Hack On Self: The Alt-Tab Annihilator

Last time, I told you about a simple script I made to collect data about my laptop activity, talked about why collecting data about yourself is a moral imperative, and shared the upgraded script with you alongside my plans for it. Today, I will show you a problem I’ve been tackling, with help of this script and the data it gives, and I also would love to hear your advice on a particular high-level problem I’m facing.

Today’s problem is as old as time – I often can’t focus on tasks I badly need done, even ones I want done for myself. This has been a consistent problem in my life, closing off opportunities, getting me to inadvertently betray my friends and family, hurting my health and well-being, reinforcing a certain sort of learned helplessness, and likely reinforcing itself as it goes, too.

It’s deeply disturbing to sit down fully intending to work on a project, then notice no progress on it hours later, and come to a gut-wrenching realization you’ve had hundreds of such days before – I think this screws with you, on a fundamental level. Over the years, I’ve been squeezing out lessons from this failure mode, making observations, trying out all sorts of advice, in search of a solution.

Join me today in non-invasive brain augmentation and reprogramming, as I continue trying to turn my life around – this time, with help of my laptop, a computer that I already spend a ton of time interfacing with. Ever notice that starting work on a task  is often the hardest part of it? It’s the same for me, and I decided to hack away at it.

Staying On Track

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Hack On Self: Collecting Data

A month ago, I’ve talked about using computers to hack on our day-to-day existence, specifically, augmenting my sense of time (or rather, lack thereof). Collecting data has been super helpful – and it’s best to automate it as much as possible. Furthermore, an augment can’t be annoying beyond the level you expect, and making it context-sensitive is important – the augment needs to understand whether it’s the right time to activate.

I want to talk about context sensitivity – it’s one of the aspects that brings us closest to the sci-fi future; currently, in some good ways and many bad ways. Your device needs to know what’s happening around it, which means that you need to give it data beyond what the augment itself is able to collect. Let me show you how you can extract fun insights from collecting data, with an example of a data source you can easily tap while on your computer, talk about implications of data collections, and why you should do it despite everything.

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Hack On Self: Sense Of Time

Every now and then, a commercial product aims to help you in your life journey, in a novel way, making your life better through its presence. Over the years, I’ve been disappointed by such products far more often than I have been reassured, seeing each one of them rendered unimaginative and purposeless sometimes even despite the creator’s best intentions. The pressures of a commercial market will choke you out without remorse, metal fingers firmly placed on your neck, tightening with every move that doesn’t promise profit, and letting money cloud your project’s vision. I believe that real answers can only come from within hacker communities, and as we explore, you might come to see it the same way.

This is the tip of the iceberg of a decade-long project that I hope to demonstrate in a year or two. I’d like to start talking about that project now, since it’s pretty extensive; the overall goal is about using computers to help with human condition, on a personal level. There’s a lot of talk about computers integrating into our lives – even more if you dare consult old sci-fi, much of my inspiration.

Tackling a gigantic problem often means cutting it down into smaller chunks, though, so here’s a small sub-problem I’ve been working on, for years now, on and off: Can you use computers to modify your sense of time?

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