I recently finished reading “Digital Minimalism” by Cal Newport. I liked his “Deep Work” book and this one seemed interesting also so I picked it up. I was aware this book didn’t rate as highly going into it, which kept me from being disappointed by the lack of new insights.
I asked ChatGPT for a cliff notes-style summary to refresh my memory of the outline of the book, which both suprised me with its effortless clarity and dissapointed me when I realized I probably wouldn’t be able to do any better in this post. The core idea of the book was summarized as, “Digital minimalism is a philosophy that helps people intentionally use technology in ways that support their values, while minimizing mindless use that distracts and overwhelms.”
It sounded like the majority of the content for the book came from a study he did where people would take a 30 day break from optional apps and social media. There didn’t seem to be much new or insightful on this topic that you wouldn’t have already read about elsewhere. The end of the book makes a point of suggesting physical interactions and face-to-face interactions.
Here are the practical tips ChatGPT gave me (with my comments in parenthesis):
- Turn off notifications. (Thankfully modern phones make it easy to customize these. Almost all the notifications I get are silent and work apps get turned off outside of the work day)
- Delete social media from your phone (or quit it altogether). (I don’t use social media but I am thinking about enacting something similar for all the news/video apps.)
- Schedule time for checking email or messages instead of being always-on. (I read personal email once daily at my computer. I’d like to impose something similar for news/video–except when I’m eating alone)
- Set strict rules for how and when to use tech. (Ok, ok. I just turned off YouTube notifications. Let’s see how that works.)
- Embrace “slow” tech: use fewer tools, more mindfully. (I think I’m fairly disciplined about this.)