Digital Minimalism | Workspace Wednesday Ep. 8

Summary

In this episode, the speaker discusses their journey towards digital minimalism, inspired by Cal Newport's book. They reflect on their values and how these should guide their technology use. The speaker evaluates their social media engagement, particularly Twitter, and shares their strategy for mindful usage. They also explore the idea of replacing digital activities with real-world alternatives, aiming for a more intentional relationship with technology.

Takeaways

• 🌟 The speaker is exploring digital minimalism and its impact on their social media use.
• 📅 At the beginning of December, the speaker evaluated their social media platforms and set guidelines to reclaim their attention.
• 📚 The concept of digital minimalism was introduced to the speaker through personal websites, not directly through Cal Newport's book.
• 🔄 The speaker had previously done a social media detox, inspired by Terence McKenna's talk, and found it beneficial for their creativity.
• 💡 Digital minimalism is defined as focusing online time on a few, optimized activities that support personal values, and happily missing out on everything else.
• 🤔 The speaker emphasizes the importance of aligning technology use with personal values and having an intentional mindset.
• 🔍 The speaker conducted research on personal philosophies, which include values, core beliefs, goals, and habits.
• 📝 A personal philosophy dashboard was created in Tana to assess technology use based on values and principles from Cal Newport's book.
• 📊 The dashboard includes fields for core values, goals, and technology use, with a focus on evaluating the impact of each technology on the speaker's life.
• 🕒 The speaker uses Twitter for 20-30 minutes a day, interacting with a curated list of people and learning from shared interests.
• 🚫 The speaker has removed Twitter from their mobile devices and restricted its use to a fixed social media window to limit constant checking and time spent.

Q & A

What is the main topic of discussion in the video transcript?

The main topic of discussion is digital minimalism and its impact on the individual's relationship with social media and technology.

What book influenced the speaker's approach to technology use?

The book 'Digital Minimalism' by Cal Newport influenced the speaker's approach to technology use.

What does the speaker aim to achieve by evaluating their social media use?

The speaker aims to reclaim their attention and shift from an addictive relationship with social media to a more intentional one.

How did the speaker initially engage with the concept of digital minimalism?

The speaker initially engaged with the concept of digital minimalism through a social media detox, inspired by a talk by Terence McKenna.

What does the speaker consider as the core of their personal philosophy?

The speaker considers their values and core beliefs as the core of their personal philosophy.

How does the speaker apply their values to the use of technology?

The speaker applies their values by assessing how different technologies align with their core values and whether they support the things they deem important in life.

What specific actions did the speaker take to limit their use of Twitter?

The speaker removed Twitter from their phone, restricted their use to a fixed 20 to 30 minute social media window, and mainly interacted with a curated list of people.

How does the speaker evaluate the impact of technology on their time and attention?

The speaker evaluates the impact by considering the amount of time spent on a particular technology, its alignment with their values, and whether it distracts from their goals or other activities.

What is the purpose of the 'personal philosophy dashboard' the speaker created in Tana?

The purpose of the 'personal philosophy dashboard' is to serve as a tool for the speaker to reflect on and evaluate their technology use based on their core values, goals, and the principles of digital minimalism.

How does the speaker plan to use the 'personal philosophy dashboard' for future technology evaluation?

The speaker plans to use the 'personal philosophy dashboard' as a dynamic tool, updating and refining it over time to reflect changes in their values, goals, and technology use.

Outlines

00:00

📝 Introduction to Digital Minimalism

The speaker introduces the topic of digital minimalism, reflecting on their personal journey with social media and technology use. They discuss their initial approach to social media, the principles they set for themselves, and the influence of Cal Newport's book 'Digital Minimalism'. The speaker also mentions a previous social media detox experience and how it sparked a re-evaluation of their relationship with technology, emphasizing the importance of aligning technology use with personal values.

05:04

🤔 Defining Personal Philosophy and Values

The speaker delves deeper into the concept of personal philosophy, which includes values, core beliefs, goals, and habits. They emphasize the importance of understanding one's values as a guiding principle for life and technology use. The speaker shares their own process of identifying and articulating their core values, and how this self-reflection led to a more intentional approach towards technology. They also discuss the broader concept of personal philosophy as a North Star, influencing goals and habits.

10:04

💻 Assessing Technology Use in Tanso

The speaker describes their practical application of digital minimalism by assessing their technology use within the Tana workspace. They created a personal philosophy dashboard to evaluate how different technologies align with their core values. The speaker uses Twitter as an example, discussing its impact on their creativity and social connections, and the changes they've made to optimize its use. They also mention setting standards for technology use, such as time limits and curated content, to prevent mindless scrolling and maintain focus.

