As I shared last week, I’m planning a digital declutter inspired by Cal Newport’s book Digital Minimalism. At the time, I promised to share more details about my approach, and this is me doing just that.

Quite a few readers seemed keen to join me, which is awesome. Hopefully, reading about my approach will help you plan your own declutter. Please share any additional ideas and thoughts you have in the comments—I’d love to hear about your approaches!

Alright, let’s get into it.

What is a digital declutter?

A digital declutter, as described by Cal Newport in Digital Minimalism, is a focused break from optional digital tools, such as social media, entertainment apps, and unnecessary online activities, for a period of about 30 days. During this time, you reflect on what truly adds value to your life. After the break, you selectively reintroduce only the digital tools that serve your goals and well-being, creating a more intentional and meaningful relationship with technology.

How does it work?

A digital declutter follows a structured three-step process:

1. Take a 30-day break – Remove all optional digital tools from your life, including social media, entertainment apps, and non-essential digital activities. Essential tools (e.g., work-related software, necessary communication) can remain, but their use should be intentional and limited.

2. Rediscover meaningful activities – Use the break to explore offline hobbies, deepen real-world relationships, and engage in activities that bring personal fulfilment. This helps identify what you truly value without digital distractions.

3. Reintroduce digital tools selectively – After 30 days, evaluate which digital tools genuinely add value. Only reintegrate those that serve a clear purpose and set boundaries for their use to avoid falling back into mindless digital consumption.

The goal is to build a more intentional relationship with technology, ensuring it serves your priorities rather than dictating your time and attention.

The rest of this blog post will focus on how I prepared step 1: The 30-day break. I plan to write blog posts about the other two steps when the time comes.

Preparing for my 30-day break

Over the last week, I’ve worked through four steps to prepare for my 30-day break.

1. I clarified my goals

I think it’s always important to know why we’re doing something and what we want to get out of it. So I spent some time thinking about exactly why I’m doing this. I landed on two specific reasons/goals:

1. I want to be more present and mindful in my day-to-day life, and I feel technology (especially my phone and social media) is getting in the way of that.

2. There are lots of things I want to do, and I never feel like I have enough time—yet I regularly waste precious time scrolling mindlessly on my phone. I’m hoping this declutter will lead to spending more time on high-value, fulfilling activities and less time on mindless distractions like social media and smartphone games. 

2. I identified essential vs. optional tech

While figuring out my goals was fairly easy, this next step proved trickier. My big challenge is that I use a LOT of technology for work. I have to! I wish I could take a 30-day break from all technology, but work won’t work without tech. There is also a lot of overlap between tech that I use for work and personal reasons, including my phone and laptop, social media, and multiple software, so it won’t be as easy as allowing some tools and not others.

I can’t take a break from work-related tech. However, I can be more mindful about when certain tech is essential vs. optional. For example, checking and replying to emails during the day is essential. But doing the same at 8 o’clock at night or checking emails first thing in the morning (which I do most days) is not essential.

Another key consideration is that I don’t want to miss opportunities to connect with people because I haven’t been checking my messages. Just the other day, a friend messaged in the afternoon, suggesting a spontaneous catch-up that evening. If I hadn’t checked my phone all day, I would have missed it. I also want to stay connected to friends and family that I can’t see in person.

At the same time, I don’t want to do this half-heartedly. If I do a digital declutter, I want to do it properly and challenge myself, especially during the initial 30-day break. I want it to be noticeably different from my day-to-day life right now.

With that in mind, I decided on a few general rules for my 30-day break:

1. No technology at all between 7pm and 8:30am, with two small exceptions:
   a. I can check my Swim Info WhatsApp group before bed, so I know when and where we’re meeting the next day (I’d hate to miss out on that in-person connection).
   b. Noise-cancelling headphones and background music (Spotify) are allowed to tune out when the campground is noisy (this is crucial for my mental health).

2. All work-related technology is considered essential between 8:30am – 5:30pm – but NOT outside those hours. I will not check emails or do other work-related tasks outside those hours unless absolutely essential (e.g., a client needs urgent work done).

3. Limit phone use (for work and personal reasons) as much as possible. I will allow phone calls and I will check messages 3-4 times a day. In addition, a short list of apps are also considered essential in certain situation. But all other apps and phone uses are considered optional (i.e. not allowed)

4. I will put my phone away in a cupboard that’s out of reach. I’ll have the sound on for calls so I don’t miss work calls, but I will silence all other notifications. When I check messages, I will set a 10 minute time and only reply immediately if required.

