There is no such thing as a unitasking device any more. The computer I’m writing this on is my home stereo, my home theater, a video game console, and a gateway to the most intense legal K-hole you can get without a prescription. (Damn you TV Tropes!) If you’ve ever sat down at your machine with the full intention of getting down to work, only to emerge a couple of hours later, with no work done and no recollection of how you spent your time… you are not alone. I’ve done it twice, today. See, I’m figuring all this stuff out too.

One secret weapon I have, however, is that I’m tracking everything I do at my computer. When I need to figure out exactly what I’ve been wasting my time on, I can dive into RescueTime and get a sense of my day. I even have Rescue Time set to send me a summary of what I did during the week, every Sunday, so I don’t even have to log in to find out what I’ve been up to. There are other solutions as well—many time tracking apps will do the same thing, so you can see if you’ve spent your day in Photoshop or on Pinterest. RescueTime has the benefit of being cross-platform, and being free (with a paid upgrade option that I don’t use.)

A not that great week in RescueTime

There’s no RescueTime for iOS for obvious reasons, but in iOS 8, Apple added a section to the Battery settings page to show what apps have used the most of your device’s battery. This gave a general overview of what apps you might be using most, but In iOS 9, they added a clock button which shows, to the minute, how long each app you use has been on-screen. It’s not as detailed of a report as RescueTime, but it’s helpful. Long story short, I’m spending way too much time refreshing Tweetbot these days…

I think Me and Threes need time apart

Here is the thought technology, to borrow another Merlin Mann-ism. Set up a tracking app, and then just let it run. Go about your standard computing life for a whole week, without even thinking about the little cross icon in your menu bar watching your every move. (If you hide your menu bar, like I do, it’s a lot easier.) Once that week is up, take a look at the data and start identifying the patterns. It’s up to you what to do with the data, but without a clear picture of what your behavior is, how will you know what to change?

When trying to change a habit, a lot of us have a tendency to just throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks. We also have a tendency to try to change a million behaviors at once—Well, maybe just a dozen, but the point remains. Having hard data on how we’re spending our time on our devices each day gives us something concrete we can use to take action. A proven, effective way to change a habit is to identify the cue, and then change the behavior. Adding your technology usage gives you insight into that.

But data alone doesn’t give you the full picture. Maybe you’re one of those increasingly common people whose job is to constantly check Twitter, live in your email inbox, or tear through RSS feeds all day. Don’t laugh—I had a job that required all three. Even my most recent job had chunks of the day that involved me waiting for Gmail to refresh with my latest assignment. Email wasn’t keeping me from getting my work done, email was my work.

Also, knowing what we waste our time on doesn’t identify the reason. There’s a whole psychology of procrastination that’s way out of scope for this essay, but sometimes our distractions have a root cause that isn’t actually technological in nature. While you’re going through the reams of data you’ve created in your week of private espionage, try to keep in mind all the things you were intending to do, and why you ended up not going them. That will give you insight into how to solve the real problem instead of unplugging the modem twice a day when you need to get down to work.

If there’s one complaint I hear most about our lives these days, it’s that technology is everywhere, and it’s driving us nuts. We’re distracted, we’re frustrated, we’re annoyed, we’re angry, we’re overloaded. We carry our jobs home in our pockets, out of the office and to our dining tables and bedsides. We read and write think pieces on leaving Social Media for a week, like it was a habit akin to eating raw chicken. I’m no stranger to the feeling, myself. Or the thinkpieces.

Worse yet, many of the technology tools we use each day are deliberately engineered to maximize habits and routines that keep us coming back for yet another dopamine hit. Social media is the biggest culprit here, but there’s so much more. For example, some email clients are set, out of the box, to notify you about new messages every five minutes. That’s 24,000 times per year. That’s insane. How are you supposed to get anything done with things popping up and buzzing and generally driving you nuts every five minutes? That is, five minutes, if you’re lucky.

But here’s the thing. Many of the same technologies and tools that drive us to distraction can also be used to give us more focus on what we’re doing. We just have to use them the right way. We need to use them mindfully.

Mindfulness is a word that means many things. It’s often used in the context of mindfulness meditation, but that is not what I’m going on about. If you want to get into that side of mindfulness, you could do far worse than by checking out Patrick Rhone’s book Mindfulness for Mere Mortals. That said, in many ways the practice of mindfulness meditation is relevant in how it strengthens the parts of our mind that keep us on task—even when that task is to have no task at all to focus on. It’s hard to do that when the siren call of some annoying social app is gnawing at your brainstem like some angry pathogen.

