Staying Grounded
How I work to be more connected to the World and less connected to my devices
I’m visiting friends at the moment1, who live in Rarotonga2. While I’m here my friends are still working and living their lives, so during the day I’m often left (very happily I should note) to my own devices. As my friends are yet to get internet set up, and as I’ve rather intentionally neglected to acquire a local sim card, those “devices” are of a far less technical nature than they would normally be.
I’m struck, as I often am when I go a few days without easy access to the internet3, by how much time there is in a day for everything else when sitting at my computer isn’t a default behaviour. Now obviously I’ve also stepped out of connection time, life admin, and hobbies that make up large parts of how I spend my time, but some of the relative expanse of time I’m feeling right now is from allowing myself to slow down. From removing a default response to a single second of boredom. From circuit-breaking4 habits that aren’t in my best interests.
I’m aware this is not a particularly unique thought. Many of us want to be less connected to our devices, and more connected to the world around us, but we can’t all afford to drop our lives, leave our phones behind, and move to Cape Cod for 3 months5.
So what can we do?
Well, without diving too deep into it, I think it’s important to first acknowledge the context of what we’re trying to do. There’s a truly obscene amount of money invested in capturing our attention and changing the way we think (either as a side effect of gaining our attention, or as a direct goal). We shouldn’t feel guilty for doom scrolling, or spending more time than we want online, and there are challenges here that can only be solved on a systemic level, but that doesn’t mean we can’t also do something ourselves6.
Inspired by a recent read of Jenny Odell’s How To Do Nothing - which despite the title focusses more on Why we should do less, rather than practical tips7 - I’ve outlined below some of the things I’m doing to Be Present. I hope some of them serve you too8.
How I Do Nothing Work to Stay Grounded
0. Noticing
Before I can do anything about a problem, I need to notice it exists. Time tracking and regular reflection are big parts of how I notice if I’m not living life the want to on a medium-large scale.
For the shorter term I try to be aware of and actively notice when a thought or action has carried me away unintentionally. Meditation is great for practicing this9, and using language to describe what I’ve noticed also helps10.
Hand in hand with Noticing is the meta habit of actually changing something when I Notice. For building this habit I’m a big fan of “When [situation] I will [action]” statements e.g. “When I notice I’ve been doom scrolling I will close the tab and walk away from my phone/computer for 30s”.
1. Creating Circuit Breakers
Most of the time when I’m doing something I don’t want to be doing it’s not because I’ve actively chosen to, it’s because I've been running on auto-pilot and not made a decision at all. So in order to do more of what I want, I need to change my automatic behaviours and create reminders to make a choice.
These are what I refer to as circuit breakers: interrupting an unwanted habit before it starts, or as soon after starting as possible.
Sometimes a circuit breaker is as simple as leaving my phone in another room11, or changing where apps are on my home screen (or uninstalling them entirely)12. I also have several circuit breaking apps I use, and often set timers to go off, or sign out of websites I want to think hard about before using.
2. Saying No to infinity and algorithms
I’m aware that most of the time I feel is poorly spent is because of infinite scrolling. When you can scroll endlessly there’s no circuit breaker, no reminder to reassess what you’re doing. My time tracking often makes me acutely aware of how long I’ve just spent on Facebook before something (an alarm, a thought, my bladder) pulls me out of the trance. So where possibly I try to avoid engaging with this kind of content in the first place, and several of my digital tools are about getting the most out of online platforms while avoiding infinite scrolling.
Algorithmically suggested content (Youtube, Tiktok, reddit, etc) feels like an only slightly different view of the same infinite internet. There’s more content than I could ever consume, and I only want to consume any specific thing for a reason, not just to “pass the time”13. These days I try to be very mindful of only consuming content that I’ve decided to consume1415, and of not sitting at my computer and asking the internet to entertain me.
3. Prioritising Openness
One of the things I struggle with the most is giving myself permission to do nothing, to not be outputting, to be bored16. I’m still working on this17 a fair amount, and one thing that’s helped recently18 is the idea of “Cultivating boredom” of boredom being something to be sought after rather than to be avoided.
