Not only will this preserve your ability to resist distraction and concentrate, but you might even fulfill Arnold Bennett’s ambitious goal of experiencing, perhaps for the first time, what it means to live, and not just exist.
Newport, Cal. Deep Work. (emphasis mine)
Two things that I had long wanted to accomplish but only did so recently: read Cal Newport’s renowned “Deep Work” and take a full and long step back from social media. I started with the latter but as the unconscious need for validation that whatever I’m doing is correct crept in, as it so often does at the start of something risky, I turned to the book for either advice, comfort, or practical tip on how to do things. I got all three.
Truthfully, the main reason why it has taken me so long to get to the book, besides the lull of life in which I had neither read nor wrote regularly, is because of that last bit. As a long-time reader of Newport’s blog and, admittedly, a self-help-and-productivity junkie (now “recovering workaholic”), I thought I had enough information. I knew what deep work was, its significance, how to apply it effectively in my own way. As soon as I had started the book, however, I realized that there was still so much more to this.
Amongst the many knowledge and insights I got from the book, the most important I reckon is this philosophical reminder: to truly—that is, fully and meaningfully—live.
The radical pause the lockdown has abruptly imposed initiated opportunities to reflect and, subsequently, decide on such an idea. I had found myself cooped up in my office-bedroom for months with persistent tiredness on my eyes, just a day after recovering from yet another sickness. This time in lockdown has had some of the worst burnouts I had ever experienced. Every single time I was forced to succumb to rest and days of immobility, I slowly accepted that there had just been too much and the limits to both the can-dos and want-to-dos were decreasingly rapidly.
Since then, I’ve taken big steps to a proper recover out of workaholism, among other things I’ve had to recuperate from. The most recent being signing out of my social media accounts (with the exception of Messenger). The goal was not to cut connections off as I already have an amazing ability to do that (in the words of my best friend, Javi [non-verbatim]: “When Gyuri goes offline, she’s full MIA and no one would know what had happened until she comes back”). Rather, I had realized that I had been going online to check on feeds to relieve myself of anxiety whenever I had no work to do or I would be incapable of doing any work. And it’s also important to highlight that even when I would be online, I usually won’t respond to messages still.
I have not yet fully decided on what I would do with my social media accounts—I had planned to think about that once a month of complete break has passed (in about a week, I think). So far, I had been feeling better: less stressed, less anxious, less exhausted. It has been easier for me to get to serious, concentrated work now. Additionally, it has eliminated a lot of work that I long thought to be an incredibly taxing but important burden: social media marketing.
Our podcast is still on social media, managed instead by my more laid-back (and effective at things social) counterpart, Jav, and we have been getting a good portion of our listeners from those outlets. I used to regularly post about the other things I do on my social media accounts and get viewers from there, too (particularly friends whose kindness and thoughtfulness I greatly appreciate), but I’ve since concluded that the negatives from using them regularly and as often as I used to far outweigh the positives. Those negatives had been affecting not just my process but my health as well.
A lot of consequences follows this undertaking to “disconnect”. (I put it in quotations because although I now have less knowledge of whatever is happening around me, I would argue that the fewer interactions I have been having are more fruitful than they had been before.) But this quote is yet another helpful reminder and its help for me goes beyond this talk of deep work and digital minimalism:
“Develop the habit of letting small bad things happen. If you don’t, you’ll never find time for the life-changing big things.”
Tim Ferriss (quoted from Cal Newport’s Deep Work)
Part of what I had been learning these days is accepting that I cannot do everything. It’s a tough cookie to swallow, especially for a self-proclaimed multipotentialite, but…
It is what’s necessary.
I cannot do everything, but with the few that I can and actually do, I truly live. That, now, is what I aspire for.
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