The idea of mindfulness, is to enable us to be present and focused on what’s going on now, and our technology doesn’t have to be an enemy of this. In the coming days, I’ll be writing about some ways in which we can use technology to do just that. We don’t necessarily need new apps or hardware to keep us on task. No distraction-free writing environment, or $500 cloud-connected word processor will get you to make the clackity noise. Instead, you can use the tools you have to keep you making the clackity noise, whether you’re doing it with a distraction-free writing environment, or just Microsoft Word.

There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit we can grab to make our technology more of an aid to mindfulness, not an enemy of it. The first thing you can do is turn off notifications on your devices, except for those that will be truly urgent. I’ve written before about this topic, but there’s another benefit to cutting down the number of notifications you get thrown in your face. In environments where people are subject to a large number of alarms and alerts, there’s a problem known as “Alarm fatigue”, wherein the sheer volume of alerts desensitizes people. It happens a lot in hospitals, but it can happen to anyone.

For example, I use an app called Due to remind me of various time-sensitive tasks. This could be anything from my monthly phone call to Mom and Dad, or just taking the eye drops my optometrist told me to use so I can sit in front of glowing rectangles all day. One of the great things about Due is that it will keep bugging you to do something you’ve asked it to remind you to, and on a schedule you set. This is powerful stuff, but has potential to get overwhelming, fast.

A while ago, I hit a point where alerts and alarms would occur so often, and at such inopportune times, that I would start dismissing them out of hand, and not actually doing what I wanted to be reminded of. By stripping down the number of notifications I get, and the degree to which Due continues to buzz my wrist if I miss a reminder, I’ve brought that back under control.

And sometimes you’ll want to stop all the interruptions. Fortunately, our chattering and buzzing devices come with tools for that too: “Do Not Disturb” mode. This setting on devices turns off all notifications, with the potential exception of alarm clocks and timers. On top of that, if distraction is a problem, you can always choose to disable the Internet connection, either through Airplane Mode, or just pulling the Ethernet cable out of the Wi-Fi router. (Don’t try this at the coffee shop, though.) If it gets truly desperate, you can always just turn the damn thing off and sit down with a pencil and some paper.

None of these are new ideas, but I’m surprised at how few of the people I see online bemoaning the annoyances and interruptions of their tech lifestyles think to try them. The biggest thing any of us can do when trying to use tech more mindfully is to spend a little time just thinking about how we use it, and what small changes we can make.

It only takes one moment, one action, to start changing an ingrained technology habit. A huge part of mindfulness is learning how to step away and reset your focus. It’s a big idea, but even a big idea can be started by a small action. Once you get the technology to work for you, and not against you, you’re already on your way.

Next time, I’ll talk about how you can get a picture of how you’re using your technology. You might be surprised what you’re really doing each day.

Every so often, a new app, or a new release of an app, comes out with a premium price point compared to others in its niche and certain people can’t help but roll their eyes and make snarky tweets about it. Stuff along the lines of “Oh, boy, yet another expensive text editor I can use to write reviews of expensive text editors,” or “A $25 text editor isn’t going to write your novel for you,” or whatever else you want to come up with. Most of them are variations of those two themes.

And, look, I’m a semi-reformed iOS text editor addict. I understand, but I’m trying not to be snarky about people’s app choices these days. Besides, the ultimate snarky text editor post is five years old, and nobody’s topped it. There’s no point in me sniping at someone’s decision to blow the price of a decent meal at a reasonably priced restaurant on an app if they think it’s the right choice for them. You can write a novel with ed if you want. I sure wouldn’t want to do it.

Outside of professional app reviewers, people don’t just throw down for software on iOS unless they have a reason. There’s plenty of valid reasons to throw down for Ulysses 2.5. If you’re using it on the Mac, for example, or it has features that you find useful. A friend in a Slack team I hang out in was considering it just so he could use it to export writing to ePub. He decided to go with Editorial and a workflow to convert Markdown to a ton of formats. Personally, I’m happy with Byword for my writing needs. Everyone has different priorities, different needs, and different price points they’re willing to pay, and that’s fine.

No, a fancy text editor is not going to be the catalyst for breaking through all your distractions and getting you to write the Great $nationality Novel, or even just a blog post. Neither is buying a bunch of fancy pocket notebooks in pretty colors, for that matter. And, you know what? I don’t think anyone really thinks that it will be. If someone comes to you asking for advice on what iOS writing app they should get with the $25 iTunes Gift Card they got at the quarterly Office Happy Hour raffle, then by all means, point them at the app you prefer for whatever reason. If they choose to buy that $25 app, then what does it matter, as long as they’re writing?

