I have a lot of goals for 2024!
My biggest one is staying off of social media sites. I did pretty well with this in 2022/2023, but want to go even further this year. The site I struggle with the most is Instagram. I have a photography hobby, and it's sad to say but I often struggle with the motivation to take photos if I know i'm not going to post them anywhere. It's not even really for the validation or "likes," it's just that without sharing the photos somewhere they just sit on a hard drive. It is fun to go back and look at them, but I only do that a couple of times a year. I've experimented with flickr and posting them on are.na but I still haven't found a good solution. So, something I'm trying in 2024 is taking photos specifically for my daily journal and doing quarterly social media updates. Basically, post on social media 4 times a year almost as a "newsletter" bulletin, with 5-10 photos and a short description of each.
I plan on shifting a lot of my work towards my older computers. I have a 2022 laptop, a 2010 laptop, and a 2002 CRT setup. Currently, I use my 2022 laptop for everything, and only use my other computers for niche things or for novelty. I'm trying to switch this around, so that most of my work (which is mainly writing, taking notes on things, or reading pdfs) is done on my 2002 setup, general browsing the web/forums is done on my 2010 laptop, and I only use my 2022 laptop when necessary. It's easier said than done, but i'm trying to make this a reality.
Along the same vein, I'm trying to limit my smartphone use as much as possible with the goal of getting a flipphone this summer. This means, with a few exceptions, relying on my CDs for music, my DVD/VHS for media consumption, and otherwise finding real-world counterparts for apps (like a notepad instead of my to-do list app). I grew up in the 90s, so I vividly remember a time before everyone carried smartphones with them 24/7. I'm trying to live my life a bit more like that.
I have a couple of straightforward goals as well.
Less computer use in my bedroom. I'm tired of just sitting in bed for hours on my laptop doing nothing. From now on, the majority of my computer use will happen in my office, which is where I will store my laptops as well.
Continue working on my personal website and start blogging regularly. I'm going to blog at least once every 2 weeks.
Stop lurking on forums and actually post more.
Spend at least 30 minutes a day outside.
Find a non-technology related hobby.