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One of the hardest parts I've found in winnowing the amount of sheer information I process every day was my iPhone. I solved it by limiting my access to a few k

One of the hardest parts I've found in winnowing the amount of sheer information I process every day was my iPhone. I solved it by limiting my access to a few key apps, silencing non-critical notifications(Re: Email) and deleting Safari. Anything that I can access through a browser and check once a day (Here's looking at you Instagram) was locked out of my phone/removed. Downside: The Internet is no longer in my pocket and occasionally I am required to use 411 and call someone. Turned my iPhone into a almost-dumbphone using Configurator and have seen nothing but improvements to daily-life. > http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/10/hands-on-securing-ios-pwning-your-kids-with-apple-configurator-1-2/ http://arstechnica.com/apple/2012/10/hands-on-securing-ios-p...

matwood 10y ago
That sounds more like an extreme way to deal with the lack of self discipline (deleting Safari??). If it works for you, great. For me minimalism is about how do I get what I need/want in the least amount of time and as little waste as possible. First was how to deal with news. I find the 5 minute NPR news briefing podcast from the latest hour is great. Honestly, news just does not change that much, so listening to that briefing once or twice a day is plenty. If I have more time that day, I'll also listen to WSJ tech or Planet Money podcasts. Next, the Google app on the iPhone does a great job at summarizing things I typically want to know about. I was using the Apple equivalent of this, but it simply does not know me like Google does (for better or worse). I can open the Google app and see the weather, traffic, etc..., scan it and go. For email, Inbox is configurable to only send alerts for certain classes of email. I get alerts only when they matter, and everything else can wait until I'm at a computer to check.
- tonyedgecombe 10y ago
  "That sounds more like an extreme way to deal with the lack of self discipline" But the OP clearly doesn't have enough self discipline (or more likely spends it elsewhere), so perhaps it is a good idea.
- BeetleB 10y ago
  >For me minimalism is about how do I get what I need/want in the least amount of time and as little waste as possible. That's not what minimalism is for most people. I want a lot of things. More than I have time for. Minimalism is about figuring out the marginal value each of those provides and eliminating all but the top x percent. It's about reducing the stuff you feel you need. Your approach sounds more like you are not doing that. >I find the 5 minute NPR news briefing podcast from the latest hour is great. Sorry for changing the topic, but as a former news junkie, I've long wanted to write a lengthy essay on how/why to read the news. If there is one thing I would want people to get out of that essay, it is that when it comes to news, the path of moderation is the one that will make you the most misinformed. There's so much misinformation out there that the only way I could get an idea of what was going on was to spend many hours a month reading up news from multiple sources, and potentially multiple analyses. Only then would you get a fuller picture. Any given single story was highly likely to be missing or misreporting key information. And certain stories would not be covered by some organizations but covered by others. By listening to a given news outlet, you have no idea what important stories are not being told. I did this for several years before calling it quits (too much time for not much personal value). But I knew from my past experience with dealing with people who only "scanned" the news (or listed to the news summary on BBC/NPR) that they tended to be quite misinformed. So the only option was to more or less quit altogether. Even then, a few months later, I found myself having opinions on current events. Why? Because I still randomly scanned newspaper headlines while walking or listened to NPR broadcasts while driving. I had become the misinformed person. The person who doesn't follow news altogether tends to be less misinformed. They are certainly ignorant, but they have fewer faulty notions. These days, have I really gone cold turkey? Not really. I do still read/listen to it. But I do it while refusing to draw any conclusions. Long story short: If you want to follow the news, either do it wholeheartedly or quit. No middle ground in this world.
  - matwood 10y ago
    There is a difference between being aware events are happening, and researching because I need to make some decision. By your logic, everyone is misinformed because there is literally an infinite amount of news and sources now. Even when you thought you were informed, you were just as misinformed as anyone else as there was no way you had ready everything. Regardless, what I was really getting at is following the 24 hour news cycle treadmill is a pointless game. It is far better to get summaries and dive deeper when something interesting comes up and/or you have time. At no point did I talk about drawing conclusions. For those, of course you have to dive in a little deeper and even then you have to be aware those conclusions are only valid until the next bit of information comes out. Learning to summarize and understanding the limitations of that summarization is a learned skill. We all do it every day.
amiga-workbench 10y ago
I downgraded back to a Motorola RAZR V3i for about six months this year, I could browse HN over GPRS with Opera Mobile and download my mail on request, but had no sync and no deluge of notifications. The battery life was very welcome too!
- pcbro141 10y ago
  How much would you say your sense of well-being improved?
  - amiga-workbench 10y ago
    A lot, I found myself much less stressed day to day, I slept better and at work I could maintain longer bouts of focused, useful productivity. I had a Moto 360 smartwatch from day one, and that thing drove me up the wall after a year of use. If anything happened, my watch would vibrate, then my phone, then my laptop would ping, as would my iMac and then my tablet went off. Even now I have my outlook client on a three hour sync cycle, and I don't keep Skype on unless somebody is working from home. If shit hits the fan, or there is a burning question/request somebody only need come downstairs to let me know.
    - wott 10y ago
      > If anything happened, my watch would vibrate, then my phone, then my laptop would ping, as would my iMac and then my tablet went off. That must be like leaving in a Tom & Jerry cartoon!
oliv__ 10y ago
Buy yourself a cheap flip phone?
- SuperPaintMan 10y ago
  I already have the iPhone and it still runs a few apps that I need to use on a day to day basis. Also my previous feature phone couldn't deal with emoji :( It does have a 5 day battery life now though.

