
Ask HN: How do you maintain a good balance between a high and low-tech life? - devmonk
I feel like I spend too much time online, because there are so many things around the house, etc. that I don't get done, and I cannot afford to pay someone to do (nor would I necessarily want to). At the same time, I feel like my lifestyle is very low tech compared to other developers (I'm just not as interested in technology or development in the same way), and I feel guilty about not doing my best to be better in my (current) profession. I feel like there is no such thing as a good balance for me between the two, as I would always feel guilty about one or the other.<p>Have you found a balance between your tech life and your life "outside of tech" (or offline, or whatever) that you are content with? If so, what is your balance? How did you come to it?
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Kaizyn
You don't have to choose between high and low tech. Simply fully embrace both.
Your problem of having a lot to do offline and feeling guilty about your
progress in tech sounds more like you feel like you are "wasting time" or
procrastinating on both fronts. Try this to start out small. Pick one task
around your house that needs doing that is small and can be done in short
order and go take care of it. Then pick one "real" high tech task such as
looking into some new platform or language that can be done relatively easily
and do it. From there, keep picking tasks or parts of tasks with the goal in
mind to accomplish one thing each day. The Internet is only a problem when we
use it to avoid doing other work we know we should be doing. However, it is
just as easy to find offline distractions to substitute for the online ones.
The most important thing is to take a long term perspective on what you are
doing even as you work diligently on each sub-goal or minor task.

You might find that the book Getting Things Done has some helpful advice on
effectively managing your time/efforts. Good luck!

tl;dr Embrace both high and low tech at the same time. Set yourself the goal
of accomplishing at least one task of either type every day.

~~~
GeoffWozniak
_"Pick one task around your house that needs doing that is small and can be
done in short order and go take care of it."_

Doing the dishes is a good one. It doesn't take all that long, it gives you
time to reflect as it rarely requires great attention, and, even in a dwelling
that is habitually cluttered, a moderately clean kitchen will make it seem
like you have accomplished something.

Doing the dishes/cleaning the kitchen is my number one low-tech way to feel
better about myself and my surroundings. (With the added benefit that my wife
greatly appreciates it, since she can relax and watch video clips on her
iPhone.)

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dasil003
This is apropos for me because just yesterday I decided that it was time to
bite the bullet and switch to Vim from TextMate. The resulting [temporary]
decrease in productivity put me in a bad mood for most of the day, but then
the rational part of my brain kicked in and I was wondering why should I feel
guilty about making a long-term investment in productivity?

Now I don't want to project my own issues onto anybody else--the point is to
think about why _you_ feel guilty--but in my case I think I have guilt issues
relating to geeking out going back to early childhood when my parents were
really not very supportive of long computer hours doing who-knows-what. I
realized that the need to be outwardly productive at all times is a form of
extrinsic validation that I sometimes lean on too heavily.

Okay, so this is quite a bit different from your story, but I think some
general advice is applicable here: just follow your passion and don't let
guilt feed some sort of psychological negative feedback loop. _If_ you feel
guilty about something, make a conscious decision to either do something about
it or decide not to, but don't let it eat away at you.

As for the low-tech thing, well just remember that a lot of developers waste a
lot of time farting around with whatever new toys they can get their hands on.
It doesn't necessarily make them better. You could live in a cabin, grow a
garden and chop wood every day, and if you sat down and focused on the craft
of programming for 8 hours a day you could still be a great programmer. In
silicon valley in particular I feel that the value of downtime and cross-
disciplanary idea pollination is underrated.

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kd0amg
I don't really make any effort to not disappear from meatspace. It takes some
effort to not run into my housemates and whoever else stops by to visit
(though avoiding them is still well within reach).

As far as housework goes, I don't normally have difficulty getting my job done
or doing some cleanup after housemates who don't get theirs done. Mostly, it
helps to not let things build up too much. If there's a week's worth of dishes
sitting by the sink, there's not much chance I'll get through them all at once
(I'll usually stop once the drainer is full), but if I take an extra couple of
minutes after each meal I won't produce such a buildup.

With regard to keeping up with professional development, I put too much time
into school to feel guilty about not putting enough time into it. There is a
lot of stuff out there that I think would be interesting to learn, but I am
under some time pressure to get my thesis done, so most of it's going to have
to wait. On the other hand, I (theoretically) have many years left to spend on
learning it.

Maybe it helps that I don't typically feel like I'm doing these things purely
because of obligations to others (except perhaps some components of my
housework, but they're typically not much of a time sink).

