As I write this I'm in the middle of a break from Facebook. At this point, there is little reason for me to ever get back.

First – I'm not sure it's public knowledge that there is a way to simply disable your account on FB. You sorta disappear…. people can't tag you, find your profile, see your photos, etc. but if you log back in everything will be back. At one point it was only for two weeks but now (as I read it) the account is disabled until you want it enabled again.

My wife, Gina, has done this a few times and I've tried to simply stay off of it. But I felt like I was failing since sometime this fall. I didn't interact with people, nor post much but I was always looking. Gina has just finished one of her Facebook breaks when I listened to this episode of Note to Self which talked about FB (and social media in general) and how it effects your mind. Once you free it up, you can get more done. And, honestly, I'm all for it.

I had more or less given up on all social media but Facebook. I do Instagram a bit (I might check once a day) and post to Twitter (but rarely read it). But Facebook … it was easy to get sucked in. It was kinda, "Well I have a few minutes so I'll see what's happening" and 15-20 minutes go by. Or I spend a lot of time on it while sitting on the couch in the evening (with no real posts happening). This was ridiculous. So I disabled my account just to see what happens.

And, honestly, it's been pretty great. My original two weeks got extended to April (after Easter) but now I'm thinking…. well, a whole lot longer. I'm trying hard to not saw "never" so I won't. But I want to.

The biggest change is that I've dived into things I've thought about being "nice to haves" but never did it until lately. For example:

• Using macOS's virtual desktop (which used to be called Spaces but now is called Desktops and it's integrated in Mission Control, which is something I've always ignored)
• When I loaded up a project in Emacs via Projectile it was sometimes really slow. After a little searching I found that I'm not the only one with that problem.
• wrote another blog post for the company blog.
• actually played some board games

Here are things I discovered or re-discovered:

• Blogs are still a thing. Feedly is my new best friend. I feel more informed.
• Tweaked some keyboard shortcuts via BetterTouchTool. Now I can put a window in another desktop via Control-Option-<arrow>. There is much to be done with BetterTouchTool
• actually using the before-mentioned Projectile in a better way.
• Email newsletters are still a thing… perhaps a growing thing in a niche way. I've been enjoying The Hustle and Noticing. (Yes the former is an affiliate link but I get no money from).
• Reading a lot more.. a lot more. Not just blogs but books too. Brandon Sanderson has become one of my new favorite authors.

The funny thing is – I've been so busy exploring that I haven't finished this blog post. Three weeks have went by since I first wrote this… and I've never looked at Facebook.