Originally published on Typeshare That’s a lie. I still have Twitter installed on my phone. But I promise you I restrict my Twitter usage to 30 - 60 minutes a day. Social media was my addiction in 2021. Last December, I decided to become an active creator and not a passive consumer. Here are my reasons for (mostly) abandoning social media: Constant Distraction “Unlock me Mauricio,” my phone said. “Browse Reddit for five minutes.

In 2021, I spent an absurd amount of time consuming “junk content.” “Junk content” is information we feed our brains that has no beneficial value. On average, I would spend 1-3 hours every day watching a TV series on Netflix, HBO Max, or Disney+. If I wasn’t watching TV, then I was browsing Reddit or watching YouTube videos on my phone. I didn’t feel guilty doing this until the end of 2021.

For years, I used my web browser to save articles I wanted to read later. It was dumb. I opened articles in new tabs, and made a mental reminder to read them later. But it rarely worked. The web browser is not a good place to manage articles. There are too many distractions–Reddit, YouTube, Gmail. My machine’s resources get taxed the more tabs I have open. I could get careless and lose a tab with an accidental click.

It’s been seven days of continuous blog posts, and my biggest takeaway is writing is hard. “If you find that writing is hard, it’s because it is hard.” – William Zinsser, On Writing Well Putting thoughts into words is a challenge. Even writing short blog posts is a struggle. I spend anywhere between 1 - 1.5 hours getting a 200 word draft out. My problem is I’m writing and editing in parallel, and it bottlenecks my speed to produce a draft.

Here’s an interesting quote from Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead. Your values can act as a compass in life. They can help you move in the direction that you know in your heart you want to move in. Imagine that you are on a boat in the sea of life. North is toward your values. South is toward perfectionism and avoidance. When you move south, you may feel safer, but you will not end up where you truly want to go.

The year is almost ending and I wanted to reflect on a life-changing resource for me. Mike Crittenden’s blog. I named dropped him in my previous post, but I neglected to mention how much of an impact he’s had on me. I was casually browsing HackerNews when I came across one of his posts. I don’t remember the specific post, but I know it was enough to pull me into the rabbit hole.