Digital Declutter 📵

Like so many, I'm spending too much time on my smartphone. While I have reduced my smartphone use drastically, all thanks to a life without social media and a life without notifications, I'm still spending too much time on my smartphone.

I've wanted to do this for the longest time: a 30-day break from technology in order to rediscover my values and figure out how technology can support these values (after all, isn't that what technology is for?).

My undertaking is best described in the words of Cal Newport in his book Digital Minimalism:

Put aside a thirty-day period during which you will take a break from optional technology in your life. During this thirty-day break, explore and rediscover activities and behaviors that you find satisfying and meaningful.

At the end of the break, reintroduce optional technologies into your life, starting from a blank state. For each technology you reintroduce, determine what value it serves in your life and how specifically you will use it so as to maximize this value.

But of course, I won't shut myself off from the world entirely. Some optional technology I won't use at all during this time (such as YouTube); other technology with certain rules (called "operating procedures" by Cal Newport) and then again there's technology I'll use unrestricted: hellooooo, I'm still looking for a job, if you know of a way to find a job without using technology, I'm all ears. Also, I hope that I'll do plenty of blogging throughout September, for which I (sometimes) use a physical notebook but obviously also my computer.

Without further ado, here are my technology rules for the following 30 days.

Media and streaming

An entire month without feeds; including YouTube, Spotify, Netflix/Disney+, podcasts, RSS or the news. Altogether, I want to restrict myself to not use any of these technologies during my Digital Declutter. That's not to say that I won't ever use YouTube again, read the news or follow up on my favourite blogs. Much rather, it's about ridding myself of these optional technologies during this time and see what it does to me.

Streaming movies and series, as well as YouTube take up a considerable amount of my time these days. I understand the argument that watching mindless sitcoms helps one to relax (it does help me), but I wonder: is this the best way of doing so? Also, I can see myself going to the cinema in the upcoming month, because it feels like it's a more intentional way of consuming media than sitting on my couch streaming Netflix.

I haven't listened to much music in the past month, and that's actually too bad, but I don't plan on changing this when I look at the month ahead. Particularly, I've noticed that I want to change my habits of listening to music altogether.

Messaging

As I rely on Signal (and WhatsApp) to stay in touch with friends and family, I consider this a technology that I can't go without. However, I want to try a more mindful approach, as I have done during many of my travels: the idea of the Social Hour. This means that I'm checking my messages twice a day (for 30 minutes each): in the morning and in the evening, instead of dozens of times a day. During the Social Hour, I can spend my social energy more intentionally, instead of picking up my phone every time I feel frustrated during my job hunt to mindlessly check if I got a new message on Signal. As I have learned in the past, the evening Social Hour is sometimes optional, all depending on my mood.

A similar rule applies to email: since we are talking about personal email, which most often is trivial, I will restrict myself to check them 2-3 times a week, say on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

Another restriction for messaging: I'll uninstall the respective apps from my phone and only access them from my laptop, just like in the good old days of the early internet.

Looking stuff up

Talking about the "good old days": remember the time when we didn't default to looking stuff up all the time? I want to embrace this mindset again. The world doesn't end if I'll just look up something later or not at all. To support me in this mission I'll uninstall my browser from my phone.

Okay, turns out iOS doesn't allow me to have no browser installed. But you get the idea. I'll just have vanilla Safari on my phone and stick to not using it.

Research

My current hobby is rediscovering my city. I'm going on guided tours, visiting museums, seeing exhibitions. I've actually planned to allow myself to use my laptop to research the city's history, the Habsburg empire and so on, but since this is a Digital Declutter, turns out I won't. Instead, I can just go to library—yes, libraries still exist—and read up on Maria Theresia, Charles VI, Franz Joseph and the good old House of Babenberg.

For another hobby, I have to do some research, too: zine making. In order to spend more time on this new hobby, I'll need to buy a printer; in order to figure out which print best meets my needs, I'll need to research. And I will do so, using my laptop. But surely, this won't take up a considerable amount of time until I have found a decent device.

Note taking

Apart from Bear as my digital notes app, I have relied on Signal's Note to Self chat to documents my thoughts and ideas (a topic I plan on exploring more in an upcoming post).

For the Digital Declutter however, I want to go all analogue. I'll stick to writing down notes in a compact paper notebook that's easy to carry around.

Insomnia hobbies

Last but not least: how to deal with my ever-present insomnia in the upcoming month? It works out quite well to relax my busy mind by listening to podcasts when I can't sleep. While actually I'd like to live without podcasts for a while, I'd allow myself to listen to them as a last resort in those darn sleepless nights. Let's hope that the Digital Declutter has a positive impact on my sleep quality, so I don't have to rely on this sleep remedy.

When it comes to my dream logging (my dreams are really interesting right now), I'll make an exception of writing them down in my Bear Notes, as I won't get up to write them down in my physical notebook in the middle of the night.

What remains

I think apart from vacuum cleaning (yes, I need my phone to vacuum clean), banking and scheduling, my phone's capabilities will be limited to mobility features (phones are tools, after all). I'll use it to plan my routes, buy tickets for public transport and the occasional car sharing.

My phone still has a camera, but since I'm a mindless photographer, I try to go a month without taking pictures. Maybe my girlfriend lets me use her analogue camera and I'll try that for a change?

In conclusion

I'm really excited for this experiment. Check my /uses page to get a glimpse of my phone's very limited home screen for the upcoming month. Hopefully my rules are clear enough and not too strict but actually I have a good feeling about this.

I'll let you know how it goes.