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Over dinner with friends the other night, I commented in conversation that I had recently deleted all the social media apps off my phone.

Their eyes got big. “Wow,” one said. “Good for you,” the other chimed in.

Their reactions took me by surprise; I’d been thinking about doing it for quite a while, and by the time I did it felt like no big deal.

But not long ago I would have reacted the same way they did. In fact, that was a big reason for my hesitation for so long in deleting the apps from my phone. The idea of not having them right there so I could easily post from anywhere, or pick up and scroll through them when I was bored or had time to kill, felt uncomfortable.

Regular readers may remember that not long ago I published a post talking about what made a newsletter effective, and mentioned that I had been doing a pretty ruthless cull of my inbox (more than 50 subscriptions deleted; dozens more moved to a separate folder I can look at in chosen blocks of time).

That effort was part of the same impetus for deleting my apps: a conscious goal to be more intentional about what I’m giving my attention to. To be more mindful about my time and my ability to focus on the things that matter most to me: my work and career, my creativity, my time with the people I care about, and my mental and emotional health and well-being.

Being more mindful about your time and attention lets you focus on the things that matter most to you in your career–and your life.

I’ve been making changes gradually and incrementally—but my friends’ reactions and my own made me realize how much I’ve actually minimized my digital use:

• More than a year ago I turned off the notifications on my phone, both sounds and all push notifications. The only noise my phone makes now is to ring (and even that I will ignore if I’m in the middle of something), and it’s privacy-set at night so nothing can come through but calls from a few close loved ones in case of emergency. Most of the time I leave it in another room, checking it only a few times a day. When I’m with people I tend to leave it out of sight.
• While I haven’t deleted my social media accounts entirely, for the last couple of months I’ve barely checked my feeds and posted almost nothing.
• My recent newsletter purge means my inbox is an astonishingly quiet place these days. I’ve taken to setting a timer for chunks of time during the day when I close my browser and stay off of the internet and email, and often when I log back in after an hour or so, I’m surprised to find I have no new emails.
• I have minimized my consumption of podcasts on my dog walks and commutes, instead simply allowing myself to be present in the silence.

It’s all happened so gradually that I didn’t realize how it was changing my headspace and my priorities, but the other night when my husband and I were leaving for a concert, at the last minute I impulsively decided to leave my phone behind, not just in the car but at home, and I spent five lovely hours not even thinking about it. In fact I forgot to check it when I got home and the next morning walked out of the bedroom forgetting to retrieve it from the charger. It’s like the more I detach from it, the more detached I feel, in a way that has opened up a lot of headspace and peace in my brain.

To quote the inimitable Auntie Maxine, I’m reclaiming my time—but what does that mean for the rest of my life and my career?

Are You Using Your Tools, or Are They Using You?

I’ve always been a reluctant adopter of anything that encroaches on my time, focus, or privacy. I resisted getting a cell phone for so long that I’m betting I was the last actor in New York to still carry a pager (which I’d also resisted) and scurry to find a pay phone (!!) when I got a page from my agent.

When I met my husband in 2007 I still had a dial-up modem, a Nokia brick phone, and no cable, just network TV and a DVD player. I came late to social media after years of resistance, and have never managed to be anything but the most irregular of users.

As I wrote about last week, I’ve always maintained a robust list of interesting and/or necessary tasks I needed/could/wanted to do, both in work and in life, and I jealously guard anything I think might distract me from being able to dedicate myself to it.

But of course I live in the modern world, and it’s easy to fall into digital-use habits that are so ubiquitous in society that it becomes a social stigma not to do them. And I admit I enjoy many of them—there have been many periods when I’ve picked up my phone upward of 40 times a day, checking texts, scrolling social media feeds, looking up every random trivial question or fact that might pop itself into my tiny little distractable brain, and gotten sucked into rabbit holes of endless links to more admittedly often interesting information.

As a knowledge junkie I love the vast array of facts and resources that’s always available at my fingertips with a few clicks—but I also realize that our devices are designed to create an addictive response.

And I really, really don’t like feeling controlled, manipulated, or as if my free will is being hijacked.

It’s not that I dismiss the value of digital media. I just want to fit my digital life consciously into finite and manageable blocks of time around the highest values I hold—the people and pursuits that mean the most to me—not the other way around.

To quote the overused but deeply wise words of Henry David Thoreau, I wish “to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

Ironic, isn’t it, that nearly 200 years ago, in a time most of us think of as infinitely simpler in many ways, a writer and philosopher might face the same concerns then about how they chose to spend their time that we grapple with today amid the chaos and clutter of our technologically advanced society?

What Happens When You Detach?

Ironically, reducing my digital distractions is making my life feel much bigger and more spacious, even though I suppose you could argue that it’s now smaller because I have so much less in it.

But already I find that I don’t fill those spaces in my life with input. Instead of constantly force-feeding my brain like veal with a steady stream of prescribed formula and keeping it confined in front of a screen, I let my mind free-roam as it will, enjoying whatever delicious, higher-quality brain food I choose to enjoy.

And that’s been one of the enlightening things about this experiment—literally enlightening in that I feel lighter and less weighed down, but also I realize how much I do relish taking in other people’s thoughts and ideas, considering new ways of thinking and new angles, and that’s a big part of what sparks my own creativity and imagination.

So it’s not that I’m avoiding all digital input—I find I’m just far more selective now, and that indeed I’m more consciously choosing what I want to learn and hear and think about, rather than having some algorithm keep trying to keep me hooked on its firehose of clickbait with carefully calculated dopamine hits.

