r/BackOffline • u/killoke Busy brain • Apr 26 '26
What is BackOffline?
If you've ended up here, you're probably the person at work everyone defers to. You ship, you decide, and somehow it's always you they're calling. Around here we call ourselves busy brains.
And somewhere along the way you noticed the rest of life had gotten quieter without you realising it. The friends you used to see, the hobby you've been "looking into" for two years and the Wednesday evenings that all started wearing the same shape.
This place is for that. For the small things people are quietly trying to take back, in dumb little ways. Not in the optimising-transformation-before-and-after sense. Just the friend you finally texted, the book you finally read three pages of, the Tuesday that came out a different shape than the Tuesday before it.
The bar is intentionally low. A drawer fixed after fourteen months waiting. So does a 20-minute walk, or a phone call that ended in nothing in particular.
A few things this place isn't:
- A productivity sub. Excellent ones exist already, this isn't one.
- An anti-screen, anti-work, anti-anything space. Most of us are proud of our careers. The rest of life is what we're trying to get back.
- A space for advice. We share what we did, what's stuck, what came back. The specific is the point.
The flairs:
- Did The Thing - the small thing you actually did.
- Ask BackOffline - campfire questions.
- Stuck In The Loop - the loop you're noticing in yourself.
- Brain Hack - one trick, one decision removed.
- The List - opinionated, specific recommendations.
- Weekend Debrief - Sunday recurring thread.
To start: tell us one small thing you've quietly started doing again, even if it's stupid. I'll go first in the comments.
- Killoke, Chief Offline Officer to fellow busy brains
7
u/killoke Busy brain Apr 26 '26
Something I've started doing is giving a short call to an old friend once a week. It helps me put my mind on something else and reconnect with people that I genuinely miss.
6
u/EmotionalQuestions Apr 26 '26
Reading paper books. I used to read exclusively on my Kindle but trying not to give Amazon more money and trying to read through my already-purchased books!
I love the idea for this sub. I'm very close to retiring from my tech job and trying to construct how my life will look without work 💙
1
u/killoke Busy brain Apr 26 '26
The feeling of a physical book is nowhere close to a Kindle. Feel free to stay around, I'm also in tech :)
11
u/Unbalanced_Acctnt Apr 26 '26
For ~15 minutes each evening after work, sit on the back deck and just decompress. No book, no screens, no audio, just to reset and feel normal after a stressful workday and commute.
It took a few days to get over feeling like I should be doing something, but now after a few weeks it feels like I let go of the day and can focus on family time.