As we enter 2020, we try to remember the good, wholesome things that we used to do as kids, which are now a distant memory, because most of us are glued to technology and lost in a distraction-filled world.

Old school things 

Remember the joy of having flour everywhere and olive oil on your fingers, or simply glancing over to an open book, rather than on a small screen of a smartphone which keeps on going off, or worse, gets filled with ads.

Cooking from a cookbook

Listening to an actual radio frees us from the pressure of making decisions that we normally do while deciding what Podcast or digital station to listen to. It is a simple pleasure and the warm radio tones are soothing.

Listening to an actual radio

Attempting to fix things when they break is more satisfying than letting someone else taking care of them, or replacing them.

Repair broken stuff yourself

Blogging, or just having your own little website was a great thing when the Internet wasn't hijacked by social media and retail giants.

Blogging or personal website

Playing games around a table with other people was a genuine treat and a really fun experience of togetherness.Sitting down to a board game gets everyone together physically, and also mentally-you can't play a game while half-absorbed in your phone. It's easy to be fully present because there's always something to do, to hope for, and to talk about.

Playing games around the table 

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<img src="https://www.raptitude.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/eric-nopanen-500.jpg">I have a not-so-secret <a href="https://www.raptitude.com/2018/02/its-time-to-put-the-internet-back-into-a-box-in-the-basement/">hope</a> that we're reaching a sort of technology nausea point, when it becomes utterly clear that pre-digital (or at least pre-smartphone) approaches to certain things were better in many ways, and we begin to re-adopt them for that simple reason.
Even in 2010, we were still excited when, while doing something in the old, dependable, manual way, somebody said, "Hey there's an app for that!" Today, the excitement comes when you realize you can do that thing much easier without trying to bumble through it on your phone. 
As we approach the 2020s, I think we're becoming more aware of what we've left behind. But a lot of it is still there if we want it. 
Here are some places where I've enjoyed returning to the ways of years past.
<h3>1. Cooking From a Cookbook
</h3>
There have always been a few recipes in my rotation that I had to open a cookbook for, and I couldn't help but notice a hint of relief at that.
What a joy it is, when you've got flour everywhere and olive oil on your fingers, to simply glance over to an open book, rather than knuckle-scroll through clunkily-loading ads and long-winded anecdotes about the author's husband just to check a measurement. You also don't need to keep touching the recipe every so often to prevent it from disappearing. 
Cooking from a cookbook also frees you from the psychological weirdness of contemplating a recipe's "score." Who knows if the 4.6-star hummus, which has no tahini, will actually be better than the 4.2-star one, which looks more like what you had in mind? Sometimes it's nice not to know what the internet thinks. 
Besides, If you're in the habit of reading those reviews, you know how often the people who rave about a recipe didn't even follow it.
<h3>2. Listening to an actual radio</h3>
Last year we got my mother a gorgeous, wood-encased, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001BGGD8A/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=raptitudecom-20&amp;creative=9325&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;creativeASIN=B001BGGD8A&amp;linkId=cb73cdc307176a8e6fe982185a61910d">dial-operated radio</a>, and it's become a persistently warm presence in her home. I love being in the room with it playing. 
You can't punch any numbers into it, and there's no screen to touch. You can only turn the dial, and watch the vertical plastic line advance across the little numbers. You get to enjoy those scratchy transition moments between classical and country and Michael Enright's voice.
If you're habituated to podcasts, you know the mental calculations that must be made in order to enjoy one in an unconflicted way. Should I catch up on that serial about a 1970s cult, listen to a fraction of this 155-minute interview, or resume the science talk from yesterday even though it was getting boring? 
Listening to the radio, in the pre-digital way, involves one, much simpler calculation: leave it here, or turn the dial, and discover another sound.
<h3>3. Attempting to fix things when they break
</h3>
I fixed my coffee grinder earlier this year, and it was an incredibly satisfying experience.
It's such a rare pleasure to get a cherished device working again after it appeared to be dead. It's especially satisfying if you were born early enough to witness the great phasing-out of virtually all sturdy, repairable goods, and the ascent of the (much more profitable) shitty, replaceable ones. To repair something today is to stick it to <a href="https://www.raptitude.com/2013/09/an-interview-with-the-man/">The Man</a>.
