Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World
"Newport is making a bid to be the Marie Kondo of technology: someone with an actual plan for helping you realize the digital pursuits that do, and don't, bring value to your life."--Ezra Klein, Vox
Minimalism is the art of knowing how much is just enough. Digital minimalism applies this idea to our personal technology. It's the key to living a focused life in an increasingly noisy world.
In this timely and enlightening book, the bestselling author of Deep Work introduces a philosophy for technology use that has already improved countless lives.
Digital minimalists are all around us. They're the calm, happy people who can hold long conversations without furtive glances at their phones. They can get lost in a good book, a woodworking project, or a leisurely morning run. They can have fun with friends and family without the obsessive urge to document the experience. They stay informed about the news of the day, but don't feel overwhelmed by it. They don't experience "fear of missing out" because they already know which activities provide them meaning and satisfaction.
Now, Newport gives us a name for this quiet movement, and makes a persuasive case for its urgency in our tech-saturated world. Common sense tips, like turning off notifications, or occasional rituals like observing a digital sabbath, don't go far enough in helping us take back control of our technological lives, and attempts to unplug completely are complicated by the demands of family, friends and work. What we need instead is a thoughtful method to decide what tools to use, for what purposes, and under what conditions.
Drawing on a diverse array of real-life examples, from Amish farmers to harried parents to Silicon Valley programmers, Newport identifies the common practices of digital minimalists and the ideas that underpin them. He shows how digital minimalists are rethinking their relationship to social media, rediscovering the pleasures of the offline world, and reconnecting with their inner selves through regular periods of solitude. He then shares strategies for integrating these practices into your life, starting with a thirty-day "digital declutter" process that has already helped thousands feel less overwhelmed and more in control.
Technology is intrinsically neither good nor bad. The key is using it to support your goals and values, rather than letting it use you. This book shows the way.
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Community Reviews
Not quite the game changers that I felt Newport's previous books were.
Still useful - I've already adopted many parts of the approach.
Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World is a result of a lot of time spent researching on the side of Cal Newport, I have no doubt in this. And there is so much information, so many studies and quotes and whatnot that left me amazed. There is also a period of 30 days at one point in the book that is suggested for a pause from reading forward. It is needed to make a digital detox in order to get the benefits from Newport's method. He believes that we cannot free ourselves from the digital obsession (no matter at what intensity it is for you) with just a slight restriction, it simply doesn't work. One needs to withdraw completely for a certain amount of time and the author suggests a 30 day period.
The first part of the book, Foundations, gives historical examples from people who have been very mindful with their time and have achieved quite a lot. It really changes the way you view your free time and makes you want to spend it in a completely different manner. You will also find interesting facts about how social media has been developing and what the strategies are to make people cling so desperately to their phones. Then in the second part of the book, Practices, he goes deeper into a lot of aspects as to how to proceed afterwards (when you've completed a 30 day detox), introducing technology anew in your life. The content is sectioned in four practices with examples so you get to see how other people managed to get significantly more out of their life and less of those of others. These are quite interesting ways to spend your time and even your life and it all really makes sense at some point.
The more you experiment with the ideas and practices on the preceding pages, the more you'll come to realize that digital minimalism is much more than a set of rules, it's about cultivating a life worth living in our current age of alluring devices.Those who are committed to the digital status quo might attempt to cast this philosophy as somehow anti-technology. I hope I've convinced you in this book that this claim is misguided.He definitely wants it known that entirely giving up something is not a great idea and is still needed for the times we live in today. We can still benefit from today's technology and use it to our advantage. And since I am a firm believer in balance in all things if achievable, I resonated with this to a great extend. He sums it perfectly at the end of his book:
My hope is that digital minimalism can help reverse this state of affairs by providing a constructive way to engage and leverage the latest innovations to your advantage, not that of faceless attention economy conglomerates, to create a culture where the technology savvy can upend Sullivan's lament and instead say with confidence: "Because of technology, I'm a better human being than I ever was before."
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