One of the things we’ve been reviewing around here is our intake of information from our interaction with the Web.
I’m old-fashioned and struggle with everything having to be on a screen–whether for work or play–so to help myself, I’ve entered Mostly Broadcast Mode when it comes to social media. This has cut down on the chatter and done wonders for my mental health. I also get my news directly from the source via a few news apps I have on my computer phone. Other sources of incoming data come from a good old-fashioned newspaper focusing on local news. For websites, I have an app on the computer phone called Read (which I discuss here) and it’s a way to log the websites and blogs I regularly visit and be notified when a new post shows up. Most of them I can read directly on the Read app, which then eliminates the urge to surf the Web.
The idea here is to stay informed while also watching my Web time so I can spend more time making things for you guys.
Yes, the irony of having a blog (on a screen) and a webcomic (on a screen) and a YouTube channel (on a screen) doesn’t escape me. I’m just doing my best to adjust to the Digital Frontier as best I can after having taken some time away from it.
I’m finding the older I get, the harder I find change, but I also realize I need to embrace change to some degree in order for this whole multimedia A.P. Fuchs experiment to work.
Like I’ve been saying lately, one thing at a time.
It’s been decided that I’m dusting off the notebook for Secret Project No. 3. I wrote it a long time ago and now it’s time to turn it into a piece of art for you to enjoy.
What Secret Project No. 3 is, is my little secret until reveal (however, the details of this project were revealed on the Behind the Scenes tier on Patreon).
I’m confident you guys are going to dig it when it comes out.
As we continue barreling down the 2020 Timeline of All Things at 1000mph, we also need to remember to take time for self-care, so today will be a half day–or self-care day–because I have an appointment that needs tending to if this middle-aged machine is going to keep bringing you books and comics.
Attention is also being given to the workflow behind the scenes because, I’m learning, I can’t approach this business like I did prior to being ill. Different variables, both internal and external, have created a different climate in which to work.
Some retooling is occuring in order to not wind up bed-ridden again.
Yes, I recognize I sometimes talk a lot of publishing flow here on the blog. This is just me getting my ideas up and processed so I can try a mosaic of things, see if they work, and remove and/or add where needed until the mosaic has some form to it and I’m happy with the image.
Stay Focused Social Media Blocking App and Timex TW5M23300 Watch.
Last week I was off-line except for a couple of tasks that needed doing via the Internet (like administration). To ensure I remained off-line–I’m just as human as the next guy (I think)–I got an app for my computer phone called Stay Focused. This app can block any app on your phone and, in the free version (which I used), can block up to 5 apps at once. You set a schedule by telling it which hours and what days you want certain apps blocked. I applied these to the social media apps on my pocket computer to keep me on lockout. While true I’m in Broadcast Mode in the winter, as part of broadcasting I sometimes need to go into an app like Instagram and post something. The problem is one glance at the feeds can quickly lead to two, then three, and so on, and the next thing you know you’ve fiddled away an afternoon scrolling and scrolling and refreshing and scrolling.
This picture is a screenshot of the app from the day I went dark. You can see the stat on there says I’ve already tried opening the app 3 times and each time it didn’t work (was running tests). The timer on locking me out of these apps ran for a week. And it worked! Once I knew I was locked out, I didn’t give the apps a second thought.
Stay Focused also acts as a master lock, meaning you have these little locks under it (like the apps you’re blocking), but then you can lock Stay Focused itself–but only in 6-hour chunks in the free version–to ensure you don’t unlock your blocked apps. I’m assuming this is for extreme cases where certain people need a double padlock on their phone. To get even more extreme, I’m pretty sure there’s a lock on Stay Focused that forbids you from uninstalling it in an effort to destroy your barriers.
What was interesting was it kept track of how many times I unlocked my phone to do something, like reply to a text from family. I was disgusted when I saw, at the end of one of the days, I had unlocked the phone around 35 times. I barely used it that day! But numbers don’t lie. I barely used it? That was 35 times in the span of 12 hours (roughly). That’s approximately 4 times an hour. That’s once every 15 minutes. My unlock count steadily dropped as the week wore on and I got busier, but this goes to show how much we’ve integrated pocket computers into our lives.
The app has other features, like how long you are using any one program and your total phone usage for the day.
