Declutter - Day 1
I have been trying to implement the digital declutter protocol outlined in the book Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport for a long time and although I have avoided social media, recently it has become harder to protect my attention span given that every single app now is adopting the equivalent of reels onto their feeds (Youtube Shorts, Netflix clips etc). I can stay off twitter/X/Instagram/Linkedin but I find that YouTube particularly is very addictive and takes away a lot of time. More than the time waste its the fact that I can't watch a movie or a show on Netflix anymore I need my daily hit of YouTube shorts to feel normal
I am going to take a stab at staying away from YouTube for 30 days and so the only way I consume YouTube is using an RSS service (Unread iOS) meaning I control which videos show up on my RSS feeds and only those get watched. I have tried doing this before but the problem usually is that I tend to open the browser and watch YouTube there or just download the app and watch it -> then delete it it's so addictive !
The only way to make this work is replacing YouTube videos with healthier alternatives, some which come to mind are
- Netflix - Not the healthiest alternative but at least its better than shorts or any other video content
- Books - I do read a book a month currently but I think with the additional time I can read more books maybe like 4 per month (sticking to crime genre other genres are just too boring for me at the moment)
- Financial Literacy - I have zero knowledge about investing and saving money
- Gym and Badminton - want to shift my focus from training for aesthetics vs training for function, also need to loose about 5 kgs
- Writing - Recording this journey of 30 days and also writing about other things
- Reading interesting articles - I already do this but I want to start noting down the ideas in my favourite articles and writing them down here on this blog
- Teaching - I find that I really like explaining difficult concepts specifically the process of coming up with simple mental models to explain something with a lot of details. I did it at work and I think I should it do it more it energises me
Let's see where this goes!