Last year at this time, I’d never heard of the term “digital sabbatical.” And I had no reason to: while I spent my days in front of my computer (writing, blogging, working), I rarely had need to log on during the evenings or weekends.
As the year progressed, however, my digital workdays grew longer: there were more blogs to read, emails to answer, tweets to write, etc, etc. I’d find myself online late into the night, or on a Saturday or Sunday, answering blog comments, working on projects, or simply keeping up with daily correspondence.
Sometime this summer, I realized my life was out of balance. Although I’d cleared my life of physical clutter, I’d taken on far too many digital commitments – and unfortunately, they were affecting my productivity, my concentration, and my sense of peace and serenity.
At first, I solved the problem by taking digital sabbaticals. I’d completely unplug for an evening, a weekend, or whenever I traveled. However, while I enjoyed being offline for a spell, I felt like I was constantly playing catch-up when I logged back on.
I realized that, rather than avoid my digital commitments, I needed to minimize them. It’s still a work in progress, but here are some of my efforts towards that end:
1. I’m resisting joining any new social networks. That’s why you won’t find me on Facebook, Foursquare, or anything that sucks me further into the world of 24/7 connection.
2. I’ve ditched my RSS reader. Instead, I check out my favorite blogs when the mood strikes. While it’s convenient to have everything in one place, it made me feel obligated to read it all.
3. I stopped answering every blog comment. I read and appreciate each one, but I just couldn’t keep up with both responding and writing new content – unfortunately, something had to give.
4. I’ve become more selective about projects I take on. While I’d like to say yes to everyone, I’ve found I prefer to work on just a few things at a time, and give them my full attention and effort.
5. I’m coming to terms with the fact that when you receive hundreds of emails each week, you can’t answer every one.
6. I turned off my news alerts. I don’t need to know about every article that’s published on decluttering or minimalist living.
7. I check Twitter once a day, and tweet only a handful of times each week.
It’s a whole new decluttering challenge for me, and in some respects, more difficult than disposing of physical stuff. I look forward to exploring these issues, and would love to hear how others have pared down their digital commitments.
{If you’d like to read more about minimalist living, please consider buying my book, The Joy of Less, A Minimalist Living Guide, or subscribing to my RSS feed.}
I’d expect that the value of your challenge transcends the digital/analog divide. Isn’t it more of spatial/temporal distinction? You are spatially decluttered, but have remained temporally cluttered? (The latter is also my bigger challenge.)
You just read my mind, it’s just great you’re “optimizing” your digital life too. Congratulations.
This is undoubtedly my biggest area that I struggle to minimize. I have no problem throwing out old clothes or tossing out toys and other clutter. Yet the element of self-discipline it takes to not worry about what I’m missing online (information or a possible missed opportunity) is really hard for me.
This post is kind of coincidental because I’m working on a post about organized excess being the cousin of clutter and I think digital commitments fall into that area as well. It’d definitely helpful and motivational to read of someone else battling and winning the battle. Thanks.
While I don’t blog often, I read them regularly (yours included!). I have a RSS feed but read the subject I want (I have different areas of interest and so read for instance sustainable living when I’m feeling like some inspiration or minimalism to get motivation to declutter). One thing I did get sucked into is facebook. I joined many games then felt obligated to keep “helping” people with their games, but in the end I realised I was “enabling” them to be unproductive with their lives. So I stopped playing them all. I reduced to a couple I find fun to use as down time. I probably still need to downsize again, but not right now! ;o)
Lately I’ve been unsubscribing ruthlessly. I depend on a gut check: when I see something pop up in email or my RSS feeder, do I think “oh, boy, Yay!” or “ugh, geez, another thing to tick off the to do list”? If it’s in the latter category – away it goes!
me too!!! relying on the gut check when perusing my blog reader.
I think so many of us are struggling with this issue. For me, I’m trying to limit my intake of political news. I’m a political junkie and can spend hours on all kinds of blogs and websites (especially reading the comments section). Right now I give myself a cut off time each night and I’ve been pretty good with sticking to it. Other than that, I’m still looking for ways to find balance.
You’ve provided a lot to think about. I am ready to give up twitter. I don’t mind reading updates a few times a week but my tweets are never as witty as the ones I read from others.
I work with kids at church so facebook is a fun thing for me – a way to keep in touch with them and with friends around the world. I just don’t get sucked into all the extras on FB…just one game that a friend and I continue to use to challenge each other.
I do subscribe to too many blogs… and I star (in google reader) the ones I like. If I start feeling “ugh” about an update, I’ll check the list of their blog posts and if I see few/no stars on their last dozen posts, I’ll unsubscribe immediately.