Even just attempting to fix something is gratifying. My Dad assumed pretty much any device could be fixed if you just took it apart and looked at what connected to what. And often it was still perfectly good except for the tiniest thing: a broken solder, or a loose something or other.
If he couldn't get it going, sometimes there would still be a repair shop where you could take it, and the dusty guys down there would check a few things and at least determine the offending part, and my Dad would find that satisfying too. 
<h3>4. Blogging, or just having your own little website
</h3>
I enjoy reminiscing about the time, about fifteen years ago now, when big business was really bad at the internet. Their websites contained nothing you'd want to read, just mission statements and contact information. The internet was for people. Organizations didn't get it.
The web therefore had to consist mostly of personal expression-some form of "I made a thing! Check it out!"-because we didn't know what else to do with this new connectivity. The blog was perhaps the most fundamental form of this direct expression: a website where a person would straightforwardly share what they were interested in, or thinking about. 
I miss that era. Exploring the internet felt much more peer-to-peer, and far less predictable, like you were wandering through an infinite, hyperlink-connected labyrinth of ideas and creations. Today, most of our online "connecting" amounts to doing our usual social media routines alongside other people doing theirs. 
(I even miss the old school "list post," like this one. They <a href="https://www.raptitude.com/2013/02/five-self-help-books-that-actually-helped/">weren't</a> <a href="https://www.raptitude.com/2013/10/6-helpful-reminders-for-the-overwhelmed-person/">all</a> <a href="https://www.raptitude.com/2013/12/16-things-i-know-are-true-but-havent-quite-learned-yet/">trash</a>. Expect more of them from me.)
This summer I <a href="https://www.raptitude.com/2019/07/lets-talk-like-we-used-to/">declared my intention</a> to simply say what was on my mind again, in the old-school way. The landscape has certainly changed, and major platforms channel much of the available attention towards themselves. But in simply deciding to share my thoughts more freely, I have felt freer, and shared more. 
<h3>5. Playing games around a table with other people
</h3>
At the mention of board games you may picture dull and painful moments you don't wish to revisit: getting three hours into a Risk game only to have someone quit, or watching hopelessly as your older sibling erects another hotel in Monopoly.
Or you may be well aware that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/may/12/millennials-drive-board-games-revival">a board game revival has been happening</a> for a number of years now, and the landscape is much, much happier. Today's tabletop games are quicker to play, easier to learn, made with all ages in mind, and fun even when you lose.
Many think-pieces have <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/01/german-board-games-catan/550826/">attempted to explain</a> this unexpected resurgence in board games. Part of it, I hope, is that board games tend to create a type of genuine social experience that's become far more rare in the always-online era. Sitting down to a board game gets everyone together physically, and also mentally-you can't play a game while half-absorbed in your phone. It's easy to be fully present, because there's always something to do, to hope for, and to talk about. And because everyone gets a turn, nobody's left out of the exchange.
Few other home-based activities do that. People barely even watch TV together anymore, because everyone has their own screens. Today's fancy multi-player video games are typically played alone, in a dark room. 
But the board game is right there in front of you, free of electronic tethers, connecting you. Long live board games, and everything like them. They bring people together in a divided world.
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I doubt I'm alone in my affinity for the ways of yesterday. In what parts of life have you returned to an old school approach? *** Photo by <a href="https://unsplash.com/@rexcuando">Eric Nopanen</a>
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I have a not-so-secret hope that we're reaching a sort of technology nausea point, when it becomes utterly clear that pre-digital (or at least pre-smartphone) approaches to certain things were better in many ways, and we begin to re-adopt them [...]

Five Old School Things To Consider Doing Again

Old school things

Cooking from a cookbook

Listening to an actual radio

Repair broken stuff yourself

Blogging or personal website

Playing games around the table

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