15:05

🌐 Balancing Digital and Real-World Activities

The speaker explores the balance between digital activities and real-world interactions, considering alternatives to digital tools that might better support their values. They acknowledge their introverted nature and preference for online interactions but recognize the potential benefits of engaging in offline activities. The speaker concludes by discussing their ongoing process of evaluating and adjusting their social media use, influenced by the principles of digital minimalism, and invites others to share their thoughts on the topic.

Keywords

💡Digital Minimalism

Digital Minimalism is a philosophy of technology use that advocates for focusing online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support the things you value, and happily missing out on everything else. In the video, the speaker discusses how this concept has influenced their approach to social media and technology, aiming to reclaim their attention and use technology more intentionally.

💡Social Media

Social Media refers to the collection of online platforms and applications that enable users to create and share content or participate in social networking. In the context of the video, the speaker evaluates their relationship with social media, identifying its addictive nature and seeking ways to use it more intentionally to support their values.

💡Values

Values are the guiding principles that are most important in an individual's life. They serve as the foundation for decision-making and behavior. In the video, the speaker emphasizes the importance of identifying and articulating one's values as a crucial step towards adopting digital minimalism and using technology intentionally.

💡Personal Philosophy

A personal philosophy is an individual's overarching set of beliefs and values that direct their actions and decisions in life. It acts as a compass, guiding one's behavior and choices. In the video, the speaker discusses the concept of personal philosophy and how it encompasses values, core beliefs, goals, and habits, all of which should align with one's desired lifestyle and technology use.

💡Technology Use

Technology use refers to the application and interaction of individuals with various technological tools and platforms. The video emphasizes the need to evaluate and optimize technology use to ensure it aligns with one's values and contributes positively to one's life.

💡Intentional Use

Intentional use of technology means purposefully engaging with digital tools and platforms in a way that supports one's values, goals, and desired outcomes. It involves conscious decision-making about when, how, and why one uses technology.

💡Digital Declutter

Digital declutter refers to the process of清理 and organizing one's digital space, removing unnecessary applications, files, or subscriptions that do not align with one's values or goals. This concept is part of the broader strategy of digital minimalism, aiming to create a more streamlined and focused digital environment.

💡Core Beliefs

Core beliefs are the fundamental assumptions and convictions that shape an individual's perception of reality and influence their behavior and decision-making. They act as the foundation for one's personal philosophy and values.

💡Goals

Goals are the specific, measurable objectives that individuals set for themselves to achieve in various aspects of their lives. They provide direction and motivation. In the video, the speaker connects their personal goals with their technology use, ensuring that the latter supports the achievement of the former.

💡Habits

Habits are regular patterns of behavior that are often performed unconsciously. They can be positive or negative and significantly impact an individual's life. In the context of the video, the speaker discusses forming habits that align with their personal philosophy and support their intentional use of technology.

Highlights

The speaker discusses digital minimalism and its impact on reclaiming attention from social media.

In December, the speaker evaluated their social media usage and set guidelines to change their relationship with technology.

The speaker was inspired by Cal Newport's book 'Digital Minimalism' and personal websites to re-evaluate their technology use.

Digital minimalism is defined as focusing online time on activities that support personal values and ignoring the rest.

The speaker emphasizes that technology use should be directly influenced by personal values.

The speaker previously did a social media detox, which significantly improved their creativity.

The concept of personal philosophy is introduced, including values, core beliefs, goals, and habits.

The speaker shares their personal core values and how they relate to technology use.

A personal philosophy dashboard is created within the digital workspace application Notion.

The speaker outlines a structured approach to evaluate the impact of technology on their life, using Twitter as an example.

The speaker has reduced Twitter usage to 20-30 minutes per day by curating their follow list and removing the app from their phone.

Standard operating procedures are set for using Twitter, such as specific time windows and interaction limits.

The speaker considers alternatives to digital tools, like engaging in social activities or attending courses.

An archive is maintained to track the evolution of the speaker's social media use over time.

The speaker's experience with digital minimalism is an ongoing process of reflection and adjustment.

The speaker invites feedback on digital minimalism from their audience through various channels.