Physical clutter I’m gung ho about getting rid of. Digital clutter I collect like crazy. Not good.
It’s amazing how being online can creep into every spare minute. I agree about facebook — i had an account for about a year, but I deactivated it about 6 months ago and haven’t looked back. I don’t twitter, RSS, anything like that. I just have a few blogs I like to read regularly. I’ve even given up on following the news (for the most part) for the last few months and don’t really feel like I am missing too much. I like learning about current events from other people, rather than from an internet news blurb.
I’ve been tempted to unsubscribe from Fbook. My current coping mechanism is to not become Friends with every invite — something that pisses my friends off! I explain to them that I see them in person every week, why be Fbook “friends”?
I deactivated my Twitter, and I don’t miss it.
As I get more into blogging and Twitter, I can see this becoming a problem for me as well. I definitely could use some more time away from the computer. Thanks for giving me some helpful ideas for cutting back!
Thanks for this post… I have been thinking about these issues a lot lately. I just started blogging for the purpose of sharing and learning more about photography, finding meaning in simplicity (in our daily lives and photography) and connecting with like-minded people. Although I’m finding the blogging very energizing, I have really started to question what I want out of the blog. If I want to increase readership, I feel like I constantly need to be commenting on other blogs and replying to my own comments. I’m also thinking about joining twitter (again, connecting to more people). I think its important to focus on what your priorities are and minimize and simplify in ways that have a purpose. So, I’m still trying to figure out what to do. Thanks again.
I gave up and nuked my facebook and Twitter accounts about 6 months ago and haven’t missed either one in the slightest. They were functioning as straight up time sucks while adding no redeeming value to my life. I do still have an RSS reader set up, but then again my job hunt only takes so much time every morning so I still need something to do with my time!
i feel guilty just being here. this is by far my biggest and hardest challenge so far. and this is after downsizing, ruthless decluttering and getting out of debt. i just really hate missing out on something good.
~janet
So far, I only have an outlook email address and a hotmail address. Being 20, I guess people assume or expect I should have facebook or myspace or twitter or whatever is the flavor of the month, but 6 months ago I deleted my accounts and have decided to give these up for good if I can help it! I haven’t missed facebook, myspace etc. In fact now I feel more compelled to pick up the phone, or to actually go and see my friends when possible. While this may not be possible/easy in some cases, I feel it has increased the quality of my friendships and has distinguished my friends from the ‘people I talk to once a year’. Although I personally love technology, society’s ‘abuse’ has lead to a generation of people that are socially awkward, anti-social etc. Not to mention the possible dangers/consequences of exposing your personal details to complete strangers. I didn’t want to totally fall into this trap of relying on these networking sites to satisfy my social life- I want to live and actually SEE my friends!
Good for you! I’m an amateur at minimalism but its values really speak to me and help me find peace. However, I find that technology often has the opposite effect on me. It can reduce the number of objects around but connectivity takes its toll as well. I also wonder about the impacts on the environment. Does my hardback book (which are increasingly from the library but still sometimes from the bookstore) have a bigger impact on the earth than a Kindle in terms of waste, energy, resources…? For now, I do love holding my book and turning the pages and not having a little red light blink at me all the time telling me that someone wants something from me right now….
Wow, so glad to read in Francine’s post and in the comments that other people feel the same way as I do about social networking sites.
I used to have accounts on Friendster, MySpace, LinkedIn, Orkut etc. but deleted them all a few years ago for privacy reasons and because they were such a time drain.
I didn’t want to join Facebook but was pressured to do so by friends and family who only wanted to communicate through the site. But my profile is nearly empty and my wall is disabled.
As for Twitter, Foursquare and other sites, I don’t have an account on them.
One thing I find sad about this age of social networking we’re in is that many of my friends and family seem to prefer to communicate publicly (using the Facebook wall, for example) instead of privately. I feel that communication between us is watered down. Messages are censored because they’re being broadcasted to all contacts, instead of being communicated intimately with one person or a few people. After the initial joy of finding long-lost friends on FB, I’ve found hanging around there to be a rather lonely experience.
This is a great post and confirmed for me what I was already starting to feel – too many online “obligations” are clutter. The obligation can be an actual task (write a blog, make a comment, answer an email) or something more passive (reading ALL the bookmarked blogs, openeing all the emailed newsletters, checking out all the websites recommended).
I try to keep my blog list down to ten (eleven at the moment but my friend in Canada doesn’t count:-) I just don’t have time to read more, even if I want to.
