note #personal #field notes

Analog Hour

Why I’m spending one hour a week without AI, search engines, or digital shortcuts to rebuild focus and independent thinking.

Jun 19, 2026 Updated Jul 27, 2026

An iPhone face-down on grass with a yellow sticky note on its back, hand-lettered "Analog Hour" above a drawn clock face circled by the words "don't look it up".

I can’t stop consulting AI for everything

AI changed my life.

Lately, I’ve noticed how instinctively I reach for it instead of thinking through something on my own.

AI is a tool, not a crutch.

I say this a lot in my classrooms, so this is me committing to it since I’m noticing I lean on it a little too much.

Some signs of my over-reliance:

Asking AI before I sit with a question for even a second
Getting agitated when I don’t get an immediate response or answer
Affecting how I’m enjoying activities sans-AI

Analog Hour !

One hour a week with no AI, where I sit with my thoughts or work on an activity.

I chose ‘Analog’ as my theme to remind and encourage me to pursue things that aren’t digitally tied to modern devices. It’s not a hard rule for now, just something to be mindful of.

Ideas for my analog behavior:

Moving
Cleaning
Meditating
Drawing
Reading
Writing

The goal is to struggle a little.

There’s probably a scientific phenomenon for it. I’m choosing not to look it up.

I thought about naming this practice ‘struggle hour’ but that sounded a little negative.

AI isn’t bad or negative, I saw some signals I wasn’t coping well or having a healthy relationship with this tech.

In response, I treat my Analog Hour practice as self-regulation.

Thinking one hour during the weekend, perhaps Saturday. One hour, if I get stuck, I’ll stay stuck. Analog Hour is leaving a little room for boredom, uncertainty, and allowing ideas to take their time to arrive.

We’ll see what comes from it.

Day 1

19 June 2026, Friday

Almost made it to an hour, I set a timer for an hour. I drew.

So much for no digital screens lol.

An iPad resting on a lap, its screen showing a character drawn as inverted neon line work: glowing blue, yellow, and red outlines of a horned figure with long hair, holding a staff and a hanging lantern against a dark canvas. — I call this piece: ‘Trust the Process’

The sketch, which is generous term for it, is how I far I got during my Analog Hour.

Below is the final result.

A finished digital painting of a horned, red-skinned tiefling with long dark hair and a tail, wearing flowing gold-and-white robes. She holds a glowing celestial staff in one hand and a star-speckled purple censer hanging from a ring in the other, haloed by a pale full moon. — She's one of the DnD NPC characters of the campaign I'm playing.

I didn’t make it a full hour, I got really antsy and kept checking my phone, but I got really close. Around 53 minutes.

Day 2

26 June 2026, Friday

I fell asleep lol. But I did some writing. I just dumped all my thoughts onto my notepad and gave permission to myself not to action or react to it. Just observing, letting go and creating space in my brain.

Xue reclined in a blue armchair by a window, tucked under a chunky cream-and-mint blanket with an open notebook and pen resting in my lap, eyes down and relaxed. A goldendoodle stands in the foreground. — This was cozy, there were birds chirping outside and I was gazing at a tree

I made it the full hour, but I noticed I kept trying to record every single thought. I started writing slower and just enjoyed the practice of penmanship.

I love Pilot G2 pens, it’s been with me through every stage of life.

Day 3

3 July 2026, Friday

This week, I decided to read.

I’ve been working through the topic of Nutrition. The last few weeks, I’ve been pursuing a better understanding on the fundamentals of nutrition.

Human Nutrition by the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa is the textbook I’m using. I believe it started as an OpenStax textbook. If you’re familiar with Open Source software, it’s similar but books. Therefore, I read this for free.

Xue lying in bed, half-tucked under a white duvet with cheek on the pillow, holding a phone close to my face in the dark. — Scrolling to read a text book for Analog Hour seems ironic.

I started feeling sleepy after a few subchapters but didn’t really want to take a nap again like last week.

I switched gears towards some light stretching on my wrists and hamstrings (I have an old injury that my body is guarding against).

Interestingly, I learned that when I set my hour timer on my phone, it didn’t bother me. But, when I did the same thing but was interacting with it when I was reading. I felt anxious because I saw the countdown. I’ll just use the alarm instead of timers moving forward.

