All right, we've got time for a couple more quick questions. We have one here from Cindy. Cindy says, "I'm starting my fourth try "to do a digital detox. "I just can't seem to make it to 30 days. "What is your advice?" Well, first of all, Cindy, I think we might diagnose part of the problem in just the words you were using.

You called what you're trying to do a detox. I don't use the phrase digital detox. If you read the book "Digital Minimalism" where I'm assuming you're extracting this plan to spend 30 days away from optional technologies, I call it a digital declutter. There's a reason why I make that distinction.

It's because in the context of digital tools, detox has taken on this very specific and I think very weird meaning, right? It means I want to white-knuckle separate myself away from these services that I spend too much time on because I don't like that I spend so much time on them and I want to detoxify my addictive urge to use them.

The reason why I say that's a weird application of the term is that, of course, in the substance abuse community where the notion of detox or the relevant notion of detox comes from, the whole idea is not taking a break but to completely change your life. That it's the first step as part of transforming your life so that you don't use that substance anymore.

In the digital world, we just say, "It's a break. "I don't like this thing, so let me just be away from it "and that will somehow make my life better." Declutter, on the other hand, says, "No, "we're not just staying away from that closet "that has too much stuff in it.

"We're gonna take everything out "and just put back the stuff that matters. "We're gonna make the closet permanently better." And that is what I think you need to do for your digital life. So the key thing that separates a declutter from a detox is that you don't just white-knuckle it.

You don't just sit there and say, "Don't use Instagram, don't use Instagram, "don't use Instagram," and hope you make it 30 days. You instead have to be incredibly active, aggressively reflecting and experimenting to rediscover the things that you really care about in your life. These 30 days should be busy.

You should have lots of plans, lots of things you're doing. You're going over here, you're going with friends here, you're going to this museum, you're reading these books, you've joined this club, you're doing a new online class. 'Cause what you're trying to do is get back in touch in the absence of all these distractions with what you really care about.

And then when you're done with the 30-day declutter, you rebuild your digital life from scratch. You don't go back to what you were doing before. You don't never use technology again. Instead, you say, "Okay, now that I've rebuilt my life "around activities that are important to me, "initiatives that are important to me, "what tools will help me with this?" And you very intentionally bring technology back into your life, but you deploy it very strategically to support the things you care about.

And everything that doesn't support something you care about, you just ignore. And the stuff you do bring back in, you put nice gates around, nice fences around, you have rules about when you use it, how you use it, et cetera. That's the digital declutter. So the reason why I would diagnose you are probably having trouble with these detoxes is that you're just trying to white knuckle it.

And that's not very successful. And I've seen that in the large number of people who have gone through these experiments on my behalf and told me about how it went, is that the people that just try to stay away from the technologies they don't like, struggle. Those that instead say, while I'm staying away from those technologies, I'm rebuilding my life and rediscovering what I care about, don't struggle.

Change that is built around a aspirational, positive vision of your life is always way more sustainable than change built around just avoiding things that you're assessing to be negative. So Cindy, that's my advice. Go back and read that chapter in "Digital Minimalism" and focus on the active part. The stuff you have to do instead, the replacements, the discovery, the reflection.

And I think that's where you're gonna find a key to succeeding with your declutter. (upbeat music)