8 Lessons From Digital Minimalism That Improved My Life

the average American checks their smartphone 352 times every single day of course I would never do that in the past week I have tried to live by some of the lessons I learned from the book digital minimalism by Cal Newport because I've been spending too much time on all of my technology so I wanted to see if I lived by these eight lessons if it could improve my relationship with tech perform the great reset not that one this means taking a break from optional technology so cutting out social media and news and then picking how long you want to try this for just to see what your life would be like how it would be different whether that's seven days or 30 days pick a certain amount of time to try this out for me I went through and I just uninstalled all non-essential apps on my phone and just kept a couple of the ones that I actually like need for work and even those I'm going to limit when you return to kind of like a baseline you actually see what things added stuff to your life and what things didn't I also noticed that after a day I had a little bit bit of withdrawal you don't realize how addicted to the stuff you are until you actually take it away but something that really helped me was just this idea of think about the last five shorts or Instagram reels or tick tocks that you watched can you even remember a single one of them I know I couldn't and yet there's been times where I've spent hours scrolling through this endless feed and I don't remember a single thing be intentional with your technology this is where you start to introduce things back into your life but in like a very conscious and meaningful way like just asking the simple question why am I on this site why am I scrolling through Tick Tock why am I checking my email why am I doing this and for me I realized that it was like escapism and a way to cope with stress if I have something that's important to do my first thing that I want to do that I've been wanting to do this entire time is to check my phone check something because that is so much easier to just zone out mindlessly do something than it is to actually sit down and shoot this video or do any of the hard more intensive work that I have to do so ask what are you actually hiding from and just doing that can can help you be a lot more intentional with how you're using your Tech and then as you start to reintroduce apps and different things back onto your phone try to focus on ones that actually improve your life in some way are you connecting with people are you getting work done are you being efficient are they actually bringing you real joy and not just a little dopamine High Embrace Solitude in our constantly distracted world it is so easy to forget the importance of solitude of having a little bit of time to yourself of having quiet in your lifetime to think even just being bored it's not a bad thing like just asking yourself when is the last time you actually remembered your goals for me I've had this goal of once I hit half a million subscribers I will be able to get a Tesla so don't forget to subscribe it's free but I was noticing that a couple weeks would go by and I wouldn't even think of these different goals that I have in my life because I'm so distracted constantly so understanding that Solitude really provides you a space to think about what is best for your life what direction you want to go how you want to improve your relationships just giving your mind some quiet time to sort things out so how I've been trying to kind of enact this more recently is just actually going out on walks without my phone taking a few minutes a couple times a day to just feel my body and ask am I relaxed or am I wound up because I've got all this stress I've got all these different things going on and actually call me now and taking a few deep breaths and just feeling my body relax a little bit generally I can't do that while I'm distracted by technology but I can when I have a few minutes of quiet limit social media studying rules around social media can help you treat it as a way to connect with others instead of like your primary source of entertainment like it occasionally is for me so this might mean setting up some boundaries around so social media where maybe at certain times of the day you're allowed to check it and not at other times or going onto your phone and limiting how much time you have on that specific app to maybe 15 minutes a day and you can spend that time actually connecting with your friends and building good relationships with them instead of having this mindless scrolling schedule your screen time so this isn't just social media this is everywhere something that you don't notice until you actually notice it is the constant pull of notifications on your phone no like for real though when you have all your notifications on especially all your social media notifications on top of your emails and text messages and phone calls it's like impossible to get deep work done to actually get your mind into something because you're constantly being pulled back out of it you just can't focus on something it's almost impossible for you to be productive so something that Cal recommends is just turning off all your notifications which I have done and I have loved it this allows you to be a lot more intentional with when you are actually using your phone and maybe you have a couple times a day everybody's different depending on what job you have and stuff but for me I try to check emails one time in the morning and then one time in the evening so I'm not constantly replying to it all day it's not a messenger app it's not supposed to be instant it's supposed to be mail and the same thing with social media I don't need to be checking my phone 371 times a day like I used to and for some people it's probably higher than that and spending hours on there but it's really hard to do if you don't have some rules so actually taking like literally five minutes and coming up with a schedule of what time you want to do stuff that would best serve you and your goals and your life and actually improve your life and not hurt it can be like life-changing and give you so much more free time to actually do stuff that's enjoyable engage in some high quality leisure activities finding what that is can be different for everybody but in the book he talks about how important it is to not just cut out something out of your life not just cut out social media and all this time you're spending on technology but find good things to fill that hole with to fill that time with whether that's getting outside again or starting to cook or learning in an instrument starting your side hustle for me I've been really getting into making more fun and exciting videos stuff that I'm really passionate about and enjoy doing my side hustle so I think it's important to not only cut something out of your life but find out what high quality thing that's actually going to better your life that you can replace it with managing attention not just time you can be walking through the most beautiful countryside touring an amazing castle in Scotland but if you do not have your attention on that thing and you're just distracted you can miss out on having the experience that you should have had you can literally like live a different life than you should have because you are distracted there can be two people doing the exact same thing and one of them is constantly on their phone worrying about what's going on just not living in the moment and the other person can actually be being Mindful and really enjoying that experience not thinking about should this go on Instagram and for me when I've been in that state I have enjoyed my life so much more and that also helps me be way more productive in other areas of my life as well practice slow media consumption as someone who is an influencer or does Media stuff I think it's important to realize that every buddy that you listen to anywhere for the most part it's getting attention and then selling that attention like the news doesn't really care about being accurate as much what they care about is getting you to watch as long as possible and then selling as many ads as possible and the same thing goes with everybody else like if you watch anybody on Tick Tock or Instagram they're trying to make it they will legit spend 10 hours on a 15 second Instagram reel or Tick Tock and optimize is it in extremely well researched thought out ways to get you to watch as long as possible so that they can make a living it's not a bad thing but when you realize this you start to notice how little of what you watch is actually useful and it's more trying to trick your brain into watching it and they're just all trying to get more advertisers so that they can make more money which again it's not necessarily a bad thing but it's important to keep in mind and therefore slow media consumption can actually really improve how you connect with social media and the news and stuff like that for me this means watching more long-form content listening to more podcasts finding a very few specific resources that I get my news from and honestly not even really trusting those too much but looking at kind of each one of those things and asking will this actually improve my life get me closer to my goals help me be healthier in some way help me learn something or is this just an escape from my life an escape from actually living if you're into digital minimalism then you'll probably like this video video right here on 10 minimalist habits that help you feel amazing so check that out and don't forget to subscribe it is free I'll see you next week

Channel: Gabe Bult

Views: 65,234

Keywords: Digital minimalism, Digital minimalist, minimalim, minimalist, break phone addiction, how to be a minimalist, simple living

Id: 4cesE30FQk4

Length: 8min 54sec (534 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 05 2023