In Praise of Freedom, SelfControl and “Outside Strategies”
18 May
I recently reviewed a book for Mother Jones called THE EMPATHY GAP by Loyola University philosophy professor J.D. Trout. Even though I kind of made fun of Trout and his book (TEG contains great information, but has, in my opinion, debilitating tone and voice issues), there is one story from the book that I cannot escape.
It seems that Amsterdam’s Schipol Airport used to have a messy men’s room problem, especially when it came to the urinals. Dudes would go in there and, despite their European sense of history, pretty much wee everywhere.
Dutch airport officials could have launched a public service campaign urging people not to be such inconsiderate slobs. They could have come up with a slogan and a visual grammar for their campaign, and printed a bunch of signs that only a few people would read, and fewer still would act upon.
Instead, they tapped into an insight about male behavior: if we can aim for something when we pee, then we’ll aim for it.
Enter the urinal fly.
By simply putting a decal of a fly in the urinal, airport officials drastically reduced waste. More importantly, they were able to make this happen on a subconscious level. People didn’t have to walk into the bathroom and think, “This time I’m really going to work on my splashback [their term, not mine].” Instead guys just mindlessly aimed for the fly.
This is the genius of the “outside strategy.” You don’t have to make people smarter/better than they are. Instead you design scenarios that extract greater benefits from the cognitive tools they already have.
Which brings me to Freedom and SelfControl, two computer programs that also act like “outside strategies,” only this time for the information-addled attention network in your weak, sagging brain.
For the longest time, if I really (and I mean really, really, really) wanted to get work done, then I would go to the government documents section of the University of Minnesota’s Wilson Library. Why? Because the U of MN doesn’t allow wireless access to strangers. Because I’m unlikely to waste time browsing through microfiche from the Kennedy administration. Because no one else goes down there, which means I can’t even people watch.
Big love to the U of MN and Wilson Library, but you can image how this situation was less than ideal. With Freedom, I get that government documents experience anywhere. Freedom turns off only the networking component of my Mac. I can still use Scrivener (itself worthy of a post) and Word and iCal. But no e-mail, no Facebook, and no [sniff] DCWYTBMA.
To say that it’s changed my life is an understatement. After a few weeks using Freedom, I discovered that the book browsing and the people watching really weren’t the problem. It was the internet. The @#$%! internet. As long as that baby is “off” then I can get a lot done.
Best of all, I don’t have to engage in energy- and time-consuming internal battles. I don’t have to force myself to concentrate or get mad at myself when I can’t. The program does that for me, leaving me free to do what I’m in this game for in the first place: the work.
My favorite coffee-shop has free wi-fi, I not only refuse to get the password, twice now people at the next table have been talking about it and I literally have put my fingers over my ears to keep myself from hearing it. Because if I knew the password I’d use it, and what makes it my favorite coffee shop is that I can get work done there! I don’t know if I could use Freedom because wouldn’t I just turn it off? It’s so hard being an idiot….
I agree. The Net is totally debilitating to work, especially when writing gets tough. I’ve taken to relocating somewhere else with my laptop, too. It does have access, but I hate using it on there so I tend to focus more on work.
@Dara: Once Freedom is on the only way to turn it off is to reboot your computer, which I’ve found is just enough of a second step to keep me on task.
Whether you turn Freedom on in the first place is another matter. Like right now I’m at a coffee shop and, well, you get the idea.
Freedom time!
Until about 5 weeks ago, I had been working on an old laptop with a wireless card and leaving the card at home when I go out to work at a coffee shop or library. It has been well worth the tradeoff. Now I’m home with Maxine and spending too much time on line. I wish they had these programs for Windows. But your post inspired me to do some looking around and I quickly stumbled across a Firefox add-on called “leechblock” — just blacked out all of the dangerous sites from 9-12 M-F. Signing off…
Dennis–The Trout book sounds pretty interesting. In what issue do we read your review? Does “Mother Jones” give you the assignment because you’ve written for them and they know your work? (Sorry, this question probably belongs with that Dan Baum post.)
@Dennis: Story is on Mother Jones website. And yes, I got the assignment because they know me and my work and I’ve done stuff for them in the past.
Yup, very thought-provoking essay. Thanks, your “Excellency”.
@ Jill: I was also wondering about non-Mac versions, so thanks for pointing out “leechblock.”
Another trick I use when I really need to be productive: I put a Post-It over my computer’s clock so that I’m tracking my progress only by output. If I can see the clock, I’ll sometimes get frustrated that it took me, say, half an hour to write a paragraph–and then that frustration will distract me from writing.
And I thought it was just me who should start writing “Internet whore” on forms as “profession.”
@Doug: What an excellent tip to cover the clock, too!
@DCWYTBMA: Scrivener post! Please. It looks amazing, and I love the “if this isn’t for you, check out…” disclaimer.
“creative individuals remain in contact with the extra information constantly streaming in from the environment,”
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/10/031001061055.htm