Discardia_ More Life, Less Stuff - Dinah Sanders [69]
Pull back from the infostream. Imagine a quality filter designed just for you. Think about how it would simplify your life if you only (or at least mostly) received what is relevant to your interests. What would it let through? What would it exclude? How would you like it to balance receiving that which you enjoy getting with receiving enough of what you need to get, even if it isn’t always fun?
When you re-engage, unfollow what you imagined your filter would eliminate. Fine-tune—even, perhaps especially, from the lists you create for yourself. As Mark Hurst said in Bit Literacy, “Know what you consume, and why, and be strict about evaluating what else to consume, especially online.”
Say “no” more often. Remember: You don’t have to finish everything you think of starting or keep up with everything anyone else does. Review your to-do lists and cross off anything that is unimportant, non-urgent, and which will remind you of itself later if you wind up really needing or wanting to do it. That last bit is important: As of today, redefine your to-do list as “Things I Need to Think About This Week.” If you can totally ignore an item for a couple of weeks, it belongs on your calendar, should be filed away with a future scheduled project, put on your someday-maybe list, or allowed to slip away. If it matters, it will come back.
Prune the backlog
Do some thinking about what comes into your life and creates a backlog. Decide what you can live without— and live more happily. What return are you getting on your investment of time, energy, and focus? Would something else pay off better either now or in the long term? Shift to that.
If the backlog awaiting your attention isn’t pressuring you, that’s excellent; however, when it does, try some of these ideas:
Consider canceling your Netflix subscription and not using TiVo's recommendation feature. For many, what matters most about their Netflix account is the queue—a someday-maybe list of movies to watch—so just keep the list if you’re not keeping up with incoming films. Take that subscription money (or saved late fees if you’ve been renting from a traditional video store or library) and put 80% of it into savings. Invest the rest in really good chocolate. I bet you'll take care of that tonight!
Use CatalogChoice.org Slow that cascade of advertising dripping from your mailbox.
Contemplate canceling or reducing magazine and newspaper subscriptions—at least abandon any feeling of obligation that you have to read the whole thing. Recycle all the half-read ones lying around—or put them on 48-hour warning and then recycle them. Observe your information flow. How many come in per week? How many do you read? Adjust the inflow accordingly.
If you still have more than one phone, live with only one voicemail box. That nagging blinking light shouldn’t be the first thing to greet you when you get home or pick up your cellphone.
Consider unsubscribing from all, most, or at least many of your email lists, digital newsletters, and feed-reader subscriptions. Imagine if you printed all those saved mailing list posts, downloaded articles, and feed subscriptions. How big a stack would you have? Don't make your computer the digital version of one of those people's houses where you have to edge around on goat trails between teetering piles of moldering news. Be realistic about the amount of time you spend “keeping up with sites.” Pick a reasonable number based on your available time and about how much of it you want to spend online. Visit the others when they come to mind.
If you forget to check a site, it’s not that important. Find your balance and let go of the rest. My friend, online community consultant Heather Champ, created her own “Project Unsubscribe” when she set out to make her email inbox feel more like a living room and less like a strip mall. After a few months, when the pace of her unsubscriptions slowed down, she had stopped almost 300 newsletters and unnecessary notifications. Her verdict? “Inbox quality A+++.”
Unrewarding