One of my ongoing jokes is that the company I created (and killed last year) was called overkill Media, and not reasonable Media. This would explain why I do things the way I do them.

This is probably most obvious with my hobbies. I have a slight(?) obsessive behavior whenever there is something new that fascinates me.

This is both a boon and a bane.

For one, it helps me filter stuff that I don't care about. I basically live in a "Fuck yes or Fuck no" world. This does actually help me focus, because I also struggle to fake interest, so if there is something I'm at best lukewarm about I tend to ignore it. (This happens with people, too, sorry!)

But I tend to care about a whole bunch of seemingly unrelated things. I like knowing stuff for the sake of knowing them. And because I go deep whenever there is a fascination, I have this weird mix of skills and knowledge, which is helpful both in my private and professional life. I often get asked to help out or share my thoughts and I like doing that.

On the other hand, I can be a bit much. The most recent example is my newfound fascination for Dungeons & Dragons. After having played (only?) two sessions, and watching way too many YouTube videos, I decided to be a Dungeon Master, buy a couple of books, start working on a home-brewed campaign¹, start working on an official campaign, and force myself not to buy every miniature figurine I find online (or a 3D printer, I really want a 3D printer). My partner must be so happy that I keep pestering her every single day about anything new I learned about bards! (Jokes aside, she is supportive but I cannot get her to be a player in one of my campaigns.)

But obsessions like these also tend to lead to burnout. So far I have been lucky to mostly dance around it, but there have been some hobbies that I went all-in only to put them aside because I basically used everything up said hobby had to offer.

And since I have access to adult money, I own a bunch of stuff that I do not use anymore and struggle to get rid of. (For example, I want to sell my filming/movie gear, but Luxembourg has no such community. So if any Europeans are interested in any of this, hit me up!)

In theory, I should feel bad about this.

Every killed hobby looks like a failure from the outside.

But I realized that I don't care about the outside. Because I had fun every time. I learned something new every time. And because it is just the way I am wired. I am not about to sand off parts of my personality because I might feel bad about having lost a bit of money.

Sure, I wish I wouldn't be sitting on a bunch of stuff I don't need anymore. But for that I am doing an inventory this weekend, so the cliophate/overkill garage sale is coming soon.

When I embarked on this experiment with Manu, I told him in advance that there was no chance I would be able to get even remotely close to his Screen Time minutes.

In his post for the week, he himself explained why this is the case:

Now, one consideration about this first week: in order to push my phone usage this low, I had to move some of my normal phone usage over to my Mac, which is how I managed to basically never touch chat apps on my phone. I know this is pretty much cheating, but it was intentional and something I was planning to do only in this first week, and I will move that screen time back on my phone starting next week.

Manu is a freelance developer, I work in an office, and spend the majority of my time in meetings, talking to people, and if I have the chance working from my desk. So I'm basically reliant on my phone to get shit done in between.

Looking at my Screen Time throughout the week, I'd guess around 70% of my phone usage was spent in two apps: Beeper, and Discord. 15% was spent in Outlook and Teams. The remaining 15% were spent in the browser, my email client, my banking app, and a few other miscellaneous apps.

Some explanation is needed.

Why I used Beeper should be obvious, it's where I added all my messaging services, and how I stay in contact with my friends and family. Beeper is one of the only apps that is allowed to send me push notifications to my phone.

I use Discord as I am in one server with real-life friends from Germany. It's basically our chat group, so while Discord could be used as a time-waster, in this case I'd say it isn't.

Before the experiment started, I deleted all social media apps from my phone, and throughout the week only used the website versions of Instagram thrice, and on Bluesky twice. In the case of Instagram, I was doing some research, while for Bluesky I only checked my DM inbox, as I knew someone texted me. (Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I can add Bluesky DM to Beeper?) Although, I did catch myself looking at two stories on Instagram, before realizing what I was doing and closing the tab. The pull is still strong.

The other big chunk of usage was MS Teams and Outlook, Fastmail, and the browser. I'm considering deleting the Microsoft apps and Fastmail, however. I don't really need Outlook or Teams on my phone, because I don't need to deal with emergencies. I'd only ever need it to look at my calendar, but there are other ways to do that. As for Fastmail, I've realized that – since I don't get push notifications when a new mail comes in – I go and refresh my inboxes myself. And so, when in the past I opened Instagram to waste my time, this week I sometimes used Fastmail that way. And that is no bueno!

The only real time wasting app I have on my phone is Pokémon TCG Pocket. But somehow that app has no pull on me whatsoever. I only open it once every 12 hours or so, to open up my pack, and then I am done. Sometimes I do some single-player battles if there are some limited time cards, but to be fair, I just use the auto battler feature, and don't even look at my screen during these games. On most days, I barely have a minute in that game.

A little note on the lack of screenshots in this blog post. Somehow, my iOS tracking is broken or I managed to break the laws of physics. Just look for yourself:

All other days look similar, except today. Today, at the time of publishing, I have 1h03 minutes, of which most was spent, again in Beeper, the browser, and surprisingly Wikipedia.

Also, on Wednesday Screen Time somehow measured 3 hours I spent on my self-hosted gym app, between 4 and 7 am. I actively refuse to wake up before 7 am, so I have no clue what's going on with my phone. And I didn't even go to the gym that day.

It keeps creeping up on me.

I've realized I've been spending too much time again doing fuck-knows-what. Too much time on social media, too much time reading news, too much time reading emails, too much time listening to podcasts, too much time refreshing the same handful of apps over and over and over and over again. Basically, too much time dicking around.

This bothers me tremendously. It leads to this stupid toxic relationship with my phone.

No other device I use leads to this perception of wasted time. Not all of what I do on a phone is bad; it's my primary communication device, after all. But it's the in-between that annoys me so.

Manuel came up with a great analogy to explain this:

You know how it feels for me? You know when you're dealing with a faucet and you’re trying to find the right temperature and it’s cold, cold, cold, slightly warm and then you move the handle 1mm and it’s suddenly steaming hot? That’s the web for me right now. I can push it down to zero easily. But when I try to adjust it to the right temperature it’s blistering hot in no time.

I would have added that the water also tastes of chocolate. So we keep turning it to blistering temperatures, because it's so addictive.

But fuck that. I don't even like chocolate, so why do I do this?

So I made a deal with Manu.

For the next month, I will dial down all the teleporting to zero. I deleted all social media apps from my phone, as well as all apps with an infinite inbox (email, RSS feeds, Reddit). If it has pull to refresh, it's gone too (except the browser, but I may ask the dev of Quiche if there is a way to kill that feature).

Every Sunday, the two of us will post our screen time (with context) to our respective blogs.

There are a few things I want to do with the time I'm likely to get back.

I have the goal of reading one book more than last year (I read 53 books in 2025). I want to start sketching and drawing random things. There are a few topics I want to dig deeper into. I have this desire to create a campaign for my latest fascination, Dungeons and Dragons. And I want to write more, both here and on overkill.

We'll see where this leads.

All that said, if you want to reach me going forward, send me an email.

Update: I never explained where this term “teleporting” comes from. I stole it from Craig Mod. He wrote:

When I’m not talking, just walking (which is most of the time), I try to cultivate the most bored state of mind imaginable. A total void of stimulation beyond the immediate environment. My rules: No news, no social media, no podcasts, no music. No “teleporting,” you could say. The phone, the great teleportation device, the great murderer of boredom.

I started creating music playlists, and will probably do so every week until I get bored.

I'm starting a new experiment this month called Shutter September. Expect at least one picture a day for the whole month.