Inspired by Marie Kondo’s Spark Joy, my wife and I took on the challenge of decluttering the house. The impact of doing so was incredible – so much time saved looking for things! I realised that up until then, I had spent countless days (mornings before work, usually) rummaging for things that I did want among things that I didn’t. Reading the book provided with us with an elegant solution (get rid of the things you don’t want!) but I was never going to go the whole hog; I have never folded my underwear standing up in my life and am not about to start – that’s one obsessive behaviour too far I’m afraid…
However one thing that immediately jumped out at me was an opportunity for using the KonMari principle for other non organised areas of life. While Marie focuses on the house and on material things specifically, this approach just as powerful when applied to your digital possessions. Here’s the approach I’m using at the moment. As you can see, it’s pretty brutal – and I’ve added to it twice while writing this:
Why would you do this to yourself? Surely your online life should be a saviour from waiting at the bar for that perpetually late friend, or for helping you to extract yourself from the tedium of dull conversations, or long train journeys? Simple:
Who hasn’t lost time searching for some random file that someone forgot to save on the system in the office, thoughtlessly given a cryptic name to a Google doc that you can no longer remember now you need it urgently, or spent time deleting emails to newsletters you’ve been meaning to unsubscribe to for ages?
Digital minimalists often talk about *just* the social web and app economy as primarily responsible for fragmenting attention; but having a bunch of files on your desktop that have no specific home is just as unhelpful.
I like to think of it as an act of choice architecture: because of my tidying up at home, I am more decisive in my behaviour. My wife asks me to bring her something – I don’t have to think where it is; I know. It sounds trifling, but when you add up those incremental moments, that’s a lot of key-scrambling, cupboard rifling, and disgruntled pacing that is thankfully gone from my life.
The asterisk* above refers to an experiment I’ve been playing with since last November. I put my phone on grayscale! Goodness me when I first did it, did my phone actually make me feel sad to look at – but that’s the point. Apps suddenly become hard to find. It disrupts the habit formation loop that app developers have dedicated so much time to creating; you actually have to think about which app you genuinely needed in that moment – so even if you end up with the zombie hand floating towards your phone, the mind blanks when it looks for a favourite app; that promise of dopamine, and doesn’t see it.
Removing the digital equivalent of those moments means more time for productiveness and immersion in what matters – essentially an extension of the idea “tidy desk, tidy mind”.
I’ll give you an update on this when I’m done!