And less constant data streaming and scrolling means my brain has more space to do the wandering that it usually does at night when I’m trying to sleep–because it needs to noodle–and I’m sleeping more deeply and for longer chunks.

So much unexpected time and brain space has been freed up simply from deleting, unsubscribing, filtering, or just not reading the countless newsletters and emails I get. I still keep up with the news, but I siphon how much I take in. I read two or three of my favorite news sources in the morning and that’s it; I’m done for the day.

As I clean out my inbox I find that what’s in there now is what I want to engage with: friends and family and people I work with and emails that are a pleasure to open—the way that when I was young I would thrill to a letter in the mailbox that heralded something welcome, or how when I clean out my closet I find it a much greater pleasure to get dressed every day, because every single thing I reach for is something I genuinely love and feel good in.

I’ve always thought that not only do I not have much time in my life right now for hobbies and other interests, but I didn’t even know what those would be if I did have the space. Turns out, the moment I opened up room for them plenty surged in.

I immediately started learning some basic Swedish for our upcoming trip to Stockholm (Bra jobbat to me!). My husband and I sat down for a few hours in front of our computers together and started looking at options for another trip for our upcoming fifteenth anniversary next year, and not only did we pick one that we’re excited about, but the selection and discussion and anticipation of doing that was so much of the fun, and we’ve enjoyed more time since planning and fantasizing.

Giving your imagination and thoughts space to expand and explore enhances all your pursuits; making conscious decisions for where you put your focus gives you autonomy and control.

There’s space now so that when I notice one of the myriad projects around the house I’ve been meaning to get to, I can take a few moments and start doing it. It doesn’t sound very sexy, but over the last few days I spontaneously scrubbed the grout lines in the kitchen tile that have been filthy and bugging me for months, and now I get pleasure every single time I walk into the room.

My anxiety has dropped. I don’t feel as if I’m always behind the ball. Instead it feels like luxurious gifts of time are available to me every day, and I get to fill it with things I want to do, not always be feeling as if I’m playing catch up on things I think I have to do.

And I think that latter effect is making me more creative too. Giving my imagination and thoughts space to run around and explore feels like it’s enhancing all of my work: editing, writing, course creation, even ideas for my business itself. Making conscious decisions for where I put my focus gives me more sense of autonomy and control over my days—and more sense of calm. I feel more present.

Read more about how detaching from your phone can give you more tools for your writing too.

Pick Your Own Path

I’m not proselytizing my specific choices around digital input for everyone. I know there are varying practical considerations. I don’t have kids, so I concede that I have more leeway to not be constantly tethered to my phone—and I also have the benefit of a husband who doesn’t care to be unconnected, so I know that in a true emergency, people know they can always reach me through him. I’m self-employed, so I also have the luxury of deciding when I want to respond to emails and other tasks.

Yes, text messages can tend to pile up when I’m checking my phone only sporadically, but while I may have 37 text notifications by the time I check, the effect is that rather than compulsively answering every single one in what amounts to idle chitchat, I’m using it much more deliberately to communicate necessary information, and instead catching up with friends more face-to-face and on the phone. That might not suit everyone.

I am on social media rarely these days, usually just to do a quick check of friends’ posts and then I get right back off again. It’s sort of an experiment. I’ve stayed on as long as I have because I felt I needed to for my business, but I needed a mental break and decided it was a good chance to see if it actually impacted my work.

So far I haven’t noticed any change, and while I know that this might be different for fiction writers who need to maintain a robust platform, this unsettling post about the good, the bad, and the ugly of book promotion especially struck me for its assessment of how little social media tends to move the sales needle with readers (also worth reading the full text of the article cited in the post: page 18 of this Authors Guide Bulletin). But many people genuinely enjoy social media.

Dog walks are more present with Gavin now that I’m not always distracted by podcasts—and as a result he is heeling as he never has before. The space frees my mind to wander and ponder and roam, and I often find my mind teeming with ideas—but I admit I do often dictate my thoughts into the phone as I walk so as not to lose them.

Technology can offer us marvelous tools that increase our knowledge, productivity, and even creativity, but it can also edge itself more into your life than you may realize—or want. It’s worth considering what value you get from all the data and distractions available to us, and how much time you consciously want to dedicate to those pursuits—and then determining a concrete plan for abiding by those choices.

Close your email and browsers while you write. Set a timer before you’re allowed to do anything else. Reassess every single email you receive and determine whether what value it adds to your life outweighs the time and focus it takes, (or the sense of obligation to read through it all). Try not reaching for your phone in idle moments—just sit and observe the world around you, think your thoughts. And allow for more silence—both literal and mental.

A little coda to this story: Almost as if the universe wanted to test my commitment–or boundaries–I dropped my phone and broke the screen shortly after writing this post, and because the repair shop was backed up I went a day completely phoneless, out of touch except for email (and not even that when I left the house for an appointment). I won’t lie–it felt weird…but not as much or for as long as I expected. I looked for it now and then, mostly when I would have gone into the kitchen to check it periodically during my day, but after that I just…didn’t. If you’re flirting with trying to be less connected, it might be an interesting experiment to try (minus the $300 screen repair, of course…!)

Your turn, authors. You know I love hearing your own perspective and experiences. Do you consciously assess and decide what digital media you consume, and if so, how? What do you base your decisions on for where to put your focus—and how do you combat the time/attention suck of devices and apps designed to hijack it?

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