I’m at the stage at the moment where I actually feel like any spare time I have at home at a desk or in front of my phone could be used productively, and could actually get me ahead in the short, medium or long term. Whether it’s doing something extra at work to improve a system, reading a book, changing internet provider to get a discount, practicing an existing skill or building a tiny, basic project, I could do something with each 30 minute block that could actually benefit me.

A lot of the time though, the time I spend online does not get me ahead in either a personal or work capacity. It also often actually ends up not being that fun.

One dark trait that I have is that I read posts online (mainly X/Twitter at the moment) that fall into the following categories:

• They’re written by someone fear-baiting about the state of something I am interested and invested in, like software development (e.g. “AI is coming for our jobs, everyone is in trouble, follow these steps to stay safe”)
• They’re claiming that the job market in IT is really tight and that you need X, Y, Z skills and decades of experience to get a job, which is also a kind of fear-baiting and aims to demotivate people, but also to build engagement
• They’re written by someone that is showing off about something in an annoying way
• They’re written by someone really similar to me, whether that be from where they are from or where they live now or what they do or what they used to do, and the post makes me feel less unique and less secure

When I read these I feel a sense of competition and jealousy that actually doesn’t motivate me, it saps my motivation and makes me start to question whether trying is worth it.

Look – I know this is bad. I also know that the reality is that I am doing pretty well. I have a solid background in life so far – I:

• Did really well in my previous career as a police officer, becoming one of the quickest promoted to a senior rank, and I received multiple awards
• Totally transitioned my career from this to software development in the matter of a few years, fixed lots of problems, written some quality code, and been promoted pretty quickly
• Learned a whole range of new skills in both careers and in my personal life, and I have worked with heaps of really skilled people
• Built a great personal life that I am really happy with after moving across the ditch

But I still consistently end up feeling behind and demotivated by these posts and often subject myself to them.

I was talking to my cousin about this habit and I put a lot of the problem that this behaviour presents in the following way.

When I am reading these posts and feeling these ways I am in observer mode.

My theory here is that for those of us who spend a decent amount of time online, we can spend it being an observer – running around like a distracted puppy from thing to thing, not gaining anything, or as a participant – learning new things and even contributing to the community.

I had a think about the actual actions the person in each mode does, and came up with the below:

The observer:

• Spends a substantial amount of time online in ways that do not get them ahead:
  • Scrolling mindlessly
  • Scanning information
  • Reading fear-bait
  • Watching videos
• Gets a false sense of reward from the time spent – their mind gives them the same feeling of reward from having engaged with information – you feel smarter reading about the latest architectural pattern, but you don’t actually learn how to implement it
• Has surface level understanding of concepts – they’ve “heard of” a framework but don’t actually know any detail after the interaction
• Knows there is a lot going on in the world, but wants to know a tiny bit about everything, and ends up not remembering anything
• Gets triggered and jealous by the success of others, without taking action of their own towards any specific personal goal

The participant, on the other hand:

• Is focused with their time online – they know how different content affects them, and they prioritise the content that meets their own needs. They mute the fear-bait and instead seek curated lists of people in their industry that have good information that is easy to read
• Knows there is a lot going on in the world, but decides to focus on a few things in depth in life and to excel at them, despite the distractions
• Contributes or considers contributing their own content
• Prioritises their own creation of things, no matter how basic. It is through the friction of actually building your own project that you learn what problems come up and how to tackle them. And how to actually get something live
• Actually learns things for themselves, rather than just “hearing about” lots of things. There is heaps of information online. People use this as an excuse to not need to learn anything (“I will just Google it when I need it”) but I think this is flawed. The reality is that the more knowledge you actually have in your head, the better you will be able to use it to form working rules in your own mind, which you will use to make better decisions. You do not actually have time to Google everything, and you probably won’t Google what you actually wish you had.

Nobody is perfect and I definitely spend way too much time as an observer. I am going to spend some time shortly following my own advice above and optimising the content that I read or engage with online. Because it does actually end up being a decent amount of time, so it makes sense that we should spend it in ways that get us ahead.