862: Let Go
| Let Go |
 Title text: After years of trying various methods, I broke this habit by pitting my impatience against my laziness. I decoupled the action and the neurological reward by setting up a simple 30-second delay I had to wait through, in which I couldn't do anything else, before any new page or chat client would load (and only allowed one to run at once). The urge to check all those sites magically vanished--and my 'productive' computer use was unaffected. |
[edit] Explanation
In this comic, the image text is a serious solution to a procrastination problem that we see in the comic.
The first two frames in this comic are the set-up. Both contain webpages CNN.com and reddit.com and thoughts over the top of them. In the 3rd frame, it starts to look a little different as the screen is not a computer but is in fact the targeting computer from Luke Skywalker's X-wing. But, before shutting down, he considers checking Facebook.
In the fourth frame, we finally get the movie reference from Star Wars as Princess Leia and one of the Rebel Alliance's generals are gathered around the holographic table that allows them to follow the battle. In the movie, Luke turns off his targeting computer because he uses the Force to fire the torpedoes at the right time. In the comic, Luke turns off the computer because he keeps getting distracted by Reddit and CNN. There is the joke in the comic.
[edit] Transcript
- [Reddit page]
- Luke (thinking): I shouldn't be looking at Reddit. Why can't I stop?
- [CNN page]
- Luke (thinking): Refreshing CNN again. Do news stories so affect my life that I benefit from checking them more than once a day?
- [Shutdown screen]
- Luke (thinking): I should at least check Faceb... no. Screw it. I can't do my job when I'm distracting myself every five minutes like this.
- [Two people before a battlefield screen]
- Cueball: His computer's off. Luke - You've switched off your targeting computer. What's wrong?
- Luke: Nothing. I'm all right.
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