Chapter 9

Digital Minimalism Check-up: Auditing Your Digital Minimalism Lifestyle

Audit your digital life and see where you stand…

Digital Minimalism Check-up is a concept developed by InfovoreSecrets in order to ensure people do what is needed to maintain a digitally decluttered life.

Just as you go for a medical check-up once in a while to have a thorough examination of your body and detect any medical problem, you need to go for a digital minimalism check-up once in a while to ensure you are not cluttering your life digitally.

Most of us already know where to go to have a medical check-up, but where do we go to have a digital minimalism check-up? In this chapter, we will be teaching you how to perform a digital minimalism check-up for yourself or for someone.

We believe that by the time you finish reading this chapter, you should be able to do an objective assessment of yourself and know what you have been doing correctly (and what you have not) as a digital minimalist.

In other words, you will be able to know if you are gaining or losing in your digital minimalism goals.

Let’s get started.

Below is how to perform a digital minimalism check-up.

Note: Please get a sheet of paper and a pen. In each step below, we expect you to give yourself a rating on a scale of 1 to 10. A bad rating is four and below, and a good rating is five and above. The exact number you give yourself will depend on how well or bad you think you fared.

1. Start with the number of gadgets

If you own many gadgets, then it is more likely that you will have many digital clutters in your life than someone who only has a few gadgets.

Digital minimalism came into existence because we have digital gadgets. So, the first item to check when performing a check-up is the number of digital devices you are using.

Digital devices include (but not limited to) computers (laptops and desktop), tablets, smartphones, TVs, and game consoles.

If you have and often use all the devices mentioned above, then rate yourself poorly. On the other hand, if you only have one, two, or three out of these devices and you use them responsibly, then give yourself a good rating.

2. How often do you use social media networks for non-work purposes?

If you use social media often (except for work purposes), then give yourself a bad rating. If you use it very few times in a month or you don’t use it at all, give yourself a good rating.

You may want to ask why using social media often (except for work purpose) amounts to a bad rating. This is so because, generally, the more you use social media, the more you waste your time and worry yourself with what should not bother you. It is really difficult to spend much time on social media (for non-work purposes) without wasting one’s time on trivial things.

3. How many friends do you have on social media, and how many people or pages do you follow on social media?

If you have more than two hundred friends or follow more than ten pages, then give yourself a bad rating. If you only have a very few selected friends and follow a couple of people/pages, give yourself a good rating.

This is so because having many friends on social media is usually overwhelming and contributes to digital clutters most times. Having many friends and/or following many people/pages means that you will see a lot of updates on your wall and a lot of reactions when you post or comment. It also means that you will have many people to compare your life with. All these can negatively affect if extra care is not taken.

4. What do you often do during your spare time?

If you reflect on life, spend time with your Creator, work on a project, visit a family member or a friend, read a book, learn new things or skill, or exercise, then give yourself a good rating.

If you often spend your spare time to browse the internet, visit social media platforms, watch movies, play video games, watch the TV, then give yourself a bad rating.

5. What do you do when you feel depressed or sad?

If when sad or depressed, you connect with your Creator; talk with a family member, neighbor, friend or health expert; read a book; walk in nature; or perform controlled breathing, then give yourself a good rating.

On the other hand, if when sad or depressed, you resort to social media or watch TV, play video games, or watch movies or pornographic materials, then give yourself a bad rating.

You may want to know why the activities mentioned in the preceding paragraph amount to a bad rating. This is so because all these activities will only add to your digital clutter and will not remove the source of your sadness or depression. On the other hand, all the activities associated with good rating have the capability of making you look inward so as to get to the root cause of your sadness and depression and find a solution.

6. How often do you play video games

If you play it often, give yourself a bad rating. If no, give yourself a good rating. You may want to argue that playing video games has some benefits. However, it also has shortcomings. In addition, video games have the tendency to shackle your life and get you addicted. As a digital minimalist, you will never want to be controlled by a device or tool, and that is why it is better to avoid or restrict your access to video games.

7. Do you watch pornography?

If you watch pornography, give yourself a bad rating, if you don’t, give yourself a good rating.

Pornography has the tendency of getting you addicted and spoiling your relationship with your loved ones. It is indeed one of the top tools that waste people’s time and destroy how we view women in the modern world. As a digital minimalist, you will never want a tool or device to take away your relationship with your loved ones or waste your time, and that is why pornography is a no-no for a digital minimalist.

8. How many times do you check your emails per day?

Except for work purposes, give yourself a bad rating if you check your emails more than once in a day. If you don’t check it more than once, give yourself a good rating.

