What Has My Attention

About a year ago I embarked on my first official “digital declutter” as inspired by Cal Newport’s book “Digital Minimalism.” This simply gave a snappy name to a practice I’ve been exploring for many years up to that point. The basic premise is to fundamentally rethink your relationship to optional digital technologies by abstaining from all of them for 30 days and then mindfully (one might even say, deliberately) reintroducing them in a values-aligned way.

Last night I decided it was high time to give this another whirl as I’ve felt myself sliding further and further into an unhelpful relationship with some of the technologies around me even as my responsibilities, both personally and professionally, continued to increase.

So, all the usual suspects have been, or are in the process of being culled: podcasts, my RSS collection, newsletter subscriptions, my Reddit habit, social media of all stripes, etc.

This time, though, I took it a step further and actually deleted my Facebook account (it has been deactivated for years but I felt it was time to well and truly pull the plug), deactivated my Instagram account (as a Facebook property it has become more and more sullied in my mind the more I learn about Facebook as a company), unfollowed everyone on Twitter and even deleted my entire archive of Tweets (inspiration).

As always, I’m sure I will share thoughts and insights as we go. And, at the very least, I’m sure it’s not a coincidence that I’m sitting down to write this newsletter for the first time in over a month just after removing all my favorite distractions from my life, right?

Next time? Thoughts on my latest concussion, updates from digital declutter, the Personal Kanban and Codex Vitae, what I’m learning during my Month of Sit, setting up a new office.

Me, Elsewhere

I’m doing something I’m calling “Focus Months” to help me operationalize my Intensity/Simplicity yearly theme. Each month I take one of my four Anchor Habits and really focus on it as much as possible. January was about exercising more. February was about writing more. And March is about meditating more. Here’s the article that explains the idea.
February was young and I was so naive and optimistic and hopeful. I wrote an article in which I declared I would write a “shit ton” in February.
And then the real world smacked me in the face and in the dying gasps of February’s last breaths I wrote an article about why I wrote significantly less than a shit-ton.
Fields of Work is back! Kind of! Everyone’s favorite podcast where the oldest brother (who happens to be a corporate consultant) and the youngest brother (who happens to be a farmer) talk about their wildly different experiences with work. After taking most of the winter off we’ve recorded three episodes since late January. In episode 21 Max talks about his experiences as a seasonal worker for UPS. In episode 22 I talk about my yearly theme. And in episode 23 Max talks about working in a restaurant as well as his own yearly theme. I think it’s safe to say we’re basically back into the swing of things!

Links Worth Your Attention

I’ve been accruing these for awhile — sorry!

Craig Mod’s talk about using a walk as a platform and using technology to support intentional connection. It’s really good. (YouTube)
How we do things around here. (Seth Godin)
Time management is about more than life hacks. (HBR)
Monkey mind: Shifting the habit of feeling distracted throughout the day. (Zen Habits)
Be a fast tortoise. (Rad Reads)
Being a noob. (Paul Graham)
How and why to make the time to think. (The Sweet Setup)
Secular monks. (First Things)
Digital declutter: Reintroducing tech. (The Focus Course)
It’s okay to leave your headphones at home. (The Atlantic)
How to write 10,000 words a week. (Medium)
Three theories for why you have no time. (The Atlantic)
What’s needed is magic: Writing advice from Haruki Murakami. (LitHub)
Lessons on success and deliberate practice from Mozart, Picasso, and Kobe Bryant. (James Clear)

Closing Round

Eating: My colleagues sent me a care package from Milk Bar to help me recover from my latest concussion.
Listening: Listening to the “new” Western State Hurricanes album (Spotify/Bandcamp) while following along with the saga by listening to Roderick on The Line for the past few years has been more rewarding than most new music experiences.
Drinking: Bought Emily an Aarke for her birthday. Back on that home seltzer bandwagon!
Reading: Recently re-read Mindfulness in Plain English. Still working on book two of Hyperion Cantos. Just started Steven Levy’s new book on Facebook.

Your friend,
Sam