

• Chrome Extension StayFocusd (updated 1/19/25)

  • By far the best intervention. You can use this extension to block all websites, and then whitelist the ones you want. You can also, e.g. whitelist all .com websites by writing *.com or all websites with Penn in the url by writing *penn. This resolves issues of getting random intermediary pop-up urls, like when a website is trying to verify who you are. Here is my current whitelist:

claude.ai
chat.openai.com
docs.google.com
sheets.google.com
meet.google.com
slides.google.com
drive.google.com
amazon.com
*penn
github.com
*stack
*handshake
*dhamma
desmos.com
arxiv.net
overleaf.com
calendly.com
x.com/brandonsayler # I use an Arc boost to block visual things
*capitalone
*firstcu
*venmo
*paypal
*libgen
*focusmate
*stayfocusd
*chrome-extension
google.com/calendar
calendar.google.com
*duo
*partiful
*lu.ma
*chat
*librechat
*drafts
x.com/compose/post
*quartz
*forms
*extension
*accounts
*books # I don't remember what this was for

• Still in need: a script to block Safari. Will work on this today.

• (updated 1/19/25) In the first publication of this blog, I mentioned using hosts/etc and Apple Screen Time to block stuff. Neither of these are good solutions.

  • I wrote the following update on it. I wish there was a collapsible bullet button, oh well: UPDATE (1/15/24): Clearspace and uninstalling works great on iPad. Whitelisting and Screen Time do not work very well at all!!!!

    I modified hosts/etc and nothing changed on my computer. It might be that I need to flush my cache better? At least, that’s what Claude said.
    

    There’s also the greater problem with whitelisting and Screen Time. If, on my Mac, I:
    

    Settings → Screen Time → Content & Privacy → Turn it on → App Store, Media, Web, & Games → Safari: Access to Web Content → Toggle to Allowed Websites Only → Whitelist all the websites I want
    

    Then try to use websites that are whitelisted. All of these websites have a billion different trackers and other urls they ping. Then, Mac freaks out and pings you with a million pop-ups, “please whitelist this website as well, please, sign it off with your fingerprint or system password”. So you sign it off with your fingerprint, it thanks you, and then the same URLs continue to pop-up. It’s a never ending wave of pop-ups. I Googled the issue, and apparently this has been a problem since at least 2015.
    

    Even if I could somehow find every website that a webpage pings to add it to the whitlist, there are other issues. For example, I currently want to prevent Spotify from having internet access. When I click on my Spotify application however, it immediately floods me with pop-ups, asking me to whitelist random Spotify affiliated URLs, as well as Spotify.com.
    

    One solution is to just block the vast majority of my used websites, and then keep myself away from everythin else. Another solution is to search for some software or plugin/extension that will properly whitelist stuff, if such software exists.
    

    However, at this point, “willpower” is already keeping me from turning on my phone? From going on Twitter right now? From disabling every protection I have?
    

    The failure mode I’m worried about is accidentally stumbling across a website I’m not supposed to have access to, and then folding on the whole challenge. So, I think just blocking a bunch of different websites I might accidentally access will be fine. e.g. it’s easy to stick to a diet as long as you have the initial resolve to only buy healthy food and visit healthy restaurants, but it becomes harder if someone starts storing unhealthy food at your house, or if you have to go out to an unhealthy restaurant and eat a boring salad. That’s an imperfect analogy, but it more or less works.
    

    Other failures include allowing myself 20 mins of email in the morning instead of 15 because I want to finish an email, and that disrupts something else. Or I then allow myself to check emails all day, so all I do in my spare time is crave checking my email in hopes somebody responds to me, which ~ruins everything I’m doing. As I wrote in my last post, I should prevent myself from falling off the wagon at all costs!!

    (end update)

• Arc Boost

  • I use Arc browser. I think it’s great. You can modify websites via a cool “zap” tool to block all the distracting stuff. e.g. this is how x.com/brandonsayler looks for me now, versus how it normally looks.

    

    

    (was very tempted to click on the DM just now but I refrained)

Why do I want to get 95% of the way there?

I'll have so much time to:

• Go to the gym (enough time to go every single day)

• Meal prep, make cool food, visit cool markets

• Meditate twice a day, an hour each time, everyday, if I'm feeling crazy enough to get there

• Write a blog post ~weekly

• Read a book every week or two

• Tweet stuff

• Finish my Quartz website (hopefully by mid-February?)

• Skill up in AI Safety

• See friends with complete intentionality

• Spend time with friends without doing work

• Continue to build Safe AI @ Penn

• Do even more things in Philly

• Become friends with lots of strangers that I inevitably have to talk to for directions, concert recs, etc.

• Watch a view movies at the theaters? Something I never do

• Catch the Super Bowl at a bar

• Wake up early!!

• Live with serendipity

Can't you do all of those things now?

Sort of. Maybe you can, but I can't. It's also just not the same with the internet. It's not as magical.

I'll be able to live with my life with complete intentionality (in theory) instead of guided by some algorithm or the primordial algorithm of my brain. My natural default is to live my life with zero intentionality.

I also think I'll increase my productivity by ~4x. A legitimate 4x.

Still not convinced? Another answer: I find it very hard to do things halfway. I think by making it so extreme, it will make it easier to commit. e.g. veganism.

Why not just allow yourself 15 mins of phone usage a day?

