The week I stopped reading the timeline
What I did instead, and which inputs I actually missed.
In early March I removed the timeline app from my home screen, on three devices, for a full week. No replacement. No filtered feed. No daily digest.
What I did instead#
I read longer pieces, not better ones. I shipped two small things that had been sitting in draft. I wrote one of these posts. I went to bed forty minutes earlier on average — not because I planned to, but because I had nothing to scroll into the night with.
I also got bored, which is the part I had forgotten about.
What I missed#
A few specific things, all of which someone DM'd me about within forty-eight hours. One funding round in a company I care about. One release note from a tool I use. The cultural moments — the meme, the discourse — passed me by entirely, and I noticed they had passed me by without being able to tell what they had been.
The cost of missing them was zero. The benefit of catching them in real time, when I had been catching them, was also approximately zero. They were just texture.
What I am doing now#
I check the timeline twice on weekdays. Morning coffee and right before dinner. Not as a discipline, more as a default. The default holds without effort because I no longer expect anything specific to be there.