I synced photos to both OneDrive and Google Drive for long enough to have ~10,000 double photos. Do I even bother trying to dedupe files to clean up this mess as I move exclusively to OneDrive? Or just back up my Google Takeout and call it a day?

📚 Today I finished How to Break Up with Your Phone: The 30-Day Plan to Take Back Your Life by Catherine Price. The first half discusses the impacts of smartphone overuse and addiction, and the second half offers a pretty solid 30 day challenge for being more mindful of your phone use.

My library loan ran out before I could complete the challenge. I had already done several of the tasks on the challenge - removing apps, reducing notifications, cleaning up other areas of my digital life like groups/friends on social media and email subscriptions.

I really liked the idea of boundaries, or as Price describes “no phone zones” and the “phone wakeup time.” No Phone Zone is pretty self explanatory (no phones at the dinner table), but I’m still having a hard time making the bedroom a No Phone Zone. The Phone Wakeup Time goes one step beyond not sleeping with your phone to having a set time in the morning where you don’t use it. My mornings are my time to do yoga, read, and sit down to eat breakfast so making this time phone-free (besides for audio books) is really nice.

For a bite size portion of this book, check out Catherine Price on the Ten Percent Podcast or sign up for a 7 day phone challenge at the Screen / Life Balance.

🎶 Freegal also has unlimited streaming and some pretty weird playlists like “Age Against The Machine: A Playlist for Getting Older”

🎶 I cancelled my Spotify subscription because $120/year seemed like too much. I’m trying free options from the library - Hoopla for 8 albums loaned per month, and Freegal for 5 DRM-free song downloads per month.

📚 Today I finished reading How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell. The book drew from a Medium article if you want a quick read or want to see related photos and artwork.

Odell presents a more philosophical and political take on the theme of intentional living I’ve been exploring this year (In Praise of Slowness, Digital Minimalism). From the Medium article:

I’m suggesting that we protect our spaces and our time for non-instrumental, non-commercial activity and thought, for maintenance, for care, for conviviality. And I’m suggesting that we fiercely protect our human animality against all technologies that actively ignore and disdain the body, the bodies of others, and the body of the landscape that we inhabit.

She also talks about birds a lot so be ready for that!

📚 Today I finished reading Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport .

Bonus crossover podcast from two recent authors I’ve read! Check out Cal Newport on the 10% Happier with Dan Harris Episode #188: Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport