Digital Minimalism, the Hidden Power of Curation.

Modern life requires one to develop the skill to ignore some things otherwise one will surely be caught up in an endless loop of distractions.

Digital minimalism is a philosophy that helps you question what digital communication tools (and behaviours surrounding these tools) add the most value to your life. It is motivated by the belief that intentionally and aggressively clearing away low-value digital noise, and optimising your use of the tools that really matter, can significantly improve your life.

Cal Newport.

Portrait of Lady Morgan (Writer c.1818) by René Théodore Berthon (1776-1859)

I have been diving into the idea of Minimalism in earnest this past month. I love the premise of a clutter free life, digitally and physically – and of course the idea of a tidy mind to boot! Who wouldn’t want to have that?

While I find decluttering physical items challenging – I am a bookworm and a creative after all, my studio is full of books, arts and crafts supplies – I find decluttering digitally to be even more challenging. And I’m not just talking about the number of apps on your phone.

One of the things I did when I started getting serious with Digital Minimalism was to turn off all notifications on my phone – it’s already tidy when it comes to apps. While I don’t have any Meta or other social media apps on my phone, I do have other apps that would send me silent notifications and I still find them stealing my focus/attention too often. The urge to pick up the phone mindlessly is a disease I want to rid myself of. I am serious about retaining my attention span, my ability to concentrate. I hate being distracted, and in today’s world, I think it really takes an effort.  

I came up with a strategy that is currently still in the testing phase, but so far it seems to be working on my peace of mind. One, as I’ve mentioned, is to turn off all notifications, and two is to allow myself to catch up only on weekends. In the olden days (ha!), before social media, weekends were social time for people. I’m bringing that back! I talk like I was very social on the Net, having an account on every platform, the truth is I don’t and for the platforms I do have an account on, I don’t use them as a social tool, I’m anonymous and I only follow a handful, 50 is the max amount I would go for – this is the secret to my Zen, ha-ha!

Then the weekend came, it was time for me to catch up with all that I’d missed the whole week; emails, Substack, etc. It didn’t take long before I was completely overwhelmed. Since we’re on Substack, let’s talk about Substack.

How many publications do you subscribe to? Mine is just over 30 as of now, with only 3 that I pay for. But the number of notifications accumulated in a week is quite significant – would’ve been worse if I didn’t turn off my phone notifications as Substack will notify you if a rando you don’t even follow published a Note, I mean what’s up with that?

I’m not complaining about the productivity of the writers I follow; in fact, I wish I could publish more often. But I’m thinking, if you’re following hundreds (due to the ability to sub for free?), do you really read them all? We all live under the same tyranny after all, the law of 24 hours a day – sleep time included!

As I see it, my choices become:

1. I spend my pockets of free time catching up on the feed. 

2. I cease to read or even engage with the writers I like enough to sub to in the first place.

So, what’s the solution?

I am a big fan of Cal Newport and his thoughts on Digital Minimalism. One of the tips I got from him is to be more discerning, limit the number of people you follow, and schedule a time to do your “scrolling”. For example, if you’re an artist and you use social media (Instagram, perhaps) to get inspired by other artists, he suggests that you be ruthless and follow only 10 artists, then set aside a time for you to “get inspired”. Say you only open it at the end of the week when you’re winding down maybe with a glass of wine, when all your important tasks are done, and you’re ready and relaxed enough to be inspired. I like the idea, so I’m putting that to work when it comes to Substack. The truth is there’s only so much inspiration I can take in, and while I enjoy reading other people’s writing, at the end of the day as Picasso said, “inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” I find myself reading other people’s pieces more and writing my own less. A life where I consume more and create less is not ideal to me.

Now to limit one’s sources of inspiration on the Net to only, say 10, in the age of abundance, that requires strong will, the ability to discern, and of course intention. All this, I believe would hone one’s curating skill and unlock its power; to make one a more focused individual. The 10 on one’s list would have to be extra special to be worthy of one’s attention. This is good news for both the creator and the consumer, I think. The creator gets to compete to create better content, and the consumer is happier as they’re not overwhelmed all the time. When I look at people who are active citizens of the Net, oftentimes they show signs of being overwhelmed yet they’re almost always oblivious of it. Others would throw phrases like “touch grass”, or “smell the roses”, but those phrases have been thrown around too much they seem to have almost lost their meaning, sadly.

This makes me think about Value and the nature of freebies. We seem to love freebies (subscribe for free, for example) but when it’s “free” we’re less likely to value it. Being a “child” of Robert Heinlein, I’m taking his teaching to heart that there’s no such thing as free lunch. We pay for whatever we get. In the case of “free” subscription, we pay with our attention, our Time – the most valuable of currencies, one that we could invest in building better relationships with the people in our lives, or self-improvement projects. And when what we consume is bad for us (the internet is full of rage-bait content), we pay an additional “fee”: our peace of mind. Needless to say, this leads to many other problems. 

So just like a curator of a museum who has only limited space to exhibit their collection, I am planning to start curating my media consumption better. There’s a Why that I need to ask myself first before hitting that subscribe button. Cal Newport in his podcast last week said a sentence that made stop in my tracks, “I need to be convinced before I subscribe to a newsletter.” That hits home.

I hope this post doesn’t make you rethink your subscription to mine, that is not the objective of this post, I repeat that is not the objective! Just kidding. But I sincerely hope, and it has always been my intention that I never wasted a reader’s time, and I really appreciate the time you give to reading my post(s). Just in case I don’t say/show it enough, thank you.