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“If you don’t feed into the habit, the habit eventually slows down.” Students report a sense of loss at first, but increasingly a sense of freedom—to be where they actually are, instead of feeling compelled to flee somewhere else.
“quit social media.”
“To master the art of deep work, you must take back control of your time and attention from the many diversions that attempt to steal them.”
the vast majority of us, the vast majority of the time, are pretending we are using them as tools when we’re really using them as distractions.
“If you give your mind something meaningful to do throughout all your waking hours,” he writes, “you’ll end the day more fulfilled, and begin the next one more relaxed, than if you instead allow your mind to bathe for hours in semiconscious and unstructured Web surfing.”
Technology changes our habits, our thoughts, our relationships, our loves.
Anything that can cause us to hand over our time inevitably s...
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is possible to harness technology in ways that benefit our lives without letting it take over our entire lives. However, we can only achieve this if we decide where we’re headed first.
“almost almost Amish”—lives when it comes to technology outside the workplace.
embrace new tools when they advance specific ends—that is, goal-definable work—but to adopt a skeptical posture otherwise, so that digital tools are not permitted to remake daily life, social life, and family life.
working satisfies us more than consuming, consumption is easier
“wake up before our devices do, and make them ‘go to bed’ before we do.”
simple shift in our habits, by maybe thirty minutes a day, can make a big difference.
that: “We are designed for a rhythm of work and rest. So one hour a day, one day a week, and one week a year, we turn off our devices and worship, feast, play, and rest together.”
the phone is a ready-made distraction machine.
most people misunderstand what stress is. We typically think that it is having a lot to do. He thinks that’s wrong. When someone has a lot to do, but they’re making consistent progress on the most important thing, they’re not stressed. They’re satisfied.
if there is something important that they ought to be doing but on which they’re not making progress, that’s when stress peaks.
The phone isn’t encouraging your progress; it’s causing you stress.
build guardrails against technology’s tendency to swallow everything.
Turn off most notifications and alerts. Stop checking in on retweet counts and likes. Read the comments on your posts only at a predetermined time
Have places your phone is never allowed—such as at the dinner table. Take regular social media fasts—times of the day and days of the week where you don’t open the apps.
“Have a specific reader in mind. Pretend that he or she is sitting next to your desk, and you’re reading aloud to an audience of one. Pretend your audience is smarter than you are, but knows absolutely nothing about the topic.”
We live richer, more fulfilled lives when we’re directing ourselves to the right people.
The danger of the digital world is when it supplants rather than supplements real relationships with real people in real places.
Social media is always tapping us on the shoulder whispering false priorities. “NOW!” it warns. “You’re missing out! This is the most important moment of all time—more urgent than the pledges you made yesterday, or than the investment you could be making in tomorrow!” Social media demands that you submit to the feeling that you should act only for NOW!
If the ancient Greeks were to anthropomorphize social media as a deity, it would come a...
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“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.”
We are limited by our bodies.
Christians believe that God created both the body and soul, and that one day Jesus will redeem both.
God cares not only about immaterial souls but also about the material world. We’re not spirits, zipping about. We’re bodies, too.
We’re right here, right now. Place matters.
The stuck, by contrast, not only reside in a less-than-ideal place, but they also lack the money or the inclination—or, more broadly, the social capital—to search out a better life. Although they might change physical addresses, they aren’t able to build a network of healthy relationships.
Between the mobile and the stuck are the rooted—the shrinking number of people who can choose to embrace the joys of thick community in a particular place. They recognize the advantages of settling in one place and of walking into the corner store—or
The unsatisfying choice is between opportunity but no place to call home, or a home in a place where you’ll struggle to pay the bills.
When the consultant goes to a new city and doesn’t “plug in” to any social networks, no one benefits from what he has to offer—for example, his wealth, which he might be willing to give to a local charity; his time, which he might be willing to volunteer; or his skills, which might be in need somewhere. It’s not just the consultant who loses something; it’s everyone else who would have connected with him.
Our instincts on why we should delay “rootedness” are all wrong. I’ll invest once I’m where I’m supposed to be! I’ll have more time in a year! Once I move into a better neighborhood, I’ll . . . No. The perfect will always be the enemy of the good. In the real world, the only real community is where you are.
we’re meant to connect to our specific place and time.
figure out how to build habits of neighborliness—each in his own spot.
“What’s crazy about California is there are a lot of people here, but no one thinks of themselves as from here,”
significant costs to having so many choices. Every
People faced with more flavor options experience decision anxiety and regret. They’re afraid of not getting it right.
“Though maximizers tend to make better decisions, they are less satisfied with those decisions than are people who make quicker ones based on less research
goal of maximizing is impossible: You’ll never be able to examine every possible option before making a decision.”
making the best possible decision at the cost of time and ease is often a worse overall experience than making a good-enough deci...
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benefit from understanding “the minimum outcome you’re willing to accept for a decision. It’s the outcome you’d be fine with, even if it’s not the absolute best possibility.”
The desire for short-term satisfaction tempts us to think that the woman from the porn might be appealing. But she’s not real. And after the short-term lust is satisfied, the loneliness seeps back in.
Marriage offers the opportunity to experience genuine, deep friendship. But that takes work. So much love, sweat, and tears go into building a family. You’re constantly learning what it means to “die to self.” But it’s so much better than any two-dimensional counterfeit.
We’re tempted to pass on the hard work of community-building for similar reasons. Community can be difficult. It can be messy. It doesn’t fall into place, like on the sitcoms. But—in community, unlike on Netflix, you can put down the roots that will help to give life meaning and richness.
She was called to serve them at a particular moment, during a particular stage in her life
Many of us don’t really invest in our communities or our relationships, because we’re always anticipating what’s around the corner.