matwood 10y ago

That sounds more like an extreme way to deal with the lack of self discipline (deleting Safari??). If it works for you, great. For me minimalism is about how do I get what I need/want in the least amount of time and as little waste as possible. First was how to deal with news. I find the 5 minute NPR news briefing podcast from the latest hour is great. Honestly, news just does not change that much, so listening to that briefing once or twice a day is plenty. If I have more time that day, I'll also listen to WSJ tech or Planet Money podcasts. Next, the Google app on the iPhone does a great job at summarizing things I typically want to know about. I was using the Apple equivalent of this, but it simply does not know me like Google does (for better or worse). I can open the Google app and see the weather, traffic, etc..., scan it and go. For email, Inbox is configurable to only send alerts for certain classes of email. I get alerts only when they matter, and everything else can wait until I'm at a computer to check.

tonyedgecombe 10y ago
"That sounds more like an extreme way to deal with the lack of self discipline" But the OP clearly doesn't have enough self discipline (or more likely spends it elsewhere), so perhaps it is a good idea.
BeetleB 10y ago
>For me minimalism is about how do I get what I need/want in the least amount of time and as little waste as possible. That's not what minimalism is for most people. I want a lot of things. More than I have time for. Minimalism is about figuring out the marginal value each of those provides and eliminating all but the top x percent. It's about reducing the stuff you feel you need. Your approach sounds more like you are not doing that. >I find the 5 minute NPR news briefing podcast from the latest hour is great. Sorry for changing the topic, but as a former news junkie, I've long wanted to write a lengthy essay on how/why to read the news. If there is one thing I would want people to get out of that essay, it is that when it comes to news, the path of moderation is the one that will make you the most misinformed. There's so much misinformation out there that the only way I could get an idea of what was going on was to spend many hours a month reading up news from multiple sources, and potentially multiple analyses. Only then would you get a fuller picture. Any given single story was highly likely to be missing or misreporting key information. And certain stories would not be covered by some organizations but covered by others. By listening to a given news outlet, you have no idea what important stories are not being told. I did this for several years before calling it quits (too much time for not much personal value). But I knew from my past experience with dealing with people who only "scanned" the news (or listed to the news summary on BBC/NPR) that they tended to be quite misinformed. So the only option was to more or less quit altogether. Even then, a few months later, I found myself having opinions on current events. Why? Because I still randomly scanned newspaper headlines while walking or listened to NPR broadcasts while driving. I had become the misinformed person. The person who doesn't follow news altogether tends to be less misinformed. They are certainly ignorant, but they have fewer faulty notions. These days, have I really gone cold turkey? Not really. I do still read/listen to it. But I do it while refusing to draw any conclusions. Long story short: If you want to follow the news, either do it wholeheartedly or quit. No middle ground in this world.
- matwood 10y ago
  There is a difference between being aware events are happening, and researching because I need to make some decision. By your logic, everyone is misinformed because there is literally an infinite amount of news and sources now. Even when you thought you were informed, you were just as misinformed as anyone else as there was no way you had ready everything. Regardless, what I was really getting at is following the 24 hour news cycle treadmill is a pointless game. It is far better to get summaries and dive deeper when something interesting comes up and/or you have time. At no point did I talk about drawing conclusions. For those, of course you have to dive in a little deeper and even then you have to be aware those conclusions are only valid until the next bit of information comes out. Learning to summarize and understanding the limitations of that summarization is a learned skill. We all do it every day.

amiga-workbench 10y ago

I downgraded back to a Motorola RAZR V3i for about six months this year, I could browse HN over GPRS with Opera Mobile and download my mail on request, but had no sync and no deluge of notifications. The battery life was very welcome too!

pcbro141 10y ago
How much would you say your sense of well-being improved?
- amiga-workbench 10y ago
  A lot, I found myself much less stressed day to day, I slept better and at work I could maintain longer bouts of focused, useful productivity. I had a Moto 360 smartwatch from day one, and that thing drove me up the wall after a year of use. If anything happened, my watch would vibrate, then my phone, then my laptop would ping, as would my iMac and then my tablet went off. Even now I have my outlook client on a three hour sync cycle, and I don't keep Skype on unless somebody is working from home. If shit hits the fan, or there is a burning question/request somebody only need come downstairs to let me know.
  - wott 10y ago
    > If anything happened, my watch would vibrate, then my phone, then my laptop would ping, as would my iMac and then my tablet went off. That must be like leaving in a Tom & Jerry cartoon!

oliv__ 10y ago

Buy yourself a cheap flip phone?

SuperPaintMan 10y ago
I already have the iPhone and it still runs a few apps that I need to use on a day to day basis. Also my previous feature phone couldn't deal with emoji :( It does have a 5 day battery life now though.