At a time when the internet permeates almost every particle of our lives, the thought of digital minimalism seems like a revolt against the mundane. It certainly takes a lot of effort to keep ourselves away from digital landscapes. Picking up your phone every now and then seems natural and requires extra force to create resistance to go against the temptation of touching your phone again.
However, it is now being discussed how much we have been indulged in the digital world and how much is the importance of digital minimalism for wellness. It is not untrue that we can not avoid the internet for a longer time in this digital world but we can certainly prevent overwhelming interaction with the digital landscape. Digital minimalism is about consciously managing our online presence to have a more meaningful experience. Undenyingly internet is a world full of chaos and a distance from that chaos will automatically bring stillness into our thoughts and eventually calmness into our minds. Although it is not an easy process, we can make it through the steps.
Some practical steps to help in this endeavour:
1. Daily goals and priorities:
In the morning or before you sleep you can set your goals and priorities for the day. Your office routine, your friends, family, pets, gym etc. every time you get free track your progress towards your goals and priorities you have set for the day. Monitor what is done and what is left. It will help you to use your phone unnecessarily.
2. Audit your digital life:
On Sundays or weekends, you can audit your activities on the Internet. We can assess screen time data on our phones or laptops and that will help us to check whether we have spent less time or sufficient or abundant time in our digital space. You can also audit your digital presence by reviewing your social media accounts and tracking what is meaningful and what is not that important.
3. Delete unnecessary apps:
Many of us have dating apps social media apps or games that are not very useful but since we have them on our phones we often go to use them and check if anything comes up. Having similar multiple social media apps or dating apps that are not really helpful just leads you into chaos. You should audit your apps as well and delete what is unnecessary.
4. Turn off non-essential notifications:
Every time your phone chimes you get a temptation to pick up your phone. Whether it was important or spam but after some time when you check your watch it’s 30–40 minutes gone using your phone.
Now we have so much spam and unnecessary notifications coming up all the time. Hence, if you need wellness and want to follow digital minimalism you better turn off notifications of most of the apps that don’t need to be addressed urgently.
5. Set device limit:
Luckily you have something on your own phone that can help you stay away from your phone. If all the tricks and tips failed and you just couldn’t avoid your temptation to check your phone all the time and spend most time just scrolling things and regretting this you better set a limit to screen time and data limit. Technology itself will help you to move away from technology.
6. Practice digital detox days:
I know it might be hard for you who can’t avoid your phone even for an hour let alone leave it for a whole day but there are some days when you can throw your phone for a whole day. You can practice digital detoxing on your weekends or on holidays when you are with your family and loved ones you can avoid the mess created outside. It will help you improve your relationships and will you true peace of mind.
7. Use productivity apps:
You should try some apps designed to asses your productivity and help you focus. You can use website blockers, spam blockers, and add blockers to get you diverged into the labyrinth of the internet.
8. Turn off unnecessary connectivity:
You can turn off data when you return from work and don’t need to be connected to the internet. You can enjoy your dinner and spend some time reading, cleaning, sleeping, playing with kids or just having conversations with your family.
Benefits of digital minimalism:
Following digital minimalism will yield countless improvements to yourself and benefit you in multiple ways:
Reducing your time spent on the Internet will enhance your productivity.
2. Avoiding unnecessary chaos and toxicity from outside the world by reducing screen time will help you gain mental wellness.
3. You will certainly have better relationships with your family and loved ones when you give them the time that you were spending scrolling someone other’s life’s achievements over the phone.
4. More time on screen makes us dull and less creative. Avoiding them will massively improve your creativity.
At a time when you have nothing much to do and you are not using your phone, you will have time to process thoughts that want to appear telling about yourself, your goals and your progress. You will witness having better clarity in your life.
Balance is the key
At last like in many aspects of life we need a balance between digital life and physical life. We need a balance between our followers’ digital relationships over some apps and the real relationships you have around. You need to make a balance between the content you consume over the internet and the stories you list with your friends in their presence. Balance is the key to having great peace of mind, which will be achieved by using your phone consciously and not letting it use you.
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