I confess that I do want to have my computer with me all the time, so I can use it if I want to. I'm also a very compulsive guy. I seriously can't grow a beard without unconsciously picking out a hole in it.

One system I have in place is to have all the information come to me, but I have to put the "please bother me" sign on the doorknob. My email and RSS and Twitter programs will give me Growls when they're running, but usually they're just not running. When I do start them up, I follow something akin to Inbox Zero on them all, and I use a good reader program that lets me mash spacebar and delete to flip through them really fast. Sometimes I just quit the program and come back later, like when I need to get work done. The subscription, go-get-the-new-stuff model works great for that because I know it will be there later. Furthermore there's nothing better than quitting the app to get the little red "168" off your dock.

The other thing I do is that I don't treat my computer as a sandbox anymore. It's more like a Swiss army knife -- I can still do anything with it, but it's clearly a tool to be used toward some other end. I don't use IM but about once a week, nor facebook but monthly, nor Craigslist but when I need furniture. When I do hit up the facebook, I look at the homepage feed and then I'm done. I am very happy with Quicksilver, if you hadn't guessed. I keep my desktop clean so I don't get any "bright ideas" about how to spend the next five minutes. If I do have a bright idea, I write it down and stow it out of sight, and when it's bright ideas time I go look it up again.

I launch a web browser to look at a website and then I close it. I try not to browse with tabs (!) unless I'm really saving something for later, and even then I process my tabs like an inbox and try to extinguish them. Come to think of it, a lot of my bookmarks bar is treated the same way.

So I think I just try to cultivate good usage habits, so even though it's wirth me, I don't use my computer too much.