💡 How to Practise Digital Minimalism

Whenever we have downtime, the first thing that most of us do is to check our phones. It’s basically second-nature. Sometimes, what we thought would be a quick scroll turns into hours of mindless scrolling.

Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World teaches us how to have a healthy relationship with the technology we use. Here are my notes from the book, along with some thoughts of my own.

Digital Minimalism is a philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else.

Here are some ways in which we can practise digital minimalism:

1. Spend time alone

Newport worries that for the first time in human history, solitude is starting to “fade away altogether”. He attributes the root cause to the advent of personal digital devices such as Walkmans, MP3s, smartphones etc which seem to always have our attention.

However, solitude is valuable because of the “insight and emotional balance that comes from unhurried self-reflection.” In fact, Blaise Pascal wrote that “all of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone”.

Michael Harris in his book Solitude states that the benefits of solitude are “new ideas; an understanding of the self; and closeness to others.” The first two ideas are self-explanatory, but the third seems contradictory. However if we think about it, sometimes we need moments of solitude to digest all the events that have happened in our lives. This digestion then allows us to really live in the events and experience them.

“I am here alone for the first time in weeks, to take up my “real” life again at last. That is what is strange - that friends, even passionate love, are not my real life unless there is time alone in which to explore and to discover what is happening or has happened. Without the interruptions, nourishing and maddening, this life would become arid. Yet I taste it fully only when I am alone…“ - May Sarton, 1972 diary entry

So, how can we practice solitude?

Leave your phone at home - “They’re useful, but it’s hyperbolic to believe its ubiquitous presence is vital.” Honestly, I think this is quite impossible for a lot of us who might need our phones for important tasks when we are outside, but an alternative I recommend is to install app blockers such as this which allow you to block distracting apps.
Take long walks - On these walks, try to go alone and be void of distractions eg phone/ podcast/ music.
Write letters to yourself - “By the time I’m done composing my thoughts in the structured form demanded by written prose, I’ve often gained clarity.”

Personally, I find it interesting how much Newport and his quoted individuals emphasise the importance of solitude for everyone. Newport even goes as far as saying that “anyone who avoids [solitude] for an extended period of time will… suffer.”

I completely agree that solitude is valuable because it helps me to think through my thoughts and reflect, but I would also attribute my liking solitude to being an introvert. I wonder how much the effectiveness of solitude would apply to extroverts who derive energy from human interaction.

2. Have intentional conversations

Humans are social animals by nature. The Default Mode Network (DMN) in the brain is activated whenever one is having downtime or thinking about their social life. However, offline interactions are far more valuable than online interactions because they require our brains to process large amounts of information about subtle analog cues such as body language, facial expressions, and voice tone.

Conversation-centric communication is the philosophy that physical conversation is the only form of interaction that in some sense counts toward maintaining a relationship. How do we practise this?

Don’t click “like” and don’t comment - Newport argues that these little actions should be treated as “poison to your attempts to cultivate a meaningful social life”. He says that instead of just “liking” a post about your friend’s baby, why not pay a visit to her? Personally, I don’t really agree with this suggestion. This would only really work if you and your friend/ family member are in the same geographic location. If they aren’t however, which is the case for most people (and given the pandemic situation), it is physically impossible to regularly meetup and practically inconvenient to schedule calls due to the time zone differences. As such, I think “likes”, comments, and messages suffice.
Consolidate texting - This means checking your messages in batch at specific time periods. There are two major motivations: 1) It allows you to be more present when you’re not texting, 2) It can upgrade the nature of your relationships because your now momentary absence can ensure others don’t become complacent about their relationship with you.
Hold conversation office hours - Put aside set times on set days during which you’re always available for conversation, then promote them to the people you care about. It could be always being available to call/ talk at 5.30 pm, always being at a certain coffee shop for an hour on Wednesday afternoons etc. This way you get to have nice physical interaction with your close ones regularly. A tool that I think is especially handy is Calendly which allows you to easily schedule meetups.

3. Reclaim leisure

To escape the drain of low-value digital habits, it’s important to first put in place high-quality leisure activities. These quality activities fill the void your screens were previously tasked to help you ignore.

Technology should be subordinated to a support role to help you to set up or maintain your leisure activities instead of being your primary source of leisure eg passively scrolling on your phone.

Engaging in rewarding leisure activities means to:

Prioritise demanding activity over passive consumption - We should be spending our leisure time doing mind-engaging activities instead of passively wasting it away on our digital devices. Expending more energy in your leisure can end up energizing you more (Arnold Bennett).
Use skills to produce valuable things in the physical world - One such mind-engaging activity is doing crafts such as working on your programming skills, photography skills, writing skills etc.
Seek activities that require real-world, structured social interactions - For example, instead of playing virtual games with friends, try to meet up in person and play physical versions of the games. This social aspect is really important. Again, I feel like this is a challenge in the current pandemic situation, so I think virtual interactions suffice.

How can we cultivate high-quality pursuits?

Fix or build something every week - Challenge yourself to learn a new skill to fix or build something. Your primary source of learning will most likely be YouTube. Notice how YouTube is merely a supporter of your high-quality pursuit instead of being it.
Schedule your low-quality leisure - Intentionally give yourself a set time period to engage in passive activities like checking social media, watching YouTube etc. This way, you can limit how much time you use it and spend the rest of your hours on intentional deep work.
Join something - Get involved and get amongst! You meet so many people and learn lots too.
Follow leisure plans - Create detailed plans for how you will spend your leisure time, consisting of specific objectives and habits you want to achieve. You can have seasonal, weekly, and daily leisure plans.

Investing energy into something hard but worthwhile almost always returns much richer rewards.

4. Join the attention resistance

All these social media sites operate on a business model that exploits your attention. The longer they have your attention, the more money they will make.

Here are some practical ways:

Delete social media apps from your phone - Mobile versions are often a lot stickier than their web counterparts.
Turn your devices into single-purpose computers - “The power of a general-purpose computer is in the total number of things it enables the user to do, not the total number of things it enables the user to do simultaneously.” It’s therefore advisable to use website blockers that can block distracting websites such as social media sites.
Use social media like a professional - Be extremely intentional and stringent with your use. Cut down on the number of accounts you follow. Only check them when you really need to. Do not succumb to the mindless act of scrolling.
Embrace slow media - “Slow Media is all about maximising the quality of what you consume and the conditions under which you consume it.” Instead of trying to find out about breaking news as soon as they come out, and through varied dispersed forms, instead wait till the next day and read just a few high quality sources.
Dumb down your smartphone - Trade your smartphone in for an old-fashioned mobile phone or simply remove some of the functionalities of your smartphone. Turn your phone into a utility device instead of an attention rabbit hole.

Digital minimalism definitely does not reject the innovations of the internet age, but instead rejects the way so many people currently engage with these tools.

The best way to start your digital minimalism lifestyle is with a 30-day digital declutter:

Define your technology rules - Decide how you will limit your tech usage in the 30 days.
Take a 30-day break - “It is a mistake to think of the digital declutter as only a detox experience. The goal is not to simply give yourself a break from technology, but to instead spark a permanent transformation of your digital life.”
Reintroduce technology - Reintroduce only the technology which provide you with value and for which you have enough usage.