Transcripts

hi everyone welcome to episode 8 of Rick

space Wednesday as I posted on Twitter

yesterday I want to talk about digital

minimalism

at the beginning of December I wrote

here about my current approach to social

media where I evaluated the different

platforms that I was using heavily at

the time and I set out some guidelines

and principles that I wanted to follow

in order to begin reclaiming my

attention

and I went into a bit of detail here

on the blog post

identifying the benefits the drawbacks

and kind of next steps and actions that

I wanted to implement that I would

Implement in order to begin changing my

relationship with social media from

being an more addictive one to an

intentional one

and at the time of writing this which

was December 3rd

I had not yet read digital minimalism by

Cal Newport it was on my reading list

and it was even on my Kindle but I just

didn't get to it yet however around this

time I was exposed to these personal

websites that I linked here in the post

and these would have sparked this

evaluation or rather re-evaluation of my

relationship with technology

and I say re-evaluation because earlier

this year I did do a social media detox

where I didn't use any form of social

media for one month I actually went

beyond one month because I found that it

was really really beneficial for my

creativity and uh Carl calls this

actually a digital declutter and at that

time it was inspired by one of my

favorite Talks

by uh Terence McKenna which I have

linked here and I also have it in the

blog post as well

but this is what would have sparked all

of this and would have kind of had my

gears tuning back to digital minimalism

right so let's kind of get in to see

what Carl defines digital minimalism as

he says that it's a philosophy of

Technology use in which you focus your

online time on a small number of

carefully selected and optimized

activities that strongly support things

you value and then happily miss out on

everything else

and my main takeaway from this was that

the technology that we use and the way

that we use it it should be directly

influenced by our values and I found

that throughout the first part of

digital minimalism Cal really focused on

the values right so that led me

naturally to to ask you know what are

our values and these are the guiding

principles that are most important in

our life

therefore in order for me to interact

with technology with an intentional

mindset I needed to determine my values

and basically let those guide how I use

technology which clearly is not what I

was doing before I'm not sure how many

people maybe the people that Cal would

have had in his little survey in his

book they would have thought about this

in an intentional way but

most of us kind of got sucked into the

addictive scrolling and the constant

checking of notifications that social

media essentially is built upon

and in my last newsletter I wrote that I

never gave much thought to values in my

life of course it's not that there's

nothing meaningful to me I just never

took the time to articulate that meaning

specifically so if for example someone

were to ask me at that time what are

your core values or what are your values

I don't know who would be asking me this

but if they did my answer would have

been pretty generic basically that I'm

not trying to kill anybody I'm not out

here harming people so Do no harm is

would have been a value that I would

have said and I probably would have also

remembered creativity because creativity

has always been pretty important in my

life

and

this this questioning of my values kind

of led me and of course I would have

researched this I would have looked

online and looked in books where I would

have uh read a similar views on this

topic and in my research I realized that

values are just one piece of the puzzle

or one facet of a broader concept and

that concept is having a personal

philosophy

I know it seems like we're going down a

few different rabbit holes here but just

bear with me okay so personal philosophy

what is that well our personal

philosophy is our North Star it is the

compass that we live our lives by and a

lot of the time we we essentially

everyone has a personal philosophy

it's just that it's not articulated or

it's not something that we think about

but

this philosophy actually at least in my

reading I'm not saying that this is

wrote or written anywhere but in my

reading whenever I read about personal

philosophy these these facets came up

right so

our personal philosophy comprises our

values and our values as we said before

the guiding principles that are

important in our life

it also comprises our core beliefs which

which is basically the lens through

which we perceive reality so it's how we

think it's our mindset

and these our values under core beliefs

influence our goals that we set for

ourselves and of course to actualize

these goals we need to have habits or we

need to act in a certain way

to achieve these goals so

um

essentially these are these are the

components and I would have focused more

on values at least at this point simply

because that's what Cal also focused on

in in the book as a as an important part

of determining how we interact with

technology

so

the values that I essentially

I went through a list so James Clay has

a list of his core values and there were

other lists I will most likely in my

newsletter this week I will compile all

of these links that I would have used as

sources but I will compile the put the

link for James Claire's or you can just

Google it James Claire core beliefs or

core values that will come up first

but in that list

these are the these are the principles

that stood out to me as being the most

important in my life

um

so once I determined these values I then

started to think okay how am I going to

flash this out more how am I going to

make some notes and to write down what

these things mean to me in some more

detail and also relate that back to

digital minimalism using the concepts

and the principles that Cal would have

talked about in the book

and that's where I went into my digital

workspace and I went into Tana

specifically and I began to really

assess uh my technology use based on

those suggestions from Cal in the book

so here we are in Tana I created this

sort of personal philosophy dashboard

and right now it's pretty bare I'm not

gonna lie it's pretty bad literally made

this again this is these digital free

space videos are what I'm doing right

