Step away from all ‘optional technology’ for 30 days to gain mental space, understand what is truly essential, and break the cycle of compulsive digital use. This process helps you get a sense of what is truly essential in your digital life.
During the 30-day digital declutter, actively reflect on what you truly want to do with your time and what your values are, experimenting with new activities to rediscover meaningful pursuits. This foundation of value is crucial for making lasting changes and preventing technology from creeping back in.
After the 30-day declutter, rebuild your digital life from scratch, only reintroducing services that genuinely support your identified values and goals. This is like a ‘Marie Kondo’ approach to your digital tools, ensuring intentional and valuable usage.
Regularly dedicate time to be alone with your own thoughts, free from processing input from other minds. This practice is vital for reducing anxiety, fostering self-development, generating personal and professional insights, and combating the negative effects of constant external input.
Go for long walks and focus on a single professional problem, continuously bringing your attention back to it when it wanders. This practice significantly improves concentration, reduces anxiety, and helps you achieve a focused ‘craftsman’ state, enhancing cognitive performance.
Strategically identify and engage in leisure activities that provide intrinsic satisfaction, often requiring skill development or cultivated appreciation (e.g., learning an instrument, cooking, playing a sport). This counters the emptiness of low-quality, on-demand digital distraction and provides deeper fulfillment.
Designate a specific, consistent place in your home (e.g., foyer, bedroom closet) where your phone stays, rather than carrying it as a constant companion. This creates friction for impulsive use, reduces mindless checking, and sets a positive example for children.
Treat context switching as a high cognitive cost and batch your email processing into dedicated times, avoiding constant, quick checks throughout the day. This protects your concentration for deep work and reduces cognitive drain, as quick checks can be as damaging as multitasking.
Instead of assuming a pre-existing passion, focus on building rare and valuable skills that are unambiguously useful. Passion often develops as you achieve mastery and gain autonomy, impact, and connection in your work, rather than being a starting point.
Employ browser plugins (e.g., Newsfeed Eradicator for Facebook, YouTube recommendation blockers) or tethered phones to interact with attention-economy products surgically. This allows you to extract value without succumbing to their addictive features, controlling your digital interactions.
If you choose to use social media after a declutter, remove the apps from your phone and access them only on a computer a few times a week. This reduces constant checking and shifts usage from compulsive to intentional, improving your relationship with the service.
Limit low-quality digital leisure activities (e.g., checking sports rumors) to specific, consolidated time slots, such as 20 minutes during lunch. This prevents them from becoming the default downtime activity and encroaching on more valuable time.
Clearly identify which technologies are ‘optional’ for your 30-day digital declutter, meaning they won’t cause major trouble if you step away from them. This distinguishes them from work-critical or essential communication tools that must remain in use.
Reflect on the concept of ‘renunciation’ or non-addiction to material possessions, questioning the constant messages of acquisition. This fosters financial stability, reduces a sense of emptiness, and promotes a healthier relationship with consumption by breaking the spell of advertising.
For leaders, rethink and implement structured communication methods within organizations (e.g., agile stand-up meetings, public task boards) to reduce reliance on ad hoc, unstructured digital communication like email and Slack. This improves productivity and well-being by aligning work processes with how the human brain functions best.
Consider deleting your email app from your phone as an experiment. You might find that the perceived necessity of constant email checking is an emergent cultural norm rather than a strict requirement, and people can still reach you if truly urgent.
If constant email monitoring is unavoidable for work, set specific alerts only for emails from truly important individuals. This allows for necessary responsiveness without the constant distraction of checking every incoming message, reducing overall phone engagement.