OPEN THREAD: What time/energy sucks are you dropping from your day?
Less is more, right? So what are you actually doing about this?
I’ve been obsessed with the art of basicking of late — this is a totally made up word of mine I am putting out there for streamlining your life. And I’m not just talking about getting organized — much as I love The Home Edit — I don’t want to just re-sort and label my time; I want to optimize it for happiness.
Previewing our Optionality weekly newsletter, we’re focusing on this practice, which is harder than it sounds. Fact is, we all have responsibilities and things we must do every day. But over time those activities take over, and we end up in a mode of performing out of obligation, versus out of joy.
How can we infuse simple pleasures back into our lives while still achieving our goals?
I’ll be sharing my list of simple pleasures in our newsletter, but to kick off the Open Thread I’ll have to share one of the things I had to streamline in order to make a bit of space: Social Media.
Now, some of you who have seen my LinkedIn feed may think that’s not true. But actually LinkedIn is really it for me these days. I love connecting with friends on Facebook and miss a lot of the interaction, but I noticed it was cutting into my day to such an extent that it was becoming distracting for me, and I would have to do more of my work correspondence at night, when I wanted to spend time with family. I still work way too much at night, but it’s a start.
I'm very intentional about my time online. I can scroll like nobody's business! I try to replace that time with little projects around my house, audiobooks, board games, or regular books. Basically, anything that won't drain me and leave me feeling burned out like the internet does.
I find substack sucks the minutes right off the clock. I get feeds all day and now find myself deleting most of them. I no longer feel obligated to the endless words thrown at me from other people's writing who don't believe in editing their opinions or ramblings. Sorry substackers but less well edited pieces is MORE to the reader. Social media has become a garbage dump. Maybe if we all spent more IRL time life would come to life!