Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World

by Cal Newport

The most successful social leisure activities share two traits. First, they require you to spend time with other people in person.

The second trait is that the activity provides some sort of structure for the social interaction, including rules you have to follow, insider terminology or rituals, and often a shared goal.

Leisure Lesson #3: Seek activities that require real-world, structured social interactions.

the internet is fueling a leisure renaissance of sorts by providing the average person more leisure options than ever before in human history. It does so in two primary ways: by helping people find communities related to their interests and providing easy access to the sometimes obscure information needed to support specific quality pursuits.

In this new state, digital technology is still present, but now subordinated to a support role: helping you to set up or maintain your leisure activities, but not acting as the primary source of leisure itself.

A good seasonal plan contains two different types of items: objectives and habits that you intend to honor in the upcoming season.

objectives describe specific goals you hope to accomplish,

habits describe behavior rules you hope to stick with thr...

It emphasizes that the smartphone versions of these services are much more adept at hijacking your attention than the versions accessed through a web browser on your laptop or desktop computer.