“I’ve come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:
1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
2. Anything that’s invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.
3. Anything invented after you’re thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”

— Douglas Adams

There’s a difference, as I noted a few years ago, between skeptics and naysayers. It’s okay to be skeptical of something new and unproven. History is littered with the corpses of the next big thing in technology that never made it: Pneumatic trains, steam-powered cars, Multimedia CD-ROMs, WebTV, Google Glass… Then, there’s the corpses of the first attempts, where the idea was sound, but the execution was not: LaserDIscs, the Apple Newton, and various attempts at Virtual Reality.

That last one is one I’m still skeptical about. I can see practical use cases for it in niche and professional areas, much like I can for augmented reality, like Microsoft’s HoloLens, or even Google Glass. In the consumer space, though, I can’t see VR catching beyond video games. What advantage does would perfectly smooth, nausea-free, lag-free VR have for the applications most people do outside of entertainment? [1] Nobody has been able to give me a compelling answer for this, so I retain my skepticism that VR will ever catch on in the home outside of hardcore gamers.

Does my stance on VR tip me over towards the naysayer side? I don’t know. Recently in a few podcasts, Merlin Mann brought up a Twitter account called Pessimist’s Archive, which collects negative and pessimistic reactions to tech from across history. The posts comparing hoverboards to bicycles are spot on, as is the related Medium post. [2] What game changing, ground breaking technology am I being pessimistic about that I don’t even realize yet? And how can I push back. I was pessimistic on smart watches for ages until I decided to put my money where my wrist is with a $99 Pebble. Now I wear an Apple Watch almost 24/7—and love it.

The biggest obstacle to technological skepticism is the cost of trying something new—and I’m talking money. Let’s go back to Virtual Reality again. The Oculus Rift, which is the state of the art in consumer VR hardware, is $600, plus the cost of a compatable PC—which starts at $950 according to the Oculus website. The Samsung Gear VR is $99, but requires a Samsung Galaxy S6, S7, or Note 5 smartphone. You can get the S6 for $150 with contract, so $250 for a full-featured VR package. I’ve tried the Gear VR, and was moderately impressed with how lag-free the experience was, especially compared to playing Duke Nukem 3D in VR back in the mid–90s. Sadly, the Gear VR is not optimized for wearing over glasses, and certainly not for people with amblyopia, like me. Finally, there’s Google Cardboard, I suppose, which you can use with any smartphone that runs the app. I haven’t tried this, mostly because I’m terrible with a pair of scissors.

Even if you can have a VR experience for the price of a pair of scissors and some old cardboard boxes, is that going to be enough to convince people that this is a technology they need in their lives? Let’s move up the cost stack to smart phones. Smartphones at least hit a point in the technological adoption curve where quality and price allow almost everyone to afford a decent one—even subsistence farmers in Myanmar. They also have a killer app that’s attractive to almost anyone: the Internet (or at least Facebook) in your pocket. And you can get one for free, with a contract. Smartphone prices have gotten to the point where I’m giving serious thought to buying a Moto E, just so I can experiment with Android for a while and not be tied to a year-long contract with my phone company.

Money may not be a factor for exploring some new technologies, but time is. When you use your technology to get things done, switching things up for the sake of just trying something else is a hard sell. I’m approaching the age where in Douglas Adams’s rule number three will apply, and I’m already starting to feel all I want is something to bloody work, damn it, without any of you fancy young people smart, Internet of Things crap. (See also: my continued negative stance towards streaming music.) Asking people to upend what works for something new and unproven is a big ask. Some of us want to approach the future at our own speed, even if that speed is as close to zero as makes no odds.

But we should still try to push back against our skepticism whenever possible. Whether it’s by research, or by experience, it’s the skeptic’s job to at least entertain the possibility of something being awesome, or at least useful. Part of why I keep my feet in the wading pool that is technology writing is because I am interested in what cool, powerful tools are coming my way. I’m interested in how I can do better work, learn new things, and make the world better. Supposedly, Archimedes said “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.” I don’t think he’d scoff at the new-fangled, Internet-Connected Smart Levers the kids are using these days, but what do I know?

I recently had a discussion with Zac Cichy on the benefits of third-party Twitter clients. It was enlightening, since it became apparent that both of us use Twitter in very different ways. One reason why I use Tweetbot and Nuzzel for Twitter is because I want two different Twitter experiences: a social experience, and an informational experience—and I want them separated. Zac wants a combined experience that surfaces the best content. I don’t trust Twitter to do that right, and prefer to miss out rather than get irrelevant info. Then again, I don’t trust anyone to get that right.

That there’s no one way to use Twitter is the core of Twitter’s problem, and also the solution. In a world where Facebook dominates social with a one-size-fits-all platform, a flexible and extensible platform is a harder sell to investors. If Twitter decides to embrace it instead of becoming more like Facebook, however, it will completely upend the way we do social media. Imagine, if you will, a Twitter that worked like plumbing to a robust ecosystem of apps that slice and dice your feed into useful information. Twitter could be the back-end to a news aggregation service, a chat room, a way to share media, and more all depending on the apps you hook into it.

