How I Did A Digital Decluttering Eexperiment
I have read a book called Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport and he recommended a digital decluttering experiment in the book. Initially, to say that I was skeptical was an understatement. In my mind, I was definitely defending my digital life—
Of course it would be easy if you don’t run a small business all by yourself. I didn’t spend that much time on social media and my phone, it was all scraps of time. If I don’t chat with people on social media then I won’t have any adult conversation especially now during the pandemic. My phone is my way to escape from toddler tantrums—I can’t just walk away to my office outside of our home! The list goes on.
I decided to first finish reading the book before I jump on the experiment. When I finished the book I thought -- YES! I have definitely become a slave to my phone and the whole digital world. What is worse is that my mental health has been hugely affected by the way I use digital devices and resources. Especially during this past year with COVID after our whole experience in Wuhan, I was just straight angry most of the time. I was angry at everyone—myself, the kids, my husband and of course everyone on Facebook. Since I knew that I wouldn’t want to be glued to my phone during the day, the only time I thought I’d check my Facebook was the first thing in the morning and I could put away the phone for the rest of the day. So smart, right?! Of course, 100% sure that I’d come across a comment on someone’s thread that would totally fire me up. Then guaranteed, I walked into the day being angry and I had this negative thing in my head that I would have to constantly try to make sense of. Honestly, I was just so done with the way I was. I clearly remember me telling my husband one day after I wasted a full hour on a meaningless argument on Facebook—
"I am so done with social media and I am SO READY to start the digital decluttering."
Here are the things I decided to do as my digital decluttering guidelines:
No Social Media!!No announcement. Just vanish for an entire month.
Wechat—Check Family Group Once at 5pm (It is a Chinese messaging app kinda like Whatsapp, but it also has a timeline function.This is the only group chat place I have for my side of the family.)
Check Email Twice A Day—9:15am and 8:00pm
Check Text Message Twice A Day—with email
Work Time—8-10pm on photos, assignments
Call People to Say Hi!!!
It might be surprising but the whole point of the digital minimalism is not anti-social or anti-technology. It’s actually trying to help us to build stronger real connections. It sounds heartless but it is so true that a “like” on social media is literally just one byte of information and it doesn’t mean much at all. Actually, I am definitely guilty of just liking someone’s post in fear that I would offend the person if I don’t “like it“ as all the others do, even though I honestly couldn’t care less about this person’s personal business.
Anyways, I outlined my rules and off social media I went, without announcing my departure. This is not a short break, or at least I hope, that it could lead to some more permanent changes. Also I was just curious to know who really cared enough to notice that I was gone.
I decided that I needed to make sure that I actually call and chat with people I care about. Being stuck with three kids at home is not the best way to fulfill my forever urge to have a good deep mind burning conversation. So instead of scrolling through FB feed or instagram, I scrolled through my phone contacts. I called people—at least someone every few days. Some days, I called multiple people. I have to say, it was SO nice to be able to hear people’s voices. I chatted with people about many different things, parenting, church, schooling, relationships, and even racism and politics. I learned a lot from others and I feel heard too. Literally.
Of course, by doing this, I subjected myself to the cruel fact that I would find out who truly are my friends and how many friends I have. Sadly, there was one day, I made like 20 calls and left each of them a voicemail and no one answered and no one cared enough to give me a call back or even a text back. I mean, I didn’t try too hard to try and call again and again and I know that people are busy. These days people probably also feel that you are selling MLM if all a sudden you started calling people so they avoid random calls. I’m also not trying to sound needy of attention. But still, it says something doesn’t it?
I know there would be hard days when I would want to just escape the whining and I would be attempting to reach for my phone. Or if I get bored then I would want to reach for my phone for a pacifier. I decided to read more books and also start this drawing lesson. I read way more books in this one month than the total amount of books I read in the entire 2019, or even plus 2018. I also followed this book called You Can Draw In 30 Days given to me as a gift. I did one lesson a day for 30 days. I obviously have not become this expert drawer/painter but I absolutely enjoyed sitting there sketching and shading and seeing all the lines and shapes come into something real. Oh, I did it during my boys’ nap time. It was my quiet time and I enjoyed it a lot.