5. When I have to use ‘dangerous’ tech for work (social media, YouTube, etc.), I will set a clear intention and a time limit so I don’t accidentally disappear down the rabbit hole.

Here is a more detailed breakdown of my essential vs optional tech and use cases

Laptop

Smartphone Apps

Phone

Other tech

A word about the news

I believe that we all have a responsibility to stay somewhat up-to-date with current affairs, so I initially considered news essential. However, I’m also aware that following the news is increasingly becoming a negative aspect of my life. Too often these days, reading the news leaves me feeling stressed, anxious, sad and hopeless. Furthermore, during my social media timeout last year, checking the news became an alternative mindless distraction and reason to pick up my phone – which is what I want to minimise during these 30 days.

So, I’ve decided to give myself a break. For the initial 30 days of my declutter, I will not check the news. I fully intend to find a way to reconnect with the news after these 30 days, as I still believe I have a responsibility to do so. But I figured I’m allowed a break.

3. I planned alternative activities

In his book, Cal Newport points out that one common reasons people don’t complete their 30-day break from all non-essential technologies is because they don’t know what to do with themselves and all the extra time they suddenly have. Therefore, he recommends planning alternative activities before the 30-day break.

I’m not worried about this. I very rarely get bored. As long as I have books and my imagination, I’ll always have ways to keep myself entertained.

However, planning alternative activities was/is a lot of fun. Given one of the reasons I decided to do this declutter is to have more time for all the things I want to do, I have a long list of alternative activities. It includes:

1. Various arts and crafts projects: From drawing to origami and embroidery

2. Reading: My “to be read” list is constantly getting longer instead of shorter, so this one alone could keep me busy for 30 days

3. Creative writing: I’m looking forward to writing more by hand during these 30 days.

4. Meditating: I keep dabbling with it but never establish a regular practice. Maybe it will happen during my 30-day tech break.

5. Daydreaming: When I was travelling in my van, I would often just sit, drink coffee and watch the world going by, lost in thought. I rarely do that anymore, and I miss it.

6. Various activities, including walks, bike rides, paddle boarding, kitesurfing and hiking.

7. A big declutter of my caravan: It’s kind of scary how much stuff has piled on in the year I’ve lived here.

While writing this list was quick and easy, I invested a bit more time to ensure I could do these activities while offline. For example, I’ve requested books from the library and downloaded a few onto my Kindle so I’m not tempted to search the internet for my next read. I also prepared arts and crafts projects with offline instructions so I don’t rely on the internet to find out how to do something.

I put everything in an “activity box”, so whenever I look for something to do, I know where to find it.

4. I’m preparing for practical challenges

As a fourth and final step of preparing for the 30-day break, Cal Newport suggests preparing for some practical challenges. This can include:

• Letting friends, family, or colleagues know you’ll be limiting digital communication.

• Set up physical reminders (e.g., post-it notes, a calendar marker) to keep yourself accountable.

• If necessary, use website blockers or uninstall apps to prevent temptation.

I still have a bit of work to do in this area. I need to figure out how to best limit my phone to essential uses (without having to uninstall everything). I also want to find ways to add reminders to my day. And I plan to draft a nice message I can send to friends and family to explain why I’m slow to reply to text messages and emails. I still have a few days before the 1st, and I’m sure I will be ready come Saturday.

There you go. That’s how I’ve been preparing for my digital declutter – or at least the first phase of it. I will deal with how to best reintroduce technology in a meaningful way after the 30-day break.

I’m looking forward to getting started. I did a little trial over the weekend while camping with friends. I left my phone off all weekend, and it was magical. I’ve got the feeling this break will be good for me.

If you plan to join me, I hope you’re as excited to get started as I am. If you are struggling with your preparation, I highly recommend writing it all up. Writing this blog post has helped my get clear in my head how I want to approach this and helped highlight several things I need to plan for and prepare.

That’s it for now. I’m undecided whether I will be blogging during the next 30 days. On the one hand, it’s not really essential use of technology, but on the other hand blogging is 95% writing and 5% using technology to publish.

Either way, I will definitely update you after the 30 days.