Mastodon

My tried and true way of sticking with things

Posted by Matt Birchler
β€” 1 min read

I used to change the monospaced font I use everywhere on my Mac constantly. New ones seem to come out every few months, and I was a moth to a flame with them, but I haven't changed the monospaced font I use on my Mac in a couple years now. Why? I spent just shy of $100 on MonoLisa and now I'd feel guilty for ever not using it.

This also applies to music for me. Show me a random album on Apple Music and if it doesn't draw me in immediately, I'm out. But if I bought an album, either physically or digitally, I'm more like to give that album a little time to dig its hooks into me. hell, buying some record on vinyl has even made me appreciate songs I would normally skip on other mediums more since the friction of skipping a song on a record is so much higher (friction isn't always bad).

It applies to newsletters and websites as well. I read every single issue of Platformer and most of my news from the New York Times because I pay for them.

Now I fully acknowledge that this only scales so far and it's not always the right solution, but for me I've found it kind of amazing how spending even a little money on one thing can get me to stop bouncing around and focus on one thing.