What made this a funny day was after I had completed my Analog Hour. My internet went out, all day.

Day 4

10 July 2026, Friday

It’s been a month of my Analog Hour practice! 🎉

A friend joined me for this week, I’ll have to go bug them about how it went.

I started sharing this post with my best friends and they were supportive and thought it was a good idea to just ‘step away from AI for a day’. Most of them work in tech, so it can be a conscious effort to do so.

This week I kept it simple: I cleaned.

Picked up around my space, put things back where they belonged. (Mostly Brandy’s dog toys, or what remains of them 🪦)

I set an alarm on my phone for the hour (not a timer, since I get distracted and anxious by the countdown). I also have one of those physical visual timers. Perhaps I’ll use that next week.

This week’s practice was interesting because I didn’t really have a plan. I had a busy day at work and stuff to do after. Slowing down in the middle is difficult, it made me feel like I was sacrificing productive momentum. I believe that was one of the lessons I had to learn here.

A dark-mode day calendar from 9 AM to 9 PM, densely packed with green, muted-red, and gray event blocks. A gray block from 5:30 to 6:30 PM is labeled ‘Analog Hour’. — It was challenging to slow down in the middle of my busy day. Proud of myself for making time for it.

I did let my distractedness roam a little, I started picking up one area and then moved on to another halfway. Circled back eventually.

I finished an illustration for a LinkedIn post I was working on which will hopefully turn into an accompanying blog post.

A hand-drawn illustration of a phone showing a group chat titled ‘Design System’ with Material UI, FluentUI, Carbon Design System, and Apple UIKit as members. A message reads ‘Astryx has entered the chat.’ Signed Xue Hua. — Illustration for LinkedIn post on Meta's Astryx Design System.

What’s important here is that I wasn’t as compelled to look up how to do something. I felt calmer and more comfortable with the struggle and the unknown.

To close, I’m deciding to go until Day 6 to re-evaluate if I’m evolving this practice and to reflect on it a little.

Day 5

I missed my usual Friday session the week before.

Day 4 was a foreshadowing of how cluttered my days were becoming.

Showing up is important, some days you drag yourself to your desk and other days you show up a little more intentionally.

This Analog Hour, I reinforced my why.

Why am I doing this, why do I carve out an hour of my time for this practice.

I am disabled.

I don’t have the same 24 hours as most folks do in a day.

To perform optimally, I need to stay sharp and regulated.

To do that, I need to step away. Just like our brains need rest when we sleep, I need a break from all the problems I noodle on. Intentionally and decisively.

Following through on the promises I keep to myself honors the agency I am blessed with.

Struggle-bussing through something builds my resilience practice to help with disappointment.

The reason I stuck that TODO at the bottom is to remind myself, there is an end. And, I can use what I’ve learned from this exercise even if this hour evolves into something else.

Anyway, I should have written all this down on the day itself, but it’s scribed with digital ink now.

25 July 2026, Saturday

Speaking of promises: I offered to draw this piece to honor the dog a family I know recently lost.

I finally finished it during Analog Hour.

I was conflicted if this act was for me or in service to someone else. Since Analog Hour is my me-time.

I landed on it being both since I needed the practice and I enjoyed how this piece turned out.

And, I did struggle. 🤷‍♀️ (I guess struggling is the metric of a successful Analog Hour?)

Unfortunately, I did look stuff up because drawing hair and fur was challenging after the appropriate undisclosed time of struggle-bussing.

A photo of an iPad in a dark room running Procreate: an early upright sketch of a girl kneeling and hugging a small dog, a large circle behind them like a moon, drawn in loose neon rainbow outlines at the blocking stage. — I was very incapacitated on this day but thankful that I could still do this.

A finished Disney-style illustration in the style of an ‘All Dogs Go To Heaven’ movie poster: a brown-haired girl in a purple hoodie and blue skirt kneeling in a daisy-filled meadow, hugging a small halo-wearing terrier, with a glowing full moon and a winding river under a starry purple sky. — I drew the girl and the puppy from references. It was supposed to be 'Disney-Style'. Not sure if I achieved that :/

I’ve been drawing on Procreate a lot lately.

Maybe the Apple Pencil needs the break.