Boredom is good for me. I pick up my guitar more when I’m bored. I read more when I’m bored. I meditate more, do yoga more, listen to birds more. I’m more creative. I have more time and energy for the things I care about. I have more time and energy for the people I care about.
Boredom is also good for my work: there’s a reason we have so many good thoughts in the shower. It’s because it’s one of the places we actually give ourselves time to think.
A few years ago I was working a job that had me driving 45 minutes each morning to deliver a youth development programme. It was fairly mentally taxing work, often trying out new sessions without much experience or foundation to build on, and the days and the weeks felt long. At the end of the long morning drive I’d arrive to work with my head not quite in the game, already a little on edge before the day had began. After (eventually) Noticing this I decided to try something different and for the next week I drove to work in silence, no music, no podcasts, just my thoughts19.
Immediately my days started flowing better and the work felt easier.
It turns out all I needed was some time to think.
4. Saying No to notifications
This is so ingrained in how I think about my phone that I nearly neglected to mention it! I’ve set up my phone to be a tool that I use at the time I want to use it, and not something that interrupts what I’m already doing.
The only times my phone is allowed to make an audible alert (including vibrating notifications) is when an alarm is going off, or when someone is calling me. Everything else can wait until I choose to look at my phone20.
Even with silent notifications I try to be mindful of what apps I let notify me. The only apps I get active notifications from are messenger apps21. I used to get notifications for emails too until realising there’s no such thing as an urgent email22, and that in a typical day I check my emails several times a day anyway23…
I use my phone’s built in focus mode every night from around 9:30pm24 until I turn it off the next morning25. This is set up to hide notifications from, and to stop me using, all messaging apps and the youtube app26. For a while I’ve had a vague intention27 to start using focus mode during the day more, but so far this hasn’t seemed necessary because when I want Space I walk away from my phone entirely, and when I’m doing focussed work my phone isn’t a distraction (and doesn’t interrupt me!).
5. Changing my space
Now CGP Grey’s video Spaceship You was pandemic focussed, but the general principle of “Different spaces for different things” holds up.
Changing a physical space can change a headspace. I try to practice this in the short term and the long term. If I want to read a little more I might move from my desk to a couch or the bath. If I want to spend less time on my computer, I can step away from my desk and maybe even leave my phone behind.
I also try to schedule time to Go The Fuck Outside. Tramping28 to a hut in the middle of nowhere makes it easier Do Nothing, in part because there’s less to do, and in part because doing less is the norm. Often I won’t have cell service for these trips, but when I do, I set my phone to flight-mode and commit to being uncontactable anyway.
6. Specific tools
In order to support all of the ideas above there’s a (forever growing/changing) list of tools/strategies that I use. Some of these are:
Unhook - A browser extension that has options to hide most of the not-the-video-you’re-currently-watching parts of YouTube. I have it set up so I only see my subscriptions feed or videos I’ve searched for or been linked to. No recommended or trending videos, no shorts, no suggestions of things to watch next. This has been a pretty huge factor in spending less time watching things I don’t really want to watch!
De Arrow - Another YouTube browser extension (and very recent find for me). This one has options for replacing thumbnails and titles with less sensationalist versions suggested by the community, aiming to remove the clickbait aspect from choosing a video to watch.
News Feed Eradicator - A browser extension that replaces your social media feed with an “inspiring quote”. I use this on Facebook where I still occasionally want to go for events.
Facebook messenger is (unfortunately?) still a main form of contact for many people in my life, I use messenger.com rather than the FB website for messenger. I’ve been doing this for long enough that I assumed it was how everyone engaged with messenger until very shortly before hitting publish on this post.
FB Purity - This is maybe redundant with news feed eradicator, but I’ve been trying it out for a while in tandem. Basically it offers a more customisable version of making the Facebook experience less brain melting.
Cold Turkey Blocker - The big guns. Cold Turkey Blocker blocks websites, games and applications. There’s a paid version29 that can do this on a scheduled basis. I use Cold Turkey to block specific news sites or subreddits that I’ve been spending too much time one, as well as games I’ve been addicted to.