~~~
hachiya
Referring to real life and the human beings that are a part of it as
"meatspace" indicate that you have, for the most part, disappeared from it.

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photon_off
As much as I can, I try not to compare my life to other people's, especially
developers. I'm not sure how it will pan out for me, but I'll either be very
successful, or get a well-paying and gratifying web development job. I'm ok
with both options, so what should I care what other people think? Everyday I
see headlines about exceptional people, exceptional technology, and
exceptional stories of success. I'm almost positive the people behind all of
those stories were at one point in your position. No need to worry. Of course
it is impossible to never compare yourself to others, in fact it's often
helpful, but if it ever starts to impact your life negatively, then you should
really evaluate why that is and come to terms with it.

As a wise person once said: Discipline is doing what you don't want to do,
when you don't want to do it. You should either gain more discipline, make
yourself want to do things that need to be done, or set aside a time to do
things you don't want to do.

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gigl
Not to sound "rebellious" to the tech community, but simply going camping one
time completely changed my outlook. I realized I felt the most accomplished
and satisfied when I was nowhere near my work whatsoever. Good way to really
take a complete step back from the tech world to reevaluate everything.

Give it a shot, go camping!

~~~
alatkins
Yep - without wanting to sound all peace & love it doesn't hurt you to
completely unplug every so often. Whenever I've taken a decent holiday where
there's no net access (yes these places still do exist) it's done me the world
of good.

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jdc
If time seems to pass quickly while you surf the web, you're probably making a
habit of wasting time.

Use technology as a tool without allowing it to interfere with your focus.

~~~
abalashov
Easily said, not done. :-)

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mrj
What are you doing online?

If you're neglecting real life because you're consumed by creating something,
then I say embrace it! It's called the zone, where all of your focus is purely
focused on a task. It's a great thing.

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Balsamic
I understand the sentiment expressed here. One thing I've recently done to
mediate this is purchase a Kindle: transferring my once isolated consumption
of copious content to a social activity around friends and loved ones. Far
from a distraction, I find the ability to converse over coffee adds to my
understanding and meliorates my memory.

I have thus far resisted smart phones and the like as I find ubiquitous
connectivity distracting.

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DennisP
This is maybe a little extreme, but I take classes in stone-age wilderness
survival. There's something deeply primal about knowing skills that go back
roughly a million years: what plants to eat, how to bang the rocks together
and make fire without matches. It's a nice counterpoint to the high-tech stuff
I do for a living, and it helps kick my right brain back into gear when I've
been immersed in logic too long.

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tomjen3
What you are looking at is a false understanding of reality. There is no two
areas in the world, one marked "can only be solved by high-tech" and one
marked "can only be solved by low tech". You can use high-tech to solve all
kinds of problems.

In your current situation, get a Romba and stop feeling guilty. That does
nobody any good.

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jacquesm
I try to do a lot of stuff with my hands, it gets me out of this chair and in
to the world, and it teaches me useful skills.

Over the years I've found that if I just do online stuff I find it hard to
keep a sense of accomplishment, moving bits around on a harddisk somewhere
does not seem to be enough all by itself (for me).

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skowmunk
_..as I would always feel guilty about one or the other.._

From personal experience, I would say, get rid of that guilt. That was a
consistent and big mental block earlier in my life and still is occasionally
till I get rid of it. The moment I get rid of it, I feel free to move forward.

It could be hindering you also.

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qq66
Read novels, on paper, outdoors.

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astrofinch
Stop feeling guilty and utility maximize.