I’m registered with facebook but only because a long-distance friend stopped their blog and moved onto facebook way back when.
I can’t bring myself to even find out how Twitter works because the very idea fills me with dread – little nonsensical updates ALL THE TIME. Why?!
:-)
Karen
I am on the verge of a major RSS feed shrink, but still find it handy for several fav blogs. I am a lousy Tweeter, but I like Twitter much more than Facebook, as it is less intrusive. Steve and I have sort of solved the problem by having a joint Facebook account for business. My personal one is full of “hides” b/c I seem to attract My Farm and Mafia Wars players. Ugh.
You’ve been doing this over a year, so you now know what approach works best for you. What’s the point of working like this if you have to conform to time-sucks or do what everybody else is doing? More power to ya.
I love this. Recently I took a few months off of facebook and twitter so that I didn’t have too much digital clutter.
It IS hard.
Digital clutter . . . I have a blog, we’re trying to build a business so that has a blog and a website, and then there is Facebook. I’d really love to just delete the thing. But most of my extended family keeps in touch that way.
I am going to go through and purge those that aren’t family though. That will be a major improvement.
My Google reader is also in need of a serious purging.
Off to accomplish those two tasks!
And you’re doing a great job at it, Francine. Minimalism not only applies to the things we can touch, feel, grab, hold, but it also applies to the digital. And very much so in this technological age we live in.
Keep up the fantastic work as always! And I’m glad you’ve said “Yes” to those select projects you want to work on and/or contribute. ;) You’re a great friend.
Profound. And I thought I had the minimalism down to a science. You’ve given me a lot to think about!
I’ve been thinking about giving up Facebook but keeping Twitter as I build my minimalist business. Thanks for posting what you are doing in this area Francine. It’s very helpful!
A couple of months ago, I did items 1, 2, and 6 on your list. Those three alone had a HUGE effect on reducing my online time and my feeling of “cyber clutter” that was infiltrating my life! They are all things we started doing originally with the purpose of streamlining our online time – but they became time-sucks that did’t contribute anything meaningful. Love your blog BTW, although I don’t have it in an RSS reader! :-) I like to just check it at my leisure when I feel like some relaxing reading – I really share your aesthetic!
When I turned sixty (I do look ten years younger in email than I do in person, by the way!) I thought seriously of how much time I had left on this earth, and resolved to spend moments as if they were my last. All of a sudden, my calendar cleared up enough for me to do only the things I really enjoy, and to do them with people I really enjoy. Whether it is an invasion of digital or physical nature, I no longer spend my time on something someone else deems important and I don’t!
I wanted to tell you that I really enjoy your blog. I have followed your steps to de-cluttering and found myself with less obligations (with stuff/online/events) and more time to do what i need to do! Minimalism is truly the secret to time management!
I think a lot of this depends upon what you enjoy because I love being in front of my computer, but I do use my time in front of it judiciously according to my own tastes. My job is online (not blogging), so I’m using it for several hours at night. I don’t like Twitter, but I love Facebook. I enjoy keeping up my wall and making it pretty and sharing blog posts that I find interesting (including yours). I can’t imagine visiting every blog I like to read individually, so I get one big email from Feedblitz with all of them in it, which I know saves an enormous amount of time. I think what’s most important is to do what you enjoy doing and not worrying about whether reading blogs, answering emails or using Facebook and Twitter are something you ought to give up. Give up what you don’t like! Keep what you do. And find time-saving measures that you’re comfortable with.
because of the hours i work iam not really home at the socalled prime time work hours along with haveing a desktop computer and a ipad for my basic needs for a socalled digtal world ..
my computer is my connection to the outside world with this blog and other websites iam on ..
i spend a couple hours aday just visting the website i like and checking email then iam done for the day .when i get home after work i watch the tv shows i miss dureing the work hours on hulu plus ..then it off to bed and then up again on the daily work program i have ..
i have spilt days off from work and it works out to spending one night watching movies and reading emails on the computer and the other night when iam off it out to the movies with a dinner and carryout for a snack at a later time then some basic shopping at the stores for food and movies and tv shows on dvd with some books throw into the mix i buy and book and dvd movie
I have been burning through the Minimalist Blogs online the past couple of days pretty heavy during my breaks at work. I myself last week totalay destroyed my smart phone on purpose. That and truthfully as I sit here and type on this blog being online is THE #1 addiction I have. I have already ditched the smart phone and plan to ditch the internet midnight this Sunday. I have got to the point to rely on a processor instead on my brain on EVERYTHING. I am looking for a home phone with a cord attached to it.