Ask HN: What Tech Have You Removed That Improved Your Life? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What Tech Have You Removed That Improved Your Life?

12 pointsschappim29 comments

For a few years I've been aggressively removing anything being pushed to me. Notifications, emails, feeds. My phone is on silent mode most of the time. Most things do not require my immediate attention, right there in the middle of another task.

I have also unfollowed everyone and everything. I check specific things when I remember about them. There's nothing to catch up on.

https://nicolasbouliane.com/blog/silence

I also have less patience for maintenance. I trimmed down what I self-host to things that just work.

Same. I disabled calls from non-contacts, and then my phone stays in silent mode all day, unless I expect calls, like friends coordinating a meeting etc.

I also mostly keep it away, either in my pocket or on a shelf. Or wherever I left it. There's no hard rule, I just don't care.

All on-screen notifications are blocked except for messengers (not that I had notification spamming apps in the first place).

This created a unique setting where I'm all my own. It's not an immediate value, it builds up in months.

Physical distance works wonders. Just keeping it in another room or in my backpack is enough to forget about it.

Tesla FSD.

The last few updates have introduced significant regressions in red light handling, resulting in the car attempting to run red lights about 5x in the last 2 months. Here is an example of how blatant it is: https://www.reddit.com/r/TeslaFSD/comments/1jvonrw/tesla_tri...

Also, the removal of minimal lane changes just sucks, I don't mind being behind a slow car when I am not driving, but I hate when it moves into the fast lane and then slowly passes other cars.

Social media. Especially Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. I was never addicted to any of them, but in general they're all such garbage.

I generally use twitter and instagram so that I can stay updated with tech related stuff. My feed is full of tech related stuff

I prefer HackerNews for my tech news, etc.

It’s just something about the method of delivery that keeps you coming for more, not the content itself. I honestly feel something similar with rss readers, but at least those end at some point

A motor vehicle.

I last owned a car in 1997. My black Acura Integra was totaled in that year, by a reckless driver in a Porsche 928 who ran a stop sign. He attempted to commit insurance fraud at the scene of the accident.

I rarely miss it. I have saved so much money. And in exchange, I've gained plenty of time to relax, take my mind off things, and meditate. Riding the train and bus allows you to do this, without all the responsibility and liability of your driving privilege.

I have indeed retained my driver’s license, and a clean record; once in a while I rent a car, and it’s fun, and grants wonderful freedoms. Also, there are things I can access only with a vehicle: recycling hazardous materials, for example.

What city do you live in?

Streaming cable news is a significant time sink that adds to my anxiety rather than offering any substantial value. Regardless of your political beliefs or the cable news network you prefer, their primary objective is to maintain your engagement and fixation on the TV for ratings. Important topics are rarely covered with depth, presenting only limited perspectives and information.

I made the decision to eliminate cable news from my life, and I’ve found myself much happier in the process.

I started using physical devices again instead of my phone:

- Tangara/ipod for music

- Physical timer that beeps loudly when it goes off

Basically minimising how often I look at my phone, would recommend.

Went back to wired headphones over wireless ones. Considerably more reliable, and no futzing around with charging

My phone - essentially all social media, video streaming, email and messaging apps. I check all the emails on my computer only. I do not have any social media presence. Anyone who needs my time mails me or calls me.

I use my phone exclusively for call only. It has freed up a lot of my time in the day to get work done.

Out of curiosity, what do you do for entertainment? I assume it would cut off a lot of social events as well... unless you get these via email?

Not OP, but I read books and write and code.

The vast majority of examples I can think of are things I built myself, then replaced with something more standard, which then freed up large amounts of time.

Weekend projects can really take over your life, it's amazing how much annoyance something like a random bug in a DIY note taking app can cause.

I think this can be generalized a bit to not just software but real-world things. I was recently dealing with tearing up an old deck that was rotting. I could have done it myself -- I started doing just that in fact, but after a half day of work I did some math and realized that while it would not be cheap to hire someone with machinery that could do the job, it would end up being cheaper once I factored in externalities like being tired and sore, the risk of injury, and even just the discomfort of having to finish the job despite the weather du jour. Add in the significantly lower amount of stress, and the fact that I could use that same time for other projects, it made sense to shell out the $$$ to just have someone come in and do it for me.

And to that person, because they've already invested the money and time to get the equipment and learn how to properly use it and be proficient with it, the cost was much lower. In the end, between the two of us, we saved a lot of unnecessary labour by sticking to what we were both good at.

I have mostly removed all things that feature advertisements or subscriptions. This means a lot of self hosting and ad blocking.

I stopped making my smartphone the hub for the rest of my life. Now it's only used for instant messaging, keeping my calendar, an alarm clock, my password manager, a music player, and (very rarely) doing a quick web search for something when out and about. I use it for nothing else.

Doing that has significantly improved my life.

Any bookmarking, archiving, or similar tool. I delete everything now outside of financial documents that I have an iCloud folder for. I guess I save photos too, although thats pointless.

There’s nothing else I really ever end up going back to look at again.

Hey! I started doing the same w.r.t bookmarking this a couple of years back. All new bookmarks now go into a note specific to the topic in the personal KB instead of into the browser bookmarks. Most notes have a '## bookmarks' section at the end where these go.

No, I think you’re missing what I’m saying. I don’t even save bookmarks anymore lol.

No, I understood that and respect that a lot. I thought of doing that as I had hundreds if not thousands of never to be visited. As an interim, instead of using the browser bookmarks or any online services I just save useful things to my notes depending on my professional context.

"There’s nothing else I really ever end up going back to look at again".

Yeah, I just realised I haven't bookmarked anything for years.

My Apple Watch. There are very few times where I need instant notification of things and they became distracting - I instead now just check periodically. Granted I probably don’t stand every hour anymore.

Advertising. I pay subscriptions, use adblockers etc.

If a website does't allow adblockers, I live without it.

I could live with unobtrusive text ads, but they aren't a thing.

Stopped using cloud storage and MS 365. Lookup far flung family members on FaceBook maybe once a month.

Landline phone. Never used it, the only thing I got there was spam, marketing or survey calls. Twitter for reasons that probably do not need explaining.

If low-tech counts: Contacts. They are just so much hassle compared to glasses, the imagined better looks are not worth it.

Read-later services. Just another pile of things to manage. If I really need to read something, I add it to my todo app.

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