Digital nihilism
Intro
A term I have just came up with to quickly describe my idea. It is not the next logical step after “digital minimalism”, rather a diffirent approach: not limiting and controlling device usage, but using a computer strictly as a tool and not using it when there are more effective tools. Setups matter little in this context, as long as you have bare minimum of programs and shortcuts the work can be done.
There is an app for everything
Do you really need an app for that? I’ll start with the basic premise of digital minimalism. There are a lot of apps for almost everything out there, and not all of them are good or even useful, let alone optimized and functional.
Your phone and computer can do everything
They can’t. More importantly, there are a lot of things they suck at and relatively few things they are good at. Actually, let’s list some stuff.
What a PC or a laptop can do really well
- Computations and programming, any kind of it
- Typing and, more importantly, editing text and documents
- Processing and visualising formatted data
- Editing images, audio, etc.
- Storing data on drives
- Research
What a phone can do really well
- Keeping you in touch with people
- Looking stuff up
- Taking photos, videos, recording audio
Here is a new feature for tagging your tasks
So, here is my point: any computer, being a fancy physical representations of mathematical algorithm enclosed in shiny box, is terrible at processing loosely-organized data. And your life, personal notes and planning are loosely organized and won’t fit a nice layout of that app, no matter how hard you try. The entropy will take over, partly because these devices were not designed for it. If you can’t do it with spreadsheet and a barebones txt file, you are probably better off with pen and paper.
Ditch notion, todoist and whatever it is you use. The only real application for them is to organize work tasks, with well-known workflow and a need for shared access. Ditch habit-building and note-taking apps on your phone and throw a small A6 notebook in your pocket or backpack. It will nicely replace all of them and do a better job at it. You need backup? Photocopy the necessary pages and throw them into the cloud. This is faster and more convenient than all the popups, tables and pages you could neatly organize on your screen.
Only use your device when it’s the best tool for the bank. Forget about using your phone to learn or read, you will end up on tiktok or other time sink of choice anyway. People who designed this get paid to make sure you do, your “willpower” is no match for the team of engineers. Buy e-book reader or get paperback in the library. Get a mobile, lightweight laptop and use it to learn stuff on the go if you have to.
But how about all my friends on social media?
Messaging apps are great for keeping in touch. Social media are terrible at virtually everything, especially at supplying you information. Use them if you have to, but do keep in mind that what you read is an algorithm maximising the profit and not the depiction of real world.
Outro
This is, for the most part, a rant. Maybe it will prove useful for someone, who knows. The majority of it is inspired by Luke Smith and George Hotz and the linux laptop I am typing on.
Dixi.
@academicalnerd there is a point in time where a DIN-A6 notebook makes sense and that is when you have the comfort of supporting the book for jotting down ideas. Otherwise if you don't have this fortune, the phone is a more convenient option, especially if you record your thoughts. It is simple and quick, the downsides are privacy and the ability to quickly overlook the content.
There is a more important detail to me than just the convenience. The text on phone is just text, you don't get sketches, diagonal or even vertical text on margins and all the various ways to mess the entire thing up. This is what makes paper unique tool, as powerful as silicon processor.
@barefootstache @academicalnerd
There's another angle to all this. Since many years (you see, I am an old fart here :-) ), I use A4 hardcover paper notebooks. It's partly for reference (only mid-term, at most weeks retention), but primarily I need it to simply "integrate" the information I am taking in. I.e., I understand stuff better when I externalize it, i.e., either say aloud (impossible in a talk or a meeting), or write it down in words. I do not expect myself to refer back to that information. I only need to externalise in order to to "own it". For that, paper notebooks are ideal: no boot up time, freeform output, available anywhere (if you make it a habit of course).
@academicalnerd
Definitely an use-case situation.
One could say a draw app could come close to paper, though they are buggy compared to a good old writing utensil.
Plus research shows that pen and paper outperforms any text writing software.
Would be neat if there's a study that compares digital vs physical pen and paper.