Emails can really waste your time and make you less productive, and this is why you should make it a habit not to check your emails more than once in a day. It is even better if you don’t check it more than three times a week.

We have already written a chapter on how to manage your emails; please refer to it for details.

9. How often do you switch on or unlock your computer or smartphone without a clear plan on what you want to do?

Give yourself a good rating if you only do this twice or less in a week. If you do this more than twice in a week, give yourself a bad rating.

It is very easy to waste your time and aimlessly wander about online if you don’t have a clear plan of what you want to achieve online. One of the greatest threats to digital minimalism is to switch on or unlock your computer and start aimlessly wandering about online without a clear goal.

This is a great threat because it is easy to start doing what will jeopardize your digital minimalist lifestyle when you wander aimlessly online.

10. Do you have a constant Internet connection on your phone of computer

It’s true that the internet has become important to almost every aspect of our lives, but not many internet users (and aspiring digital minimalists) can draw a line between the usefulness of the internet and the intrusiveness of the internet.

Having a constant internet connection usually serves as a temptation to use your digital devices for unproductive and time-wasting activities, even at odd hours. But if you have a deliberately regulated connection to the internet, you tend to put more value to your internet access and thus use the opportunity for activities of value.

This may sound like we are subtly nudging you to relocate to the jungle, but the truth is that a constant internet connection is antithetical to achieving true digital minimalism.

You can limit your exposure to unlimited internet connection by leaving your devices at home whenever you can, giving your devices to a family member or friend in areas where free WiFi connection are available or downloading apps that actively controls internet access on your devices.

If your digital device is constantly connected to the internet 24/7, give yourself a bad rating. Give yourself a good rating if your device is not constantly connected.

11. Do you engage in opportunistic subscription?

Basically, subscribing for content is a tacit acceptance of such content. But when things go wild, subscribing for content can be like signing your time away for the information you need and those you don’t.

Understandably, some content creators survive on our subscription, and subscriptions are actually the backbone of some platforms like YouTube. But ironically, it is because subscriptions are important to the growth of some content producers that makes them sometimes sacrifice quantity for quality – to our bane as digital minimalists.

YouTube is a perfect example of such situations. Watching a good video on YouTube is not a guarantee that there will be other equally good videos from its channel of origin. Yet, it is always tempting to subscribe to channels that thrill us once, even if we are not sure it will ever thrill us again.

It is for this reason that a quest for a successful digital minimalist lifestyle will require you to avoid making opportunistic subscriptions, especially on websites. You may end up wasting your time on further contents that are nothing like what interests you on the website initially.

Give yourself a good rating if you subscribe a little after deep consideration; if not, give yourself a bad rating.

12. Do you keep multiple online accounts for the same purpose?

Although there is no standard for the number of accounts each one of us should have online, the modern internet has, however, been designed to encourage us to create accounts before we can do a lot of online activities.

To be fair, a lot of online services can now be accessed by using pre-existing accounts we have created for our email and social media, but it is not uncommon for internet users to illicitly create multiple accounts (on the same website) in order to have repeated access to restricted internet resources.

Many of these accounts often constitute a source of spam and unwanted messages thereafter.

Give yourself a good rating if you don’t keep multiple online accounts for the same purpose. If you do, give yourself a bad rating.

13. How many hours do you watch television in a week?

Unless your work depends on it, give yourself a bad rating if you watch television for more than three hours in a week. If you watch television for less than three hours or you don’t watch it at all, give yourself a good rating.

Television is one of the top digital cluttering devices one can have in his/her house. Watching TV often usually amount to a waste of time.

Many people have ditched TV because they have realized that it wastes their time and prevents them from spending time with their family members. You may also consider doing so.

14. Do you press your phone or PC while speaking with someone?

Give yourself a bad rating if you press a phone or PC while speaking to someone, and give yourself a good rating if you don’t do this.

Now sum up your ratings. If you score more than 120 points, then you have done great, and you are a digital minimalism expert, please keep it up. If you score between 100 and 120, you really tried, and we will recommend you work more to achieve a better result. If your score falls between 70 and 100, then you belong to the class of average, and you need to put in more effort.

If you score between 50 and 70, then you need to really put in more effort in order to fully adopt and maintain a minimalistic digital life. If you score below 50, you need to put in a great amount of effort to achieve digital minimalism.

Conclusion

This is the final chapter of our comprehensive guide on digital minimalism. We believe you would have learned a lot if you start reading this guide from the introductory chapter.

Please put whatever you have learned in this guide into practice. We strongly believe that by doing so, you will get back your time (more appropriately, your life) from digital tools.