As some of you might have noticed the last couple of days, I haven't been online much on IM networks. I'm not sure what originally kept me from launching Adium the other day, but along the way I've come to a realization.

The Problem

I realized that IM has been taking up way too much of my time, and constantly distracting me from both work and personal matters. You just can't hide from the tsunami of Growl notifications, bouncing and flashing Dock icons, plinging sounds, and more that almost all IM clients spew out in one form or another whenever you receive a message.

A friend of mine gave up on IM networks almost a year ago, for pretty much same reasons. — Yes, I'm linking to Sugarenia again. She always seems to have the same opinions as me, just days/months before me. Dammit!

The Solution

Unfortunately I couldn't bring myself to completely disconnect from IM networks, so I took a slightly different approach than Sugarenia. I've gone out of my way to make sure my IM client — Adium of course — doesn't notify me via Growl, Dock icon, sound, telepathy, or even alien abduction. This means, I'm online, I can chat, but unless I manually switch to the space/virtual-desktop where my IM client sets up camp, I don't even know if I have any new messages.

After a couple of days, I have to say it's a quite nice change. I only get distracted when I choose to check if there are any IM messages to respond to.

So now you know why it might take me 8 hours to respond to a chat message. I simply didn't want to check for new messages, or I completely forgot cause I was hopefully working along all excited on my next attempt at building an awesome online service which will hopefully pay my rent, and maybe even food.