Hard to believe, but it has been four whole days since I last thought about interacting with social media. What is even harder to believe is that I consider this any kind of accomplishment. It’s also not strictly true; I have been on micro.blog to grab some images and download my blog export, but I have spent the time saved running another half-marathon and learning more front-end skills.

Already about a third into my online front-end developer course, I’ve learned a lot in two weeks. It was supposed to take me about 9 weeks to get here, but it’s wonderful how much time you save by not scrolling! It also helps that I knew a lot of the basics and could pass some lab parts without even watching the lectures beforehand. As a way of reinforcing the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript skills being taught, I have moved my blog (twice, in fact).

My other domain at gregmorris.co.uk used to host my old Ghost photo blog, but now it is mostly a copy of gr36.com — with all the micro.blog things removed. It is currently built using 11ty, but it did briefly use Gatsby. The course I am doing is heavily focused on JS, and specifically React, so Gatsby was my first choice. However, the templating and build times put me off right away. I saved around 2 minutes just by switching to 11ty!

This isn’t me rage-quitting micro.blog after moaning about the lack of muting, but it’s not far off. I will continue to publish in both places until I decide on what to do. I need to reassess where I want to spend my time, and the effect that this election year could have on my life. It’s already creeping into my RSS and podcast feeds; I just don’t want to see it where I hang out. Anyway, that’s what I’ve been up to — enjoying the silence and learning new things.