If this sounds a bit like the App.Net elevator pitch, you’re right. App.Net, though roundly viewed as a Twitter clone with an entry fee and longer posts, was supposed to be a platform for social apps. This didn’t work, and it was largely because the public image of App.Net ended up myopically tied to the paid Twitter clone part. The rest was because the interesting apps to leverage the network never really materialized. Just look at the App.Net Directory. I recall a Foursquare clone, an Instagram clone, a notes app, a file sharing app, and several Twitter-like clients, but all were hampered by ADN’s poor reach. Fortunately, if there’s one thing Twitter has, it’s reach. Twitter is where stuff happens, where people communicate—even if those people are often celebrities or presidential candidates.

To make this work, Twitter needs to rethink the basic experience of the platform, though it won’t be all that dramatic of a rethink. The current, out-of-the-box, Twitter experience sucks. It sucks for new users, it sucks for power users, and it sucks in a lot of the same ways for both. For new users, Twitter is confusing. Not just in terms of terminology, but in how to get the most value out of it. They’re the ones who would benefit most from a robust app ecosystem. If a new Twitter user wants news, peeks into celebrity lives, or just to gossip with friends. Power users need a more flexible platform and APIs to both make the apps and use their feed in better ways.

Twitter’s first-party web and mobile apps need to become gateways to different ways to get more out of Twitter. They could cram all of these ideas into the main app, in much the same way they’ve crammed Moments in, but that doesn’t solve the problem. Instead, Twitter should focus on four core apps, and let third-party developers do the rest. Those apps are:

Timeline

This is the existing Twitter app: a straight chronological firehose of tweets, possibly with optional algorithmic surfacing of content you missed. The focus of Timeline is on the “core” Twitter functionality of Follow, Post, Share, and Favorite. Timeline would also serve as the gateway to Twitter’s other app offerings, first- and third-party alike. If a user starts following news sites, push Twitter News as a way to get more and better news. Did they import their Facebook friends? Twitter Chat.

Twitter Chat

Why this doesn’t exist yet, I simply cannot imagine. If there is one app Twitter desperately needs to make, it’s a private messaging app. Twitter’s Direct Messaging feature is one of its strongest assets, and they recently rolled out group messaging. A chat app would also give people who are worried about posting publicly a way to use Twitter socially without the risk of being mobbed. Chats could also have the option to be semi-private, allowing for jump ons, while keeping it segregated from the main timeline.

Twitter News

A lot of people use Twitter for news, so Twitter should have a content consumption app with a focus on links and media. (Pro Tip: if a Twitter executive is reading this, buy Nuzzel and you’re halfway there.) Twitter News would both surface links of interest shared in your timeline, by friends of friends (another Nuzzel feature), or from curated lists based on topics. Users can either follow those curated lists, or build their own based on news services they prefer.

Twitter Video

Somewhere between Vine and Periscope, Twitter Video would let you post, share, and stream video. A similar app might be good for photos, but Instagram has that market locked up. I won’t say Twitter shouldn’t try, but I think they have a better shot at Video, building on the success of Vine and Periscope. Twitter Video can also feed into Twitter News to aid in citizen journalism: a user can go from a live, amateur stream of an event, to Twitter News for the official story, and back.

Beyond

Third-party developers could pick up from here, though as long as we’re entertaining fancy, I would love a Twitter Music app. (Yes, they had one before, but it sucked.) A good Twitter Music app would let me follow the bands and musicians I adore, and keep me up to date with upcoming shows, new releases, and general band gossip. You know, like Apple Music Connect, except not terrible.

Another useful idea: Twitter Local—aggregating local Tweets and trends so you can see what’s going on nearby. Something I miss, dearly, from the early days of Twitter, was being able to see who near me was tweeting, especially if something was going on in my neighborhood, like cops swarming an intersection. How about CelebriTwitter: an app just for following celebrities? A Twitter dating app? A Twitter app for finding out what events are going on nearby? With a robust API and enough exposed data—most of which already exists, the possibilities are almost limitless, and it might not even be all that hard to monetize it.

These ideas alone won’t make Twitter not suck. There’s no shortage of low-hanging fruit Twitter can knock off to improve the existing experience. Hell, I’d probably switch from Tweetbot to the official Twitter client in two heartbeats if they just provided a goddamn Edit button for when I make a stupid typo in a Tweet. Twitter needs to embrace the fundamental flexibility of its platform. It’ll be a much harder sell to investors than simply copying Facebook, but the potential payoff could be huge.