Freedom (the software)

While I am not one of those who decry our multi-tasking lifestyle - or wait, yes, actually, I am one of those guys: screw our multi-tasking lifestyle - but I guess I decry it from the inside, I decry it while saying that I'm decrying it on Facebook and on Twitter. You know the drill. But I come from a time, of course, when long three hour blocks of focused attention were the norm. I read some pretty darn confusing books in college, for instance, and needed a good long quiet time to understand them even the littlest bit.

Fast-forward to now and I am designer/liberal arts fru-fru learning my first programming language. (More on this later.) As it turns out, reading books about Ruby is also darn confusing, and to understand them, I need a good long quiet time to focus on reading and thinking.

AND SO: just as an alcoholic will pour his booze down the drain in a moment of dramatic clarity and willpower, I have started using Freedom on my computer.

Freedom is a very simple and very dramatic piece of software - it disables the Network capabilities on your Mac for the amount of time you specify and it does not let you back on no matter what you freaking junkie. You launch it, and it asks:

And that's it. For however long you specify, you are in that room with nothing else to do except read the damn book. Which I am just about to go do. Right now. Just as soon as I stop blogging and start up Freedom.

WHICH IS TO SAY: Your chains will set you free.