now in my workspace so it may not be

completely oh well it is not fleshed out

in any way

but over time I go back and I work on

these things as I'm thinking about it

and as it pertains to my life so

I have my core values goals and

Technology use so I did create a super

tag for values because I had a mind that

there were a lot of different things

that I would need to think about but I

kept it very simple

to begin with so I just have a

description which is where I will type

the why why is creativity important to

me why is it essential in my life and

how do I want to use creativity in

different facets of my life life in

terms of Life areas right whether it's

career whether it's personal projects

Etc

and I also included a field for

clarifying questions and that is because

in James Claire on his website he does a

an Integrity report where he asked

himself uh different questions

pertaining to each value and I did put

some of them hair

so these are directly from his website

for one of his values it wasn't Ruth I'm

not sure it actually may have been Ruth

he asked himself these questions so

these are the kind of questions that I

want to answer in that this portion of

the value super tag

so I have my values I have my goals

which I would have talked about in the

annual review video last week and

Technology uses what we are talking

about today so as a list you can see

it's just the type of Technology it

could be social media it could be an

application it can be a device but what

we're doing here is an evaluation right

so obviously I need the technology

evaluation you can shorten that to Tech

eval or whatever but

let's go into what I have for for

Twitter I like seeing this as a card for

something for some reason but um I don't

have any image

Twitter

so these are the these are the this is

the default content here the fields for

each for these technology evaluation

super tag and this is kind of the guide

that I want to use when I'm thinking

about how I'm using this piece of

technology I want to keep my core values

in mind therefore

when I fill this out I can compare okay

how does this application impact on my

creativity or how do I want my

creativity to guide me in using Twitter

that's the the mindset behind having

this hair

I have a direct file you feel now quick

thing the only reason I have Fields is

because of the how I want to see the

information I don't have just plain

nodes because I got frustrated with

indenting and out denting and

it's just easier to see the information

side by side so I have it as a field

Direct Value what value does this serve

in my life for Twitter I know that I am

able to meet people with shared

interests I'm able to learn from these

people I can share my own ideas and I

can get feedback on my projects this is

how Twitter this is why I haven't

deleted my Twitter essentially because I

still get some value from it

now these questions here are all

questions that Carl would have

encouraged us to ask in the book before

we did or after we did a digital

declutter so he also asked how does a

tool how does this tool in this case

Twitter impact my time and attention but

time during the week how much time am I

spending on this you know so for Twitter

I use it approximately 20 to 30 minutes

a day and it's probably less than that

because I literally just go on check my

curated list of people that I want to

stay up to date and keep in touch with I

check my messages I check my

notifications and then I'm off so I've

really called down my use of Twitter

since I deleted it from my phone and

since I unboxed it from my web browser

from Arc

Cal also employs us to set standard

operating procedures which is

essentially how and when we are going to

use this tool so for Twitter

I do not have the mobile app on either

my phone or my iPad or anywhere I use it

via the browser within the fixed 20 to

30 minute social media window that I

have this prevents me from checking

notifications constantly and it just has

a restriction essentially to keep me

where I need to be

and to decrease my use of how long I

spend there

and I of course only well mainly

interact with my curated list this is

the compile list of people that I want

to keep in touch with sometimes I do go

back to home like once in a while to see

if there are any new updates of

different apps but generally I'm in my

curated list

alternatives are there any activities

that I enjoy outside of the digital

world that may be better than using this

tool now this one is a hard one for me

because I am not keen not that I'm not

keen I just don't enjoy I'm very

socially introverted so I don't enjoy

necessarily going out on socializing and

you know doing things face to face

and very much a homebody so I wrote that

I could consider if there are any

courses or Summoners on things that I'm

interested in although I can't really

see that happening maybe I will have to

be the one to make it because Trinidad

um is not

it's it's hard to find certain things

but you never know it might exist and

maybe that's a better use of my time or

some of my time so maybe I can augment

the daily use to

once a week twice a week three times a

week and the rest of my time I can put

that into actually going to some sort of

talk or course so this is the type of of

thinking that he's trying to jog when we

ask this question you know is there

something else that you could do in the

real quote-unquote world that might be a

better alternative

and lastly I just have an option field

for the type of media so whether it is

social media application or device

because I would like to use this

um do something similar to for iPad and

laptop Etc

and lastly I have an archive and the

idea behind this is that this is going

to change of course uh therefore I want

to keep the previous

versions of it so I can put the date

here and there's just screenshot this

and plug that in and that's kind of my

little Archive of how I've how my social

media use has developed over time

and that's where I am currently as I

said this is not a fully packaged thing

ready to go but it's how I'm currently

thinking about my social media use and

how digital minimalism the book by Kyle

Newport is helping me to interact and to

further evaluate my technology use

and um that is pretty much it for now

that's what I've been up to in my

digital workspace this week

I fee feel free to let me know your

thoughts on digital minimalism in the

comments on Twitter via DM or commenting

on the post or even sending me an email