Tips for Achieving Digital Minimalism!🧼💻

Nina discusses how you can get rid of the low-value digital noise and optimize your productivity and mental health through small mindset adjustments.

Recently, I picked up a book called Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport. Let me just tell you, this book changed the way I think about what’s worth my time online, and what isn’t.

So, you may be wondering, what is digital minimalism? Newport defines it as “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.” Before I continue, let’s face it: life is short, so making the most of your time matters.

This quote by Henry David Thoreau solidified the idea that excessive time spent online can have big costs. He wrote, “The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.” So, make the most of your time. And, there is no doubt that being intentional with your decisions and leading a life centered on values is beyond fulfilling.

So, now that I (hopefully) have you hooked on digital minimalism, let’s explore this topic in more depth.

Below, I’m going to share with you four of my biggest takeaways from Newport’s book.

1. Spend time alone with your own thoughts. Because we constantly have the option to connect with people through tech, we create a culture where solitude feels terrifying. Newport uses the term solitude deprivation to describe this idea. In recent years, solitude deprivation has been connected to a rise in anxiety and depression. So, to combat a culture of constant interaction with tech, focus on genuine human connection by allowing yourself to spend time away from tech (this includes music, which is definitely challenging for me!) to fully appreciate the world around you.

2. There is a difference between connection and conversation. This one really blew my mind! According to Newport, connection is low-effort, and often digital interaction such as social media likes, text messages, or brief emails. In contrast, conversation is a deeper level of interaction, involving active listening, real-time engagement, and face-to-face communication. A practice Newport encourages to help build deeper relationships is conversation office hours. Conversation office hours are a block of time in your schedule (like a drive home or weekend morning) where you intentionally connect with others. By having a consistent time dedicated to socializing, you’ll feel energized and satisfied with your relationships!

3. Active > passive tech use. Each and every one of us enjoys creating. We find immense satisfaction in being able to create something, as opposed to just consuming. Focus on what Newport calls high-quality leisure, which is spending time advancing a specific skill or craft. High-quality leisure capitalizes on our love of creating, thus filling us with motivation, confidence, and energy.

4. Be a digital minimalist, not a digital maximist. As a digital maximist, your mindset is focused on using new technology that provides even the smallest benefit to your life. The dangers of focusing on adding any benefit to your life is that you forget to account for the significant costs that come along. For instance, you may be adding unnecessary clutter to your digital world, therefore generating anxiety. But as a minimalist, you center decisions around defined values, thus maximizing productivity and inner peace.

So, now that we’ve covered the basics of digital minimalism, you can build on these ideas to create routines centered around improving the quality of your digital world. But before you begin, acknowledge that developing a digital minimalist mindset takes time and consistent effort. But the positives? It will change your life. Recently, I started scheduling in conversation office hours to my weekends, and this simple adjustment has made a real difference in my mental health and relationships. So, it’s possible. And with that, I wish you the best of luck with your digital minimalist journey!

Interested in learning more? Check out Cal Newport’s book Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World ✨

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