August short №1: Constraints

I’m technically on holiday, away from home, and my only way to access the Internet is by using mobile data on my iPhone, and my data plan is somewhat limited. As luck would have it, this place I’m writing from also has poor cellular coverage, so I get two signal bars on a good day. As a consequence, going online feels like a luxury, and I’m constantly aware that I’m consuming data for every little thing I do.

Still, I wanted to keep updating my blog when I can, though it’s unlikely I’ll have time and concentration for long-form articles. Hence, the idea of these August shorts.

The theme of this first short is Constraints and stems from my current situation. When I have to travel, and I know I won’t be able to leave my work behind, the first issue is to decide what to pack, especially if I’ll be travelling by plane. If you’re not an iPad-first or iPad-only user, and you have to rely on a Mac like I do, I believe there’s no better machine than the 11-inch MacBook Air. Unless, of course, what you do for work requires a more powerful computer.

While having to work on a non-retina, 11-inch display is not a problem for me, such reduced screen real estate can certainly feel like a constraint when it’s the only option to work with for several days. For someone like me, with a well-organised Mac-centric workflow, even working on a 11-inch machine is better than having to use just an iPad. A couple of years ago I made the mistake of bringing only the iPad with an external keyboard, and I ended up feeling positively stranded.

This time I’m travelling by car, and so I indulged in a little bit of ‘tech overpacking’. The 11-inch Air was not enough anyway, and I had to bring the retina 13-inch MacBook Pro as well. The second constraint has been my working location inside the house — the only place where I can comfortably work is in the kitchen, and there are practically no available wall sockets. Fortunately, both laptops still have decent batteries, so I alternate between the two, and when I’m using one, the other is upstairs, recharging.

The third constraint is relying on the iPhone’s personal hotspot for the Internet connection, and sharing the connection this way for extended periods of time drains the iPhone’s battery pretty quickly. So I keep it connected to a battery pack. This in turn means that I had to bring the battery pack, the cable to connect the iPhone to it, a different USB cable to charge the battery pack, and another charger.

The fourth constraint is what I mentioned at the beginning: my cellular data plan only allows me a few gigabytes at high speeds per month, so I have to keep a careful eye on what I’m doing once online. Work has precedence, naturally, but suddenly every other leisure activity feels wasteful. YouTube videos that are longer than 5–7 minutes become ‘too long; didn’t watch’ (and you start noticing just how many creators seemingly can’t produce videos shorter than 10–15 minutes). Sharing photos becomes an exercise in thoughtful selection. And so on.

As I mentioned on Twitter a few days ago, in a way this whole routine (ending up connecting to the Internet a couple of times in a day, being extra aware of the amount of data I consume for every session, etc.) feels like 1998 again for me, when I used to be on dialup connection, and you went online rather than being online all the time. Back then the constraints were connection speed and cost of the service, but the ‘online’ dimension was still felt as something separate from the ‘offline’ life — a place to go, explore, and return. Not a 24/7 overlay, staying with you wherever you go.

All these constraints have an interesting upside, though: focus. Since I have to make the most of when and for how long I can connect, I can’t afford being unfocused and unproductive. It becomes a sort of mindful self-discipline that works really well, making me more efficient and essentially productive on demand. It’s something I wish I could replicate once back to my headquarters, but it’s hard to follow this kind of ‘diet’ once you’re re-injected into the Matrix.