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Ask HN: How do I stop obsessing about taking care of my hardware (laptop)?

6 points by grover_hartmann ↗ HN
It seems to get in the way of productivity, and it has become an obsession for me to extremely take care of it.

How do I beat this obsesssion? I have OCD.

It's also my only laptop.

7 comments

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therealidiot
Once you have an accident and get a scratch somewhere you generally start feeling less protective, or at least that's how I am with my tech. I don't stop caring altogether, though - I'm just less bothered about the not-so-obvious cosmetics.

I'm not afraid to take my laptops apart these days. It's my hardware and I've seen it naked.

Maybe it's about seeing "for yourself" that your machine isn't quite as delicate as you had led yourself to believe? I don't even know :)

kohanz
My car would be an analogy for this. We used to live in a sketchy neighborhood and one night our car got keyed by some kids. I was pretty upset and up-in-arms about it for a while. Fixing it would be expensive (insurance covers it, but still have to pay deductible), so we just decided to leave it. Once I got over it, I found myself being much less stressed about the condition of the car in general. As long as I'm keeping it, I'm fine it with it looking not new and as long as its functional, superficial things don't bother me anymore. If it comes time to sell the car, I'll get it fixed up.
lsiunsuex
Change how you think about your laptop.

If you think about it as a luxury item or or something that is fragile, you'll always be OCD about it. Perhaps because it is your only laptop, your more careful with it.

If tomorrow, it fell down a flight of stairs and you had to replace it, could you on the spot? How long would it take otherwise? How much work would you loose if it happened?

I was this way a long time ago and probably to a certain point, still am with my primary laptop / phone. To me, they're just tools now to get the job done. A couple months ago, my laptop died and fortunately, I was in a position where the only thing stopping me from getting a new one was a 20 minute drive to the Apple Store. That's not to say that I'm careless with my laptop, but it's just a tool, and tools break.

I remember breaking my fathers Snap On Ratchet once. Fortunately, they're tools are warranted for life, but it was just a tool easily replaceable.

"The things you own, end up owning you"

totoroisalive
I always buy protective gear for my equipment and extend the warranty, for my laptop I bought a protector case, screen protector, keyboard cover and stickers I like (no protection just fun). After all of that I stop worrying about it, I clean once a week because I hate dirty equipment but if something happens that's just life.

You have to keep tools in good shape, but tools are for work.

mod
Maybe think about moving to a cloud-based machine. My actual work environment (I'm a developer) is up on a server. I ssh in and use the machine from virtually any machine.

I can be ready to work in about 5 minutes on a brand new machine.

It's basically a screen and a keyboard for me, nothing more. Lessens its importance.

mrcold
I used to do this too. But after a couple laptops and smartphones just died on me, I realized that everything truly is designed to fail. Every product now has a limited life, no matter how well you care for it. So use it delicately or throw it on your desk every day. It's still going to die when you least expect it. And you will still need to buy a new one again.

Hardware is now a consumable. Works for a while and then it breaks down. You don't buy it. You just rent it for a couple of years. So there is no need to care for your laptop. You will have to get a new one anyway. It's just the cost of doing business. You may not like it, but it's how things are now.

nlx
Get something sharp and put ugly scratches all over it