HN user
Thought I'm not much on social media but I figured out that if I can restrict myself to browse between 11am and 4pm, work will certainly automatically force me off the 'scroll treadmill'. I wrote about that in this post[1] recently.
Often cited, Dropbox solved a problem that many thought was simple and didn't see as saleable.
Besides being there at the right time, marketing and clicking, the key thing was that it provided an easy way to take the pain away from setting up a system for backup and sync in the cloud, specially for non-technical users.
There is no sure shot way of finding such problems. If you look around, most problems not only appear simple but are in-fact simple to solve. It's the way you solve those 'simple' problems will put food on the table.
You have to try and fail fast to find the one.
That said, there are no shortcuts. The start-up road is long and hard; and it will try to sap the energy out of you. Be prepared for the long haul.
If you can get the hang of using templates in Zim, it can be used for more than just a wiki. One can create HTML pages or use them with a server side language like Python or PHP.
I have been using it as a CMS on and off to create websites and it just works. Really extensible piece of desktop software.
If you are trying to quit social media, you have to find something more interesting and engaging to do so that social media becomes the gorilla that you fail to pay attention to.
My take on this is that to eliminate distractions, the given task should be interesting enough to engage attention.
Like in the gorilla experiment, the main task was to count the number of passes of the white team and the participants did good at coming up with the right number.
In my opinion missing the gorilla actually makes sense if it's all about paying attention because the task was to count the passes and not look for a gorilla.
Had the task been about watching out for a gorilla then one could say that there was lack of attention in spotting the gorilla.
To help students learn effectively, the content and method of delivery has to be interesting enough to eliminate distractions i.e. the gorilla.
Yes, it can be stifling at times when you yearn to be alone and have other pressing/family needs.
I try to work out my priorities in time and 'am able to clearly communicate with my spouse and children that I need some time out to think/sort/do stuff. Luckily it works most of the time.
"Every person needs to learn from childhood how to spend time with oneself. That doesn’t mean he should be lonely, but that he shouldn’t grow bored with himself."
This is something that has helped me a lot. Some of the best creative ideas and stuff I came up as a young person were due to my spending this time on self-learning and trying to do something or the other. Learnt never to get bored just being with myself.
And to this day whenever I am alone, either I put myself in a learning/exploring/thinking mode; or I work on doing something creative/practical. There's no passive mode.
I think the key to not getting bored alone and spend this 'me time' in some meaningful way is to actively engage oneself instead of passively passing the time.
It's the other way round for me. When I was young, I thought old people had nothing figured out. Now, though I'm not that old but I think young people need to figure out much more.
Maybe it was because when I was young, I tried to have a go at things in spite of being a noob at many and being told not to 'experiment'.
Now, when I see my children with the same train of thoughts, I remember those days and let them have theirs.
I agree with PG > "the more of a noob you are locally, the less of a noob you are globally." And I kind of feel OK being a noob in a new place. Gives me the opportunity to explore without inhibitions.
If more people leave the lights on to show how and tell why personal sites matter I think the tide can be turned to reclaim the "old web".
And as rightly said by superkuh > "Personal sites are about putting something out there you care about."; someone somewhere will share it and someone somewhere will find it useful.
I recently decided that it was high time to start publishing my essays, stories and other stuff related to life and work; mostly as a reminder to myself and maybe leave something useful for my children and others to read.