Making home a computer-free zone

The last week, I've been experimenting with not having a personal computer at home on weekdays. Instead, I've simply been leaving both my work and personal computer at the office. Now that I work a day job (and try to go to the gym afterwards), I find there's no real strong reason to be online after dinner and before bed.

I've found that I have definitely improved sleep over this period. There's obviously a gigantic body of evidence that electronic screens before bed will harm your sleep quality. Even ignoring issues like blue light and melatonin production, I've simply had more relaxing evenings. I'm not too worried about the crisis du jour -- if it's a legitimate crisis, someone on my staff will phone me. Everything else which isn't a crisis, can wait until the morning, when I find that I am more productive anyway these days.

The biggest difference though, is that I waste *way* less time browsing random garbage on the internet. If I choose to watch a TV show or movie (actual cable, Netflix, Youtube), I'll actually watch it with intent. Since I still have my phone and tablet at home, I'm still not fully out of the habit of checking work e-mail -- but because phones and tablets are still largely onerous to type with, I don't feel nearly as tempted to make sure I respond immediately to that e-mail.

Additionally, the computer is no longer the first thing I check when I wake up in the morning. For my entire adult life, I have habitually gone straight from the bed to the computer. Now in the morning, I take one lap around my apartment complex to gather my thoughts and think about what things I want to accomplish for the day. When I get back, not having a computer means I get ready for work far faster with no procrastination. (I'm writing this at 6:50am.) My overall time spent being productive is actually the same number of hours and minutes, but the productivity itself is way higher because when I am actually at the computer now, I have focused, specific tasks.

Anyway, this is a small thing, and far from groundbreaking, but it has helped me a lot and I will continue with this experiment for a little while.