We’ll go over the basics of digital minimalism and share some tips on how to declutter your digital life and find more focus and calm.
What is Digital Minimalism?
Digital minimalism is a movement that encourages people to take a break from all things tech-related, including social media platforms and smartphone apps, to give themselves time to reflect on their habits and start making smarter choices about using technology.
Cal Newport, author of “Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World,” 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.”On the other hand, a digital minimalist is someone who has a good understanding of their digital life and makes conscious decisions about what (and how) to use technology to find focus and calm in their daily lives.
3 Best Practices for Experiencing Digital Minimalism
1. Identify
The first step on the path to digital minimalism is to identify the apps and products you use most often. How many apps do you use regularly? Which social media platforms are your go-to’s, and why?
Take a look at your phone, your desktop, and any other electronic devices you have. Make a list of all those apps, programs, websites, and social media accounts. Don’t worry about putting them in order when you write them down; just put it on paper (or in a note on your computer). This helps you gain a better understanding of the things that are important to you so that you can start making the changes necessary to achieve balance in your work and personal life.
2 – Spend more time on hobbies, try to socialize outside of your screens.
People who follow the digital minimalism philosophy spend less time on social media, limit their use of technology at work, and use it for tasks more effectively. They also use technology to strengthen relationships with friends and family, spend more time participating in hobbies, and spend less time commuting.
The whole point of digital minimalism is to clear out your digital clutter so you can focus on what really matters: spending time with family and friends, pursuing new hobbies, or getting your work done. Put your phones down for a while, and try to socialize outside. This will fuel your soul.
3 – Don’t use social media platforms to fuel your entertainment.
Remove all the apps you keep on your phone but rarely use or those that take up too much of your time. Turn off all alerts from apps, emails, and social media. Is your inbox out of control? It’s time to unsubscribe from all those emails that are taking up space in your email account.
If you need help on this, try to use some tools like app blockers & productivity boosters – they will help you manage your time better and keep you away from unwanted emails & notifications!
If you have not tried some yet, the Unpluq App can help you. Unpluq gives you freedom by making you a conscious smartphone user. With Unpluq, just select which apps and contacts to be blocked, and they will be gone by default until you want to open them. But accessing them is not easy!
When you want to access them, you have to handle some of the barriers like tapping the Unpluq Tag back of your phone, scrolling down for 10 meters, shaking for 5 seconds. This makes you a conscious user and helps you reduce screen time drastically (on average, more than 1 hr and 22 min/day). The good news is, you can define your own barrier difficulty, and you can select an unlimited number of apps to be blocked, and the app is free to download. Let’s give it a try!