For the same reason that smokers can’t limit themselves to one cigarette a day. Also, again, phone is bad energy (not literally, just metaphorically), I want to create as much separation as I can.

Why do this now?

I don't have any major responsibilities. I'm on a college campus and in a major city, which means it's easy to figure out how to go places, I'm automatically forced to see friends in class, people can come knock on my door, etc.

I don't know if I'll ever get a similar opportunity ever again. Seems good to do it now.

How can I contact you and/or hang out with you?

Email me at brandon (dot) sayler (at) gmail (dot) com. Immediately ask me for my Calendly (I don’t want to give it out publicly), that will be the easiest way for us to talk or hang out or co-work.

(update 1/19/25): A friend brought up the idea of being allowed to use text (iMessage) twice a day. I’d effectively be treating texting the same way as email. Then I don’t have to do this weird, “email me and we can talk there,” thing which has been obviously annoying for some people. People also have negative associations with email, because it’s where all of their responsibilities lie.

I think this is probably fine. The main concern I have is that texting will feel significantly better than email, so I’ll develop this craving for texting and then blow up the whole experiment. So perhaps it’s best to stay away.

It’s also super easy to allow myself the texting twice a day by just continuing to block it on my laptop and using Clearpsace to let me text on my iPad. Very easy solution.

It will make it less likely that:

• I get extremely lonely, and then give up

It will make it more likely that:

• I can meet strangers and give them my number instead of this weird email thing

• People will see my text and therefore schedule something on Calendly, instead of delaying communication on email

However:

• people might try to text me in a “texting” way instead of an “emailing” way, forgetting that I have very limited access to texting

• I think part of the charm of this whole experiment is that I’m using only email, instead of text and email

What do I envision will be my greatest difficulties?

Logistical

• There are some applications or websites that actually are essential. I add them, and later I get more and more lax with adding new websites, suddenly everything falls apart.

• I can't figure out how to whitelist and blacklist everything in a full proof way, I cry angry tears and give up.

Personal

• I’m going to have to tell a significant number of people that I’m doing an experiment

• I might get (really) lonely

  • One of the key reasons I'm doing this is to be more social instead of spending a lot of time living without intentionality on the internet. Would be somewhat devastating if my social life was damaged in my last semester of college, but I think I'd still prefer that outcome to one where I don't do this.

Professional

• I think I have enough things set in place to keep professional aims intact, but they might still hurt regardless.

• I think any negatives will be more than made up by 4x productivity boost.

How likely is it that I succeed?

I estimate an 90% chance that I start something by the end of this week, a 30% chance I last at least 3 weeks , and I feel extremely confident I last until the end of the semester if I last 3 weeks (95%). so... ~26% likelihood through the whole semester?

Why such a low likelihood? Most people trying to do this will fail, so I should expect to fail, even if my resolve is currently really high.

I do feel more confident about it than when I first told people about the idea on January 2nd. I spent the last week at an AI Safety retreat for university students that have AI Safety clubs, and at one point I gave a lightning talk about doing this. Everyone was super encouraging and said they would follow my Substack in order to stay in touch, so now I feel like I can't let them down (in a positive way!!!).

Any other motives you have for doing this?

This is a pretty weird thing to do. I acknowledge that. I think people should, on the margin, do weirder things. Do experiments. I wish I lived in a world where people played with social norms more (ones that I think are silly). I want to contribute to the vision of the world I want to live in.

I hope to be able to talk about this experience for a long time. I hope it’s inspiring to others that struggle with similar issues (e.g. have already received texts from ~5 people already that have said this is inspiring them to take similar action).

I want to be a person who takes problems seriously and does things about them.

When do I start?

Hopefully by end of day today (Jan 14th 2025).

I have to:

• TODO block and uninstall everything

• TODO cancel subscriptions I won’t need

• TODO text lots of people

• TODO twitter logistics? maybe this story will go viral, or some other future tweet, so I should make my follower and following list more intentional

• TODO figure out what other TODOs I’ve already forgotten

TODO list for the reader?

• TODO Email me at brandon (dot) sayler (at) gmail (dot) com. Make sure to ask for my Calendly!

• TODO Befriend me on focusmate.

• TODO Subscribe to my Substack to read all my updates, as well as other posts! Reply to my posts, it will give me lots of motivation. Eventually, updates will mostly go in my digital garden. Like and share the post if you enjoyed.

• TODO Do some introspection on your own internet consumption. Maybe write about it, and then send me an email with a PDF of what you've written. I'd really like that.

Cheers for now,

Brandon

TLDR

I’m abstaining from pretty much all internet usage this semester, except for Claude (an AI chatbot like ChatGPT), two usages of email a day at 15 mins each that will be used mostly for professional purposes, and also Google Meets if you want to schedule a Google Meet with me over email. Please email me at brandon (dot) sayler (at) gmail (dot) com and I will send you my Calendly so we can talk.

I will finalize everything on Tuesday January 14th, and update here on Substack. Notably, I will be turning off my phone, so no texting or calling. I will check my phone roughly every 2 weeks for 10 mins to see if there are any missed texts, and then I will redirect them here.

I’m doing this to take control of my life, to live with as much intentionality as possible. I also predict a ~4x productivity increase, and an unknown, but great increase to my happiness and wellbeing.

If you’re looking for actions, read the TODO list above. Otherwise, that’s my update!