In the end, getting an app like this is highly recommended, especially if you are a phone junkie and recognize you have a problem (dopamine addiction). And, yes, the irony of this kind of post ranting about frequent phone use is not lost on me. I fully recognize a good part of my business is digital and having people on-line looking at or reading my stuff is better for me yet here I am encouraging my readers to go live life in the physical world. Oh well. But my refutation to the irony is this: I’m referring to balance. Is your on-line and off-line lives balanced? Take away sleeping hours, eating, and body maintenance, and see how much time is spent on a screen while you’re awake. The rest is up to you.
(I know that author J.B. Bennet got on board and locked themselves out of things during working hours each day, so others see the merit in this.)
I made this video on Friday of last week and aired it yesterday. It gets into what happened during my time off-line. Watch and subscribe. You might relate.
Lastly, for months I was getting frustrated of having to pull out my phone to check the time. While 9 times out of 10 all it was was checking the time, there was always that one time in there where it became an excuse to futz around on the phone. I couldn’t have that. I needed to be off-line, so I took the plunge and got myself a basic sports watch by Timex. As a kid, I had a couple of their Ironman watches, which I loved. I was aiming for another basic Ironman this time around but it was suggested to me that’s more a watch for a 15-year-old than a man so opted for a different one because I thought that was a valid point (I’m talking purely the aesthetics).
This is the watch I got, model TW5M23300:
And that was how I kept dark last week.
Taking a break from the Internet is something I’ve recommended for years for the sake of maintaining all facets of one’s health. I will go off-line again somewhere down the road because 2020 is a stupidly busy work year and sometimes you need to just shut up and get the job done. But that upcoming time off-line won’t be for a while yet. Not until my first holiday of 2020. Until then, I’ll be here, writing to you and making books and art and comics and videos.
Keep coming back to the blog every day. There’s always something being posted.
– APF
Ps. Today, a new chapter of Gigantigator Death Machine aired on Patreon! Please go here to get access to this fun romp of creature horror for just a buck!
I was raised that you show up for work/school despite how you feel. The only excuse to not go to work was either you are so sick you can’t get out of bed or you are dead. This lesson has stuck with me over the years, and while many out there would disagree with that stance with valid arguments, there is a work ethic that grows in you when you go to work even if your head feels two sizes too big.
Last night, I got hit with a cold and it got progressively worse as the evening wore on. I went to bed and slept like a stone with the idea that–as is usually the case–the beginnings of this cold would be fought off while I slept and I’d wake up feeling 90%-or-better.
I’m still sick.
My head hurts and is foggy. My nose is running. My eyes are watering.
But I showed up to work today and am at the desk in the bunker, using the heater I went out and got for the studio yesterday because living under a cold air mass in the Great White North means extreme cold and, like any fortress, the downstairs is cooler than the upstairs. Typically, by the end of the day, I’m cold through to my bones and my evenings are spent bringing the core temperature of this middle-aged machine back up to par.
New heater out of the box
Anyway, I suspect I ran myself ragged again, which is fine (and seems to be a pattern; when things come too easily I get suspicious.)
Today will be spent doing odds and ends and some thinking. I think the original plan was to do yet another video but, “I sowd lik dis when I dalk,” and my nose is running worse than a broken faucet.
These are the Manitoba Prairies in winter. Photo taken while driving by.
Locked Up Cold – Manitoba Prairies in Winter
Everything is locked up in ice in Winnipeg today with, according to the weather network and the time of this writing (morning), the temperature being -33C (-43C with the windchill).
Everything is utterly frozen solid in a giant block of ice, which means it’s time to simply hunker down and work. Lots of focus behind the scenes here at the Central. I gave you the rundown yesterday on where things are at roughly two weeks into 2020. Status is the same as of today. A good way to stay current on project statuses is via my weekly newsletter because info isn’t always shared on the blog.
Want to see boiling water being thrown into freezing air? I made this video the other week showing that:
As I mentioned in my newsletter this past weekend, a new art and writing studio is on the docket and yesterday I began the process of setting up shop by way of getting a carpet for the floor. It’s laying in there right now, ready to be cut to size. After that comes moving in all my equipment and supplies and doing some decorating. It’s basically going to be a studio/comic shop hybrid when it’s done and will be revealed on Patreon next month for the behind-the-scenes tier and above.
Above is a picture of the blank slate I’m working with.
I’m eager to get this new workspace up and running. The new studio is part of the “more” as hinted at in my posts about Project Rebirth.
Today will be spent drifting back and forth between creative items and setting things up in the new studio so I’m all tucked away for the winter.
More of the “more” of Project Rebirth to be revealed soon enough. Keep checking back for updates.
