I am not very minimal in a lot of things but I have always been a digital minimalism embracer. I have experimented with a lot of things including changing my phone to grayscale and cutting wifi connection entirely. But the following 10 things I am going to share with you are what actually worked and what I have been able to continue practicing without feeling too pressured or cut off from the world.
1. 1 tab at a time
I try to maintain as few tabs as possible in my browser. If I do have a lot of tabs open and I don’t have the energy to declutter them, I use the OneTab Chrome extension to save all active tabs into a list, which allows them to be restored later with one click. It not only helps me to focus on my current task but also reduces computer memory usage.
2. Full screen mode so no apps in the dock
An even simpler solution when I find myself working with too many tabs is to pull the current tab to full screen mode so there is no dock and menu bar and it gives a clearer interface for me to better focus on my top priority.
3. Don’t bookmark things
No matter how tempting it is, I try to avoid adding webpages to bookmark/reading list. Too many to-read gives me anxiety and it’s not at all the most efficient way to organize information. I believe that “Abundance of information narrows our collective attention span”. And I always tell myself it is very likely that I won’t read this page. If I do need it sometime, I will trust my Google skills to be able to find it again.
4. Set time limit for websites
There are a lot of tools that help you to block certain websites for a specific period of time of the day, but my favorite extension is StayFocused which lets you set a quota. Because I don’t necessarily want to block YouTube completely during the day and allows unlimited access after 8 pm, but I do want to limit my daily usage to at most 20 minutes.
5. No phone
I avoid taking my phone with me unless I know I absolutely need it. I don’t have GPS or CarPlay on my car so I almost always need to bring my phone with me when I go out. But at home I always try to put it away or at least put in face down so I won’t see the notifications popping up. And it really helps that iPhone X’s battery life is so short that I always have to put it away to be charged.
6. Turn off notifications on the lock screen
I turned off all app notifications on the lock screen and in the app’s upper right corner, only allowing the message app that I use to talk with my family to show the red dot.
7. Delete unused and overused apps
If there is an app on my phone or laptop that I have not been using for weeks, I will delete it even it feels like I might want to use it sometime, e.g. Geico, my bank app, EventBrite, Groupon etc. I also deleted apps that I have been wasting time in, including Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, GoodReads, Medium (oops) etc.
8. Unsubscribe to all emails
As much as I love coupons and news digest, I try to unsubscribe to anything I can. Even more important and difficult than that is to unsubscribe to things I want to read but never actually did. So I won’t be overwhelmed with thousands of emails and also won’t feel guilty opening my inbox.
Currently my active email subscriptions are:
GoodReads, Python Morsels, Daily Coding Problem, deeplearning.ai, Scott H Young, Cal Newport, Tech Ladies, ACCT (Philly Animal Shelter), AngelList, Learning How to Learn, Wait But Why, Work Wonders Career, Allume and TrunkClub.
Some very difficult unsubscription I have made includes:
Everlane, Women Who Code, EventBrite, Freedom, Robin Sharma, Leo Babauta…
9. Archive emails
Besides preventing emails, I try to keep my email inbox within 1 page by archiving all others. It helps me to train my mind to articulate and search for what I need instead of scrolling down randomly.
10. No iPad
Never find the need for an iPad.
I would love to hear what you think about the 10 tips I shared and what do you do for digital minimalism. I will also invite my friend and fellow programmer Chinmayee to talk about her digital detox ideas soon. Stay tuned!
