April 7

Sunday night, and I’m trying to think of something to say that isn’t a repeat of things I’ve posted elsewhere this week! I just sent off my weekly Patreon subscriber post—a diary of this week’s reading—and I wrote a longform post for Medium earlier in the week about my progress so far at a shift toward digital minimalism.

(An odd thing about Medium: I knew you could “clap” for posts you like to help boost them, but I thought the clap button was like every other like button on the internet—on or off. But no! You can clap up to 50 times per story.! This is…frustrating. I like to help give a bump to good posts, but I’m not inclined—especially in this minimalism mood!—to sit there mashing a button for several seconds to give maximum applause. At the same time I’m wincing to think of all the times I’ve given just the one clap, unaware it wasn’t a terribly enthusiastic response. Ah well.)

Anyway! That post was fun to write and I plan to follow up with more steps toward streamlining my screen time. One big shift this week that happened after I posted the article was that I ditched my habit trackers. All of them! Seems like I’ve been attempting to track habits or log progress one way or another (on paper, in apps, or both) since way back in early FlyLady days when it was a yahoogroup sending eight emails a day to remind you to drink your water. Sometimes it’s been just a few basic things: did I take my vitamin? did I take a walk today? Other times I’ve had a whole raft of daily trackable activities. Sketch! Read! Duolingo! Stretches! Etc etc etc. And of course I jumped on the Fitbit bandwagon at some point. But it all just suddenly seemed like unnecessary pressure. I read every day, whether I mark an X in a box or not. If I’m not in the mood to sketch, a habit tracker isn’t more likely to make me do it—it’ll just make me feel guilty for not doing it. And step-counting: well, let’s just say I’ve had one too many nights where I’m jogging in place in my pajamas just to get my Fitbit to turn over to a nice round number. (Scott has a particularly sardonic eyebrow lift reserved for these moments. And I’ll be like: “I know! [pant pant] This is ridiculous! [pant] …98…99…8000!”)

So I deleted the tracking app (more digital decluttering, yay) and put my Fitbit on a shelf. And then I went for a long walk, a walk measured in cherry blossoms and tulips, not steps.