deepstash
Beta
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up Your Digital Life
Cluttered digital lives
If people's physical lives were anywhere near as cluttered as their digital lives, their kitchen sinks would be full of dishes, their closets would be jammed, and their houses would be in chaos.
But our digital lives are limited to our devices, so we don't notice how messy they are. Our news feeds are filled with updates we don't care about. We're subscribed to 100 podcasts but listen to only a few.
109 SAVES
This is a professional note extracted from an online article.
Read more efficiently
Save what inspires you
Remember anything
IDEA EXTRACTED FROM:
8
Key Ideas
Cluttered digital lives
If people's physical lives were anywhere near as cluttered as their digital lives, their kitchen sinks would be full of dishes, their closets would be jammed, and their houses would be in chaos.
But our digital lives are limited to our devices, so we don't notice how messy they are. Our news feeds are filled with updates we don't care about. We're subscribed to 100 podcasts but listen to only a few.
Become a Digital Minimalist
We can reclaim our time and our attention. Unlike a physical space, we can wipe the slate clean in our digital environment.
If you clear apps from your phone, nothing will happen. You can always reinstall the ones you use.
Digital Declutter
- Clear your browser history.
- Unsubscribe from newsletters, podcasts, blogs, and anything else you consume.
- Delete all the apps that are currently on your phone and desktop or laptop (as long as you don’t have to buy a new version of anything).
Consider the value
To find out what to keep, determine how much value something is adding to your life.
Decide which are "optional" that you can take a break from for thirty days. As a rule, consider the technology optional unless its temporary removal would harm your life.
Reducing the Impact of Distraction
If you want to reduce the impact of distractions, design an environment conducive to that. Willpower doesn't work. Checking email or Facebook is an impulse, not a choice.
- Use a Distraction Blocker.
- Work in Full-screen mode.
- Leave your phone out of the room.
- Keep your inbox closed by default.
A Digital Life That Sparks Joy
Every app you use, social network you join, link you click, blog you read, podcast you consume impacts your mindset and thinking.
- Does it make you happier?
- More productive?
- Successful?
- Speak to your heart?
If the answer is no, don't allow it into your world.
Deliberate Consumption
Most people do not consume content deliberately. They just click on whatever moves through their feed.
Deliberate consumption means you consume what you decide on beforehand. If you consume less and are intentional about it, you'll get more out of the content you consume.
Go Analog
- Carry a physical notebook. It's a distraction-free tool.
- Read physical books. We retain more when we read physical books.
- Meet people in person. The digital to human contact ratio in most of our lives are entirely out of balance.
SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
4
Key Ideas
Digital minimalism
Digital minimalism is a "philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimised activities that strongly support things you val...
The principles of digital minimalism
- Clutter is costly. Digital minimalists recognise that cluttering their time and attention with too many devices, apps, and services creates an overall negative cost that can swamp the small benefits that each individual item provides in isolation.
- Optimisation is important.To truly extract the full potential benefit of a technology, it’s necessary to think carefully about how you’ll use it.
- Intentionality is satisfying. Digital minimalists derive significant satisfaction from their general commitment to being more intentional about how they engage with new technologies.
Our relationship with technology
"The underlying behaviours we hope to fix are ingrained in our culture, and […] they’re backed by powerful psychological forces that empower our base instincts. To re-establish control, we need to move beyond tweaks and instead rebuild our relationship with technology from scratch, using our deeply held values as a foundation." - Cal Newport
one more idea
4
Key Ideas
Digital minimalism
This philosophy is guided by the idea that we should be in control over what kinds of media we consume, not have our habits dictated to us by technology.
This applies to the office as ...
Taking Leisure Seriously
Instead of defaulting into the low-quality obsessions that leave us wondering where the time has gone, we should cultivate high-quality hobbies that lead to lasting satisfaction.
Re-evaluate your relationship to technology:- First allow for a period of abstinence.
- Follow this by a selective re-introduction of only those tools and technologies that pass a more rigorous cost-benefit analysis than you typically impose.
Addiction and Modernity
They go hand-in-hand.
Addiction seems to be the inevitable consequence of our culturally-created environment changing faster than our biologically-hardwired brains.
one more idea
6
Key Ideas
The Distraction of Digital Technology
How technology became so exhausting
We spend all day staring at screens, read books on Kindles or iPads, and come home to relax by watching a movie or TV.
Digital technologies lump together the good with the bad.
Digital minimalism defined
As Cal Newport defines it, 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.”
3 more ideas