Digital Minimalism

There is no doubt. We spend far too much time fiddling with our phones and staring at social media.

Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport gives a plan to separate what's useful from what's a complete waste of time. This plan helps use digital tools to add value to our days, rather than suck the hours out of them.

This review gives you an idea of what's in the book, and I recommend reading it for yourself. I find his writing witty in places and wise throughout. His stories - including those of people who have tried the plan - really add to the experience.

The Battle

He sets the tone of the book by describing this as a battle. The devices and apps are like poker machines and cigarettes, with the companies trying to increase our time spent using their product.

Far removed from the reasons we signed up in the first place, these devices and apps "control more and more of how we spend our time, how we feel, and how we behave".

Digital Minimalism

So what's our battle strategy? In digital minimalism you "focus your online time on a number of carefully selected and optimised activities that strongly support the things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else".

In a way it's the opposite of FOMO - and the benefits can be huge. Some people have whittled their facebook time down to 5 mins a few times a week - compared to the average user's 50 mins per day.

The three principles of digital minimalism (and perhaps minimalism in general) are:

• Clutter is costly. The "cumulative cost of the non-crucial things we clutter our lives with can far outweigh the small benefits each individual piece of clutter promises."
• Optimisation is important. The more you have of something the less joy each bit brings. One donut is enjoyable. The eighth donut, not so much.
• Intentionality is satisfying. "The sugar high of convenience is fleeting ... but the meaningful glow that comes from taking charge of what claims your time and attention is something that persists."

How to Digitally Declutter

Less of a declutter. More a 30-day fast. Basically it's not being online - apart from work email and crucial online activities.

His tip is to be specific (but not too strict) about what you will and won't do - and then stick to it. During the 30 days explore high-quality activities to fill the void.

At the end of 30 days re-introduce digital tools that provide specific and meaningful value to your life. If they don't, leave them out.

14 ways to practice digital minimalism

1. Go out without your phone

This simple activity seems almost like an extreme challenge. Years ago people did this every day. If they needed to send or receive information it could wait until they got home.

2. Take long walks

This about solitude. About being able to process you own thoughts without interruption. Perhaps this could be a no-phone trip - of maybe take the phone for safety but put it in flight mode.

3. Journal to yourself

This seems to be more about developing the ability to be alone with your own mind, to develop and articulate your own thoughts and to think about one thing for more than 2 mins - skills that are largely ignored on social media.

4. Don't click like - or even comment

Woah. Won't that cut me off from society? The author actually finds it deepens our social interaction. He considers 'likes' to be the social interaction equivalent of junk food. No nutritional value but takes all the space so we can't get real nourishment.

One lady found it a real struggle to not click anything when her new-mother friend posted the first photo of her new baby. Instead of being the 87th person to write "awww, cute" she actually visited the friend at home and brought a home-cooked meal for the family. That's got to be 1000 times more meaningful than a click.

Often our low-quality online time robs us of the capacity for these more meaningful activities. The author suggests that online connection should just be to facilitate off-line conversation. Of course we can't have true conversation with 1,000 people - so it may mean fewer friends, but higher value friendships.

5. Batch your texts

So often we sacrifice conversation for the convenience of texting - and people expect speedy replies. Have one or two 'text-sessions' per day and ignore it the rest of the time. Maybe even set the text alert to silent (except for very close people and your kid's school).

If it's becoming a long text conversation make it a call. Be the person who actually talks to people. Talking is more meaningful because we can convey so much more information than "any number of exclamation marks or emojis".

6. Conversation office hours

People have "phone phobia". They're afraid to call in case they're interrupting. His suggestion is to have a set time when you are available for calls - and to make it known. For example one guy turned his daily commute into his conversation time. A set period might not work for you but phone phobia is real and we should work out ways to get around it.

7. Fix/build something each week

We don't need to be mechanics. It might be building a garden bed, fixing the wonky leg of a chair mending an item of clothing or even learning a new skill on a musical instrument. The point is to choose leisure that is a demanding activity rather than just passive consumption. It's more engaging and it enables us to create something valuable.

8. Schedule low quality leisure

A big reason we don't do high quality leisure is that our time gets eaten up by the low quality stuff like scrolling through social media. If we restrict the low quality to a confined time window, then we free up more of our remaining time for the meaningful stuff.

9. Join something

Activities are more engaging if there is "real world structured social interaction". He reckons this is why crossfit is so much more popular than regular gyms.

10. Use leisure plans

Work plans make us more effective at work, so why not have leisure plans. These short-terms plans (with goals) can help us achieve fulfilment with our leisure.

He gives the example of someone improving their guitar playing by planning a party 3 months from now - at which she will perform the six songs she will learn in the meantime. There's something more energising about that compared to a goal of 'practice guitar each week'.

11. Delete social media from your phone

I've mentioned this before in my post about facebook making us sad. The temptation to mindlessly scroll - mainly out of boredom - can be largely avoided by deleting the easy-access icons from our phone. If we really need to use them for an important task, we can go to the effort of accessing the website through the browser. But removing the single-tap option is a big winner.

12. Turn your device into a single-purpose computer

Our devices can do so many things. This also means so many distractions. To be more purposeful, one option is to set up blockers for social media (or even for the internet) for certain time windows.

A friend of mine has done this for years. He blocks the web until 4pm to get on with his work. If there's anything he wants to Google he lists it in a notepad. Often when 4pm comes round he's no longer interested in much of his list. He saves heaps of time by focussing on what's important and not getting distracted by thought bubbles.

13. Embrace slow media

These days news comes thick and fast. We can minimise the time this takes up, by choosing quality over quantity and choosing completeness over speed - often 'breaking' news is incomplete news.

For more on this topic I also recommend the media episode of The Minefield.

14. Dumb down your smartphone.

This may be a step too far for many, but with only calls and text it is far less easy to get distracted. I kept a 'dumb phone' up until 2017 - and only stopped because the network shut down. The only thing that was annoying was carrying a camera and an MP3 player too. All those devices in one would probably be enough for me. :)

Summary

Overall, Digital Minimalism is a great read and very eye-opening about the power of social media over us - and how to reclaim our lives for ourselves.

Putting it into practice

Inspired by this book, I'm making it easier to follow But Wait There's Less without needing to use facebook.

Already you can hit 'subscribe' at the top of the page to be notified (by email) when there's a new article.

Now I'm starting an email update. Once every few weeks or so - just to catch you up on what's been happening. If that sounds good to you pop your email in here. You can avoid social media and still keep in the loop with But Wait There's Less.

PS. Here are other books I've reviewed.