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🥊 Analog vs. Digital
Let’s be real – I’m a nerd.
I love technology more than Kip from Napoleon Dynamite.
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But I also recognize that while computers make things more efficient, they don’t always make them better.
As John Zeratsky and Jake Knapp say in their book Make Time:
“When we use our smartphones to navigate an unfamiliar city, or have a video call with a friend, or download an entire book in mere seconds, it’s like having superpowers. But by default, we don’t just get the best of modern technology. We get all of it, all the time. We get futuristic superpowers and addictive distractions, together, on every screen. The better the technology gets, the cooler our superpowers will become – and the more of our time and attention the machines will steal.”
As long as computers have existed, people have misused them. But that doesn’t mean we should throw the baby out with the bathwater.
That also doesn’t mean they are the default right choice for all the things we tend to use them for. As increasingly more of our lives are spent in front of a screen, choosing to go analog when possible can have significant benefits for our ability to focus.
Fortunately, you don’t have to buy a bunch of fancy fountain pens and sell your smartphone to enjoy some of the analog benefits. We all have to figure out for ourselves how we will straddle the analog/digital divide.
I recently found the best criteria for choosing the right tool for the job in Chris Bailey’s excellent new book, How to Calm Your Mind:
- When we want our activities to be efficient, we should choose digital
- When we want our activities to be meaningful, we should choose analog
I find this distinction helpful, but it obviously leaves many gray areas. You can still connect meaningfully with people via Zoom (like I do with my mastermind group every week).
But there’s something to be said for defaulting towards analog.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to reconfigure the analog/digital balance in my own life. I’ve been starting to lean towards analog for several things I used to just do on my smartphone because it was more convenient. For example, I’ve:
- Started reading a physical newspaper every morning
- Changed my Bible reading from a group plan in YouVersion to reading my physical Bible
- Subscribed to a couple of print magazines that I read regularly
I’ve also started putting up more boundaries when it comes to my digital devices. I’ve deleted a lot of apps, blocked a lot of websites, and created more friction for just about everything except what I intended to do with them. It’s still early, but I’ve already noticed a decrease in my stress levels and am finding it easier to focus. I believe it’s a big reason why I’ve been able to establish a daily writing routine again.
As we go into this week, I challenge you to think about your routines. Where might you be able to change your defaults, even just a little bit?
We could all use a little more analog joy in our lives.
— Mike