I'm not going to use my laptop for a month as a law student
I'm posting this here in a way to make myself accountable. This is obviously arbitrary, but somehow stating my intentions out loud help me with discipline and motivation.
It's a completely self-imposed limitation that I'm creating deliberately for a number of specific reasons. It's not something that I (probably) will continue with if I succeed, but it's something that can teach me a couple of things.
And finally, I'm giving myself some time for preparations to start the new month clean and ready.
Why am I Doing this?
1
I'm a terrible procrastinator. I'm just going to say that it's bad. But what I've found to be an effective weapon against it is locking myself in a place where I can only work, typically in a library. It has a certain work schedule, and so I'll be tied to it if I have to get any assignments done.
2
I'm growing more and more shameful and tired of my reliance on AI. I still use it mostly for research, but I feel like I'm missing out on deliberation and focus -- two essential qualities of good routine, whether you're an artist or a career-professional. Gaining knowledge and skill should be an uphill battle, it should be a grounding experience of practice and effort, not of relying on an external tool, especially one so technically imperfect and ethically questionable.
3
The physicality of my work would make it much more valuable to me. Wendell Berry wrote about how the physical nature of writing on a piece of paper makes it an artifact, creates an aura (in a sense that Benjamin discussed) around it. I'm not isolating myself to handwritten notes only -- I do leave room for prints, but still those prints will have their own space in the world, contrary to a text file on a hard drive or in the "cloud" (some other company's hard drive). Files can be manipulated, deleted, copied and pasted; printed text remains as is.
4
Finally, it would help me to separate personal projects and leisure with school work. When I open my laptop, it's for anything that is not associated with university. It is for this blog, it is for taking notes on books I read, it is for watching movies. There would be no procrastinator's guilt (or so I hope).
The Rules
After laying out the "why", I will specify the rules:
- I am not to take my laptop to university.
- I am not to use my laptop to write notes on class during lectures or assignments at home.
- If I need to have a text on me present at class, I am either to obtain a physical copy or to print out the relevant parts.
- University-adjacent tasks like scheduling and task management take place in my physical notebook.
- I am to write notes during lectures with pen and paper.