I also tried to just go out to areas where I don’t have much signal at all. I took the kids to the Salt River a couple of times and we saw wild horses. Of course, the kids loved the sand and sticks more than the horses but it was good enough for me to get some peaceful time out with no one around.
One major thing I did…was to use an app to block my applications and websites on my computer and on my phone. I know how my will power is. I needed something stronger to help me to start with at least and hopefully I can get into a good habit. I deleted ALL the social media apps on my phone and turned off all notifications. The fact that it is an extreme hassle for me to get on any of these distractive stuff has helped me to not wanting to get on my phone or my computer much anyways. There’s nothing wrong with some tough love for myself right?
Now, I found this month of "isolation" a lot easier than I expected. I think one major advantage I had was that I was taking some amazing photography workshops. This is probably one of the best things I’ve ever done. You get to interact with the teacher, and the workshop attendees. You work toward the same goal together and there are assignments to hold you accountable. The best thing was that we got to do live chats each week with other attendees. Especially under our crazy circumstances of this pandemic, being able to see the same awesome people every week and chat about the things we love is just a pure blessing. I didn’t know how exactly I could make this sustainable in the future—obviously I can’t be taking workshop after workshop every month. Or can I? Well, I might have been doing this for the following months too, oh well. But no regret.
Obviously, life with three kids will be crazy. Period. But honestly I felt peaceful inside. I felt content. I felt inspired. I felt good. I definitely wonder now, how much I *need* to know about the world around me to live a good life myself. It’s a hard balance to find between focusing on my own stuff and not to be ignorantly full of myself in my head. It will still take me major efforts to be a good friend and find good friends but I think it will be worth the effort to find true friendships. And the most important thing is that now I know I can gain back the control over my life—digital, social and any life. That is the most freeing and comforting gain from this experiment.
What about my business? Social media never was my main source of inquiries. Maybe I am missing out on *some* business opportunities. However, honestly, I probably can’t really handle more business anyways--I intend to keep my business part time and it is keeping me busy enough with the client I have currently. During my time away from social media, I updated my website; I worked on my portfolio; and I entered and won awards. All the effort helped me to actually boost my reputation. As a matter of fact, somehow when I was gone, I still gained 13 followers on Instagram.
Now that I am done with the extreme decluttering process, I definitely have realized what I have missed during that month the most and what the best way to fill that void. Some actions involve social media but most of them are not. Here is my current updated guideline/rule:
Email+Text: 7:30am+8pm
Instagram: 15 min at loop time and mod time. Schedule ALL my posts through Planoly ahead of time on my computer.
FB: Only check my groups(I have left most of the groups and saved shortcuts to the specific groups I need to check regularly) 15min at 10:30am and 8pm
Call time: 4-5pm and after 7:30pm
Office Hour: 2-3pm + 8-10pm
Of course, I am far from perfect. There are definitely days where I got distracted by something on Instagram or got sucked in to watch a bunch of videos on a topic I am interested in. I am back on Instagram because I do enjoy the visual format and the easiness to see my friends' art in one place. I make an effort to go down my following list and like and comment instead of scrolling through my feed. Also, since I started this process, I have been in some sort of workshop almost constantly. As a whole though, I have become a lot less dependent on my digital devices. And it is absolutely freeing to know that I am in control of my digital life and I can be intentional with my choices.
Thank you so much if you have made it all the way to the end!!! This has been a topic on my mind a lot for the past year and as you can tell, I’ve got a lot of thoughts on this. Please let me know if you have any questions. If you decide to give this book a read or even give digital decluttering a try, let me know what you think and how your experiment goes!
