Last year I read a book by Cal Newport called Digital Minimalism (which led me to Rogowski’s Handmade, Tharp’s The Creative Habit, and a few other books as well). The wonders of actually checking out other people’s recommended readings and bibliographies is such a joy (and so nice to personally discover that it’s not reserved for the academic world).

Newport’s Minimalism echoes what was already common news in 2019: how to minimize the time we spend staring at a screen and make good use of what time we do spend on tech and online. (The applicability of this advice given all our online meetings in 2020 is debatable, but no one could have foreseen that). He avoids lampooning all screen time (how balanced!) and offers practical tips and challenges for applying a philosophy of minimalism to our time spent in the digital world, such as coming up with a philosophical purpose for turning off devices, and then doing so for a week (or was it a month?), and so on.

I appreciated Newport’s book for two main reasons: First, I had already started trying to cut back and so I was gratified to see him affirm what I was doing. (Affirmation’s always nice, isn’t it?) But also, as he explored the connection between time offline and creative energy, I was inevitably led to other authors (which also contributed to my staying offline, since I was reading instead).

Why am I trying to stay offline? There are a number of reasons, and in no particular order:

1. I have a monstrous tendency to waste time online (I’m looking at you, Neopets) if I don’t rein myself in. There’s something about the IV-drip of information that is news + Facebook + Buzzfeed + etc. that makes me feel as if I’m being productive when I’m actually not.
2. When I’m online for too long, I find it’s easier to bow to unhealthy thoughts.
3. There’s also the toddler. If I want my children to practice healthy use of technology, I’m going to have to model it myself first.
4. Then there’s the idea of stewardship. Without trying to be flippant, if I accept that every breath is by the grace of God, I can demonstrate my gratitude through a balanced use of my time.
5. I’ve realized that I take great joy in making things with my hands, and minutes spent online reading about Fifty Thousand Secrets McDonalds Employees Can’t Tell You are minutes wasted in learning a new skill or building something fun.

So what am I doing? Very simple things.

1. When I go online, I go on with a goal. Sometimes the goal is actually to browse my Facebook groups, but setting that goal often has made me more aware of when my purposeful browsing shifts into mindlessness.
2. I’ve made good use of my phone’s wellness settings and set limits on time-sucking apps. 15 minutes for Instagram and 30 minutes for my web browser. No games downloaded. Since I received my new phone in July (and messaging aside, because I have long video calls since I can’t see my parents in person), I’m quite proud to say that I’ve cut my phone time down to about an hour each day.

And that’s it! I’m grateful to Newport for promoting a healthy habit in a balanced manner. To be sure, there are still days where I waste time on the laptop (my purposeful browsing certainly becomes mindless much more easily after midnight) or my tablet (my primary device during toddler naps), but this is certainly a work in progress that I’m happy to continue.

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Featured photo by Yoann Siloine on Unsplash.