Sign Out (& change your password) - While usually I’m aiming to remind myself I don’t want to do things rather than lock myself out, at one point I got so into the habit of just turning Cold Turkey off (there is probably a setting that stops this from being possible) to access a certain game I will not mention30, that I needed to go a step further. I signed out, changed my password, and had my password manager forget the new password. I could still get back in through an email reset, but this was finally enough of a barrier to stop me signing on, and to remind future-me how strongly past-me was against this behaviour.31
So there it is. The slightly daunting list of the things that I’m currently doing to be a little more grounded.
Like every aspect of how I’m living my life I didn’t come to this set of ideas and tools fully formed32. I slowly built things up over time as I Noticed where I was living in ways I wasn’t happy with. I don’t recommend anyone tries to pick these all up wholesale, but I hope one or two of them will be useful to one or two of you.
Until next time.
Tom
at the time of writing this part at least
which makes me super grateful for both the friends for hosting me and for having the flexibility to travel
I try to take at least few weeks entirely offline every couple of years. In November 2020 this was an internet free month. In November 2022 I spent 16 days hiking around Rakiura. I should probably start planning for Nov/Dec 2024…
more on that later
like author of Stolen Focus, and controversial journalist, Johann Hari
Think of this as putting on a gas mask before trying to stop the source of the fumes.
And is a strong recommendation. And one of the most impactful books I’ve read this year. Though this was probably in-part due to timing. Here’s what I wrote about it shortly after finishing:
Every now and then you read a book that perfectly fits into, and builds on, the Journey you are undertaking.
For me How To Do Nothing was one of those books. I had a wee existential crisis (still ongoing) and a wee cry (complete for now) after finishing it yesterday.
It’s a beautifully slow read that consistently reminded me to slow down and be present, and I expect it will be a major milestone for me in the whole figuring-out-what-one-does-with-a-life thing.
It seems like there’s a really wide spectrum of how people I know are engaging with technology at the moment. I can imagine friends reading this and saying “Well that’s all obvious, and why have a smart-phone anyway?” and I can also imagine friends thinking most of what I’m doing isn’t at all possible for their situation. Hopefully you, dear reader, can find something useful below.
and indeed doing this is basically a form of meditation
e.g. saying to myself “I notice I’ve started scrolling Facebook when I was planning to check the time of an event”
to circuit-break the habit of constantly checking for new messages
to circuit-break the reflex action of opening them
i.e get closer to death - I’m very pro me-being-alive and somewhat aware of how finite that state-of-affairs is, so I’d like to make the most of it.
subscriptions, recommendations, specific searches, etc
and yes, I’m aware I’ve used “consume” and “content” a sickening number of times, but they still seem like the most appropriate words. Sorry.
a friend recently referred to this drive as “internalised capitalism”
and the balance of also feeling a legitimate obligation to use my privilege to have a positive impact on others
other things include How to do Nothing, and this talk by John Cleese
This might not seem like a big deal, but at the time it felt like turning 45 minutes of podcast time into wasted time.
Which most the time is pretty often anyway…
OK, that’s not entirely true. I also have a food rescue app that notifies me when one specific vegan bakery has food on clearance (which in the 6 months I’ve had the app has so far been never). Until writing this it was two, but I’m no longer regularly near the second one so the notification hasn’t been useful for a while so I took writing this as a nudge to cut it.
(for me)
To clarify: I don’t think this is the best number of times to be checking my emails. Maybe once a day, or at most twice would be optimal/ justifiable/ defensible?
I have an alarm that reminds me, but the timing floats depending on whether I’m out, or have calls in the evening
Currently this is after morning meditation and yoga, but lest ye think I’m getting too perfect I should note that 1) these are fairly newly back in the routine after being off the wagon for months, and 2) some days I still succumb to temptation and turn focus mode off before getting out of bed to “quickly check my messages” whatever the fuck that means…
which after a bit too much binging on a trip earlier this year I’ve now disabled anyway
ie. several steps short of a plan, which is several steps short of an actual change
Hiking
One off payment rather than a subscription. I haven’t bought it, but I have friends who have and swear by it #notsponsoredjustreallyuseful
I’ve since done a lighter version of this by signing out of facebook on my phone’s browser after a facebook.com habit replaced a facebook app habit.
and indeed this (hopefully) isn’t a final destination, just where I am currently on a Journey