Using Tips from Digial Minimalism by Cal Newport
I have been contemplating the idea of a digital declutter for some time. I have already removed some sticky social apps from my mobile devices and moved and relegated other apps to difficult-to-open folders on the second or third pages of my phone. It wasn’t until I read Cal Newport’s new book, Digital Minimalism, that I decided to do a 30-day digital declutter. I am a few days into the process but have found that while the decisions to remove digital tools from my phone and smartwatch were difficult, the digital declutter has so far been worthwhile.
Newport’s book, as you can imagine from the title, posits the advantages of a minimalist approach to using your digital devices. Mobile phone use to kill unfilled time is an area that I knew I could improve on and why I picked up the book. This book, much like his other excellent work, Deep Work, is well structured and provides a deep dive of planning activities to replace your time on your devices and provides useful practices to help you reduce your bad habits or addictions.
Personal Action Items
I like to keep my take-away actions to 3 or 4 new processes to implement from any book. I find this increases my success rate of implementation. If I try to change too much at any one point, I usually fail. From Digital Minimalism, my personal action items are:
- Embark on a 30 day digital declutter and then carefully decide what applications I can add back into my life.
- Don’t click like - a philosophy suggested by Newport that reduces the pressures of social media to engage in others content - an interesting and worthy section of the book to read.
- Schedule Low-Quality Activities - rather than checking regularly:
- Email / Slack / Skype
- Social Media
- News
- Plan Activities / Goals for the Replacement of Digital Time.
And with these action items in place, I began the challenging process of determining what to remove from my phone for the digital declutter.
Easy Choices
The obvious time-sinks for me were social media applications. Instagram is an infinity pool of content and had led me astray many times. Twitter followed (though I am not sure how I will feel once the next episode of Game of Thrones airs). LinkedIn and WhatsApp were also easy choices. I had already dumped Facebook some time ago but still had Messenger on my phone. In the goal of scheduling low-quality activities, that also went. As did Slack. But as I went along, the decisions got harder.
Like many people, I get my news from online sources. A recent news story about a birth in the royal family had nine separate alerts pop up on my phone, proving the redundancy in the information I was seeing and making me question the value of my time. I deleted all my news apps, except for Apple News, which I have added as a scheduled low-quality activity.
The Difficult Choices
The toughest choices for me were to remove Skype and email. With my various businesses, I felt that I needed to be connected. I had developed muscle memory to open and check these apps, which I could reproduce quickly, even if I moved and hid them to deter use. However, by using Newport’s advice for developing a scheduled routine for low-quality activities, I finally decided to delete them from my devices. I assume that most emails could wait four hours for a response, and if anyone needed to get hold of me sooner, they probably had my number for texting or a call. This was the most challenging decision for me to delete these apps. I feel worried about missing something important and time-sensitive. And to be honest, my phone feels so empty without them. I have picked up my phone several times only to realize that I have nothing to look at. I only check email on my computer. In hindsight, this is an excellent choice. But difficult.
The final place that I looked was at my podcast subscriptions. As a podcaster and self-confessed podcast-junkie - the shows I listened to were where I felt I got a lot of useful information in a format that worked best for me. I had many regular shows in my feed. I have grown to love several shows because of their personalities and keep on top of others for news - particularly tech stories and discussion. I went through and deleted many of my subscribed podcasts - 19 in total. I kept only the most relevant and meaningful and feel that these will still add some value to my week if listened to with intention and at an appropriate time. This elimination was another difficult choice.
After I removed all of these applications and services, I then scheduled time in my calendar for checking email, news, and social media. I chose to allow myself some time to check email three times per day. In the morning, shortly after I get up, at lunchtime, and at the end of the day. I’ve blocked out time slots to add new activities to fill previously distracted time, including time for business reading and reflection, and a schedule for regular writing practices.
The Stuff I Kept
I did choose to keep some apps that could be considered distractions. Cal Newport suggests turning your phone onto Do Not Disturb and setting up rules for which calls and texts can interrupt. I chose not to do that as the texts that I get are not excessive and often family related. Incoming calls are the same thing - usually important communications that I need to see. I screen my calls closely and choose to answer depending on who is calling me.
I kept the one sports app that I regularly check, Major League Baseball. The configuration of the app to focus on my favourite teams saves me time compared to the possibility of distraction while searching for the same information on broader sports-ball websites. I have added checking this to my scheduled news review time. So far, so good, but playoffs may be a whole different scenario!
I also kept several online shopping applications, including Amazon. Again, the convenience of the app compared to the rabbit-hole of the website affected my choice. So far, I have not found my way into any shopping binges to make up for my lacking social media, so all is good.
Replacing my time
Part of Cal Newport’s approach to removing digital distraction is to find other activities to replace the time you currently spend on digital devices. I have scheduled times for the productive reading of technical books and more writing time. Often, it is a challenge for me to find time during the day to write consistently. Using the time that I would usually be distracted for a focused activity is definitely helping my writing productivity.
Progress so far?
With all of these digital declutter methods in place, I feel very well positioned to try to make the most of this process. So far, it has only been a few days, and already I am leaving my phone at my desk instead of always taking it with me. I leave my Apple Watch off during the day for increased distraction-free work.
I find that even with scheduled permission to look at social media on my computer, I am using this less and less. I blocked time in for this at the end of my day and have been busy enough that I find I prefer to have some technology-free time instead of social media. I have some social postings to make for a podcast release this week and will use scheduling tools to help, but I haven’t really missed social media, especially Instagram. Which is surprising to me.
This process is freeing, but still nerve-wracking - I still feel as if I may miss something important. But that feeling shows the underlying problem of connectedness and illustrates why I need a digital declutter in the first place.