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What I do to keep digitally minimalist while engaging on 4 platforms — as an introvert
Up until this point I felt overwhelmed.
It seemed like no matter what I did, there was always another post to like or create.
But as Cal Newport says in his book Deep Work, shallow activities like social media aren’t what make me useful — deep work is.
Part of having deep work is to prioritize the tasks that take the most concentration and leaving social media to the side.
So how can I keep digitally minimalistic?
Identifying what platforms you need
I knew that I needed Discord for messaging, X for engaging/creating, Medium for writing, and Reddit for research and marketing.
This was no quick realization, it’s taken about 2 years of experimenting with Instagram, Tumblr, and the etc. to decide what platforms work for me.
These may seem like a lot, but they’re actually a lot less than my initial list.
The key for me was knowing my strong suits:
- I like writing
- I like being anonymous
- I enjoy communicating visually
This means that video editing is not my strong suit (❌YouTube), I’m not an aesthetic gal (❌Tumblr), and I hate Facebook (❌).
Finding a method of organization
There are so many apps, like:
- Evernote
- AnyType
- Notion
- Tana
The key is to chose 1 that has tags and is accessible to capture info quickly.
Know what you need to capture
Per each platform, I knew that my goal was to keep up with users and jot notes for my content.
That means that when using Notion (my preferred app), I needed a widget that I could access for each social platform. Within that widget would be the page that has a Gallery view to jot the User and their URL, along with a List to Quick Grab notes.
This set-up only took 5 minutes and has helped me engage with those that I need to and capture only what I need.
Takeaway
For each social media platform I only spend at most 30 minutes daily. Have I become a millionaire? Made 1,000,000 followers? Bought Gucci?
Nope, and that’s ok!
After all, there are many creators who monetize with a small following and make what they need. Since my products are digital, I only need so much traffic to be successful anyway, because just 100 orders for my 2,000. That’s all I need as a college student!
The ability to concentrate deeply is not only beneficial, but crucial to have. It’s about cutting down the noise and using all the information out there for your content, not by doomscrolling into an endless abyss of shallow work.
Ever since I started being a digital minimalist, I’ve felt the most satisfied, happy, and in tune with my introverted self.