Digital Minimalism
The Playbook for Digital Downsizing
“Love people and use things because the opposite never works” Minimalists
We have made it to 2017 and by now it’s clear to us that we are dependent on electronic devices. Applications are made to easily interact with the user and the most successful ones makes us develop an addiction as Nir Eyal explains in his book Hooked: How To Build Habit-Forming Products.
I have found that it is extremely hard to break these intrusive habits. I’m constantly opening applications without a reason other than to see if I have any new notifications. In my attempt to regain control of my actions I deleted a few of those apps from my phone. Only to check them on the computer, which didn’t curb the addiction fully but yielded positive results. I would check my phone less and when I did visit the website version I realized I didn’t miss anything. This was my insight to debunking the fear of missing out. I needed more control, not more tools. Modern life and technology has molded us into consumerists zombies. Having more stuff is the measure in which we are told to live up to. Realizing this made me rethink how I should use technology for assistance and not for distractions.
According to Joshua and Ryan; “Minimalism is a lifestyle that helps people question what things add value to their lives. By clearing the clutter from life’s path, we can all make room for the most important aspects of life: health, relationships, passion, growth, and contribution.”
Applying this concept to my digital life came with some challenges. How to start was probably the hardest. So I decided to start with my phone. The brick of amazing technology we won’t leave home without. I set out to delete most of my apps and declutter my phone.
When deleting or letting go of certain apps you are also renouncing certain parts of your life. I don’t believe that’s true because you never have time to do everything anyways. So the guitar apps and film cameras are only there as reassurance that you would like to do these things. But you aren’t doing them. You don’t have time to do everything. So delete it all and double down on what you do do.
The objective here is to free your time to do the things that will make you happier. Scrolling endlessly starting a small bright screen brings no one true happiness. The only thing you get from that behavior is an awful neck pain.
The Playbook for Digital Downsizing
Less is more.
80/20: Decluttering is about having a simple but effective system that is providing the most value. The Pareto principle (80/20 rule, the law of the vital few) states that, for many events, roughly 80% of effects come from 20% of the causes. That means that 80% of the results come from 20% of the efforts, roughly. Set a quota for the apps you can keep. Aim for 20%.
Least Valuable Players: Delete the apps that serve only one purpose and can be replaced by a more useful app you already have. Eg.: I only have the Flixter app to lookup showtimes for films, something that can be easily done via google search. Scrapped. Multiple image editing apps that does 90% the same thing, scrap them.
Monogamy: A lot like LVP’s, the apps that falls under the monogamy strategy are doing mostly the same thing, but serve a whole category of purposes. Monogamy is to keep only one app of the category and only if you need to. Eg: IMDb, Flixter, Letterboxd and Reelgood. They do mostly the same thing, so chose the one that you like best and stick with it. Exceptions are: When having more than one is beneficial for organization, eg.: Inbox for my personal email and Gmail for corporate. Or when migration isn’t an option. More on migration below.
Migrating Data: In some cases you might find that you have information spread out over similar apps. Like I do with Wunderlist and Todoist. I’m choosing Todoist for my listing purposes, so I have to migrate the still relevant info I have on Wunderlist to the app I am keeping. This can be easier said than done. Eg.: Dropbox and Drive: there’s so much data in both these apps I’m not sure migrating to use only one is an option. They have mostly the same features but both are bound by storage caps and have important differences in features. Some document formats will only open on one or the other. Nothing is set in stone in this strategy, analyze and ask yourself the reason to keep or delete and make your decision.
Blue Moon Apps: Let go of those apps you only use once in a blue moon. They cause clutter and if the frequency is low, you can just download them when you need and delete them afterwards (provided you’re at a place in space and time where data is cheap.) My example for this is Expensify. It’s very useful when I go on work trips but that happens only two or three times a year. I can safely let go of it. Others: TrainTime, Wifi Map, CamScanner to name a few.
Forsaken Apps: These are self explanatory but I’ll explain them anyway: The apps you have but never open. Don’t be a ghost user. Let them go.
Time Suckers: These will be the hardest. These are the ones we talked about earlier. The ones that got us hooked. The ones taking times out of our lives and providing little to no value in return. Think a lot about these apps, ask why and make your case whether to keep ’em or scrap ’em.
After running the plays, this was the scorecard:
I Have 136 apps on my phone broken down like this:
- Apps to Keep: 34
- Apps to Delete: 102
That’s 25% of the apps I had. I didn’t hit my target but as Lombardi once said “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.”
Applying the minimalism concept to my digital life I was able to delete 3 out of every 4 apps on my phone and I plan to do this once or twice more to someday improve to only one page of apps.
Other Implementations:
Digital downsizing will also be beneficial to my desktop applications and web applications. Some of them will repeat across platforms eg.: Evernote and Calendars. The big question for them is: Do I need this application on this platform? The answer for Google Calendar for example is yes. But this isn’t true for all of them, eg.: Notes (Apple). I use it often on my computer but rarely on phone, so I will ditch it’s mobile version.
Applying this scrutiny to social medias is hugely beneficial and extremely hard. Even the amount of wearable tech and tracking devices and the IoTs all need scrutiny to question their values. These strategies can help us to use less of what we think we need and more of what is truly valuable.
If you use any other strategies to declutter your digital life, please share them with me!
