Story Magic

125 - Digital Minimalism with Gauri Yardi

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Today, Emily & Rachel talk about digital minimalism with guest Gauri Yardi!

What you’ll learn from this episode:

  • What is digital minimalism? 
  • Emily's and Gauri's experience 
  • How to incorporate digital minimalism into your creative life
  • The challenges of limiting tech when marketing is a big piece of the writing journey

GAURI YARDI'S WEBSITE: https://www.gauriyardi.com/

GAURI'S INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/gauri.yardi/

Resources mentioned:


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Rachel:

Hey, writers. Welcome back to Story Magic, the podcast that will help you write a book you're damn proud of.

Emily:

I'm Emily.

Rachel:

And I'm Rachel.

Emily:

And today we are talking about digital minimalism with Gowrie Yardi, our great friend and multidisciplinary creative naturopath. Creative wellbeing coach. Gowry is our burnout queen. And we just in the dig people out of burnout way.

Gauri Yardi:

Yes.

Emily:

Help people gently, gently lift them out of burnout. We love Gowrie. We're so excited to have her here. If you haven't listened to our previous episodes with Gowry, definitely do that. But this episode, we're talking about something that's a little bit different, but something that Gauri and I have both been really passionate about lately, which is digital minimalism. What that has to do with creativity. And I'm just really excited. So, Gauri, welcome.

Gauri Yardi:

Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so glad to be back and I am so happy to be able to talk about this topic, especially as it affects creativity and writing, because I've been thinking about nothing nonstop for two months. So, like, I've been thinking about this, nothing more than this for two months. So really excited to dig into it.

Emily:

Me too. Well, before we do that, can you just tell people a little bit about yourself, what you do for creatives, and just kind of what kind of work they can expect from you outside of the digital minimalism space? And then we'll dive into the. Dive into it.

Gauri Yardi:

Sure thing. So I work with creatives of all kinds, so artists, writers, musicians, performers, designers. And I usually work with people who are blocked or burnt out. So me meaning they struggle to write or create their art because of low energy or because of things like perfectionism, procrastination, et cetera. So I do this one on one with folks, but I also run group programs. And I just love talking about the nervous system because I think our bodies and our nervous systems are one of the things that we overlook a lot in our creative well being, I guess, when we're thinking about what sustains us as creatives. So that's kind of what I do in a nutshell.

Emily:

Yeah. And that directly ties to what we're going to talk about today.

Gauri Yardi:

It does indeed.

Emily:

It's all very related. Oh, wonderful. Okay, so just a little background on how we got here, because I don't even know if Rachel knows how we got here, so I've only seen you

Rachel:

be like, this is. I don't want any more Phones. I don't want any more phones. Trying to limit your time on digital devices. So that's. I've seen you be pursuing that.

Emily:

Yeah. So. Okay. So last fall, I decided to take a break from Instagram, specifically. So I took it off my phone, and I wasn't really on it, just sort of. It was like a loose kind of. I'm just kind of sick of this app. So I took it off my phone and mostly ignored it for, like, four months. And then in January, when the French edition of behind the Crimson Curtain came out, I was like, I should probably post about this because it's absolutely beautiful and everybody needs to know about it. So I downloaded the app to. To do that, and it was on my phone for just a couple of days. And it was so crazy to me how it just completely hijacked my nervous system. Like, and I. It was in a way that I wasn't expecting. Cause I was like, oh, I've broken my relationship with. With Instagram. Like, everything's fine. I'm doing great. And I put it back on my phone, and it was just. It was crazy. Even when I took it off my phone, I found myself just opening random apps just to open random apps. And it was just. It felt like I was distracted all day long. And I was really struggling to get into my new book, which I hate, writing new first drafts. So it was a. It was probably tied to that, right? Like, me looking for a distraction, a way out of my discomfort and my boredom. So, anyway, so then I got. I got this substack newsletter from Susan Dennard, which was really fantastic, and we'll link it in the notes. But she basically talked about how she got a new computer over Christmas for writing, and she blocked everything else on it. And she was just writing, and I was like, maybe that's what I need, a new computer. And my husband was like, no. So then around that same time, Gowrie posted or sent an email to her newsletter list, which I'm on. And everybody should be on about how she was going through the exact same sort of what do I do about my phone situation. So I emailed Gallery, and I was like, we need to talk about this. This is amazing. And apparently this has been going on with, like, everybody else on the intern. There's, like, a new moving away from your phone, saying, I had no idea. I was just in my little bubble doing this. So then. Yeah, so then Gauri suggested some resources that I did a deep dive into. We had a conversation about it, and it just has been this really fun journey. And I wanted to invite Gauri on to talk to folks about it because I think it is really powerful when we're talking about sort of reclaiming our creative autonomy and reclaiming control over sort of our. Our time and our space and our energy to be able to create. So that's how we got here. But, Gauri, how did you get here? Talk to me a little bit about, you know, how you got into this deep dive, where it's taken you and where it's led you.

Gauri Yardi:

Yeah. So I had a really similar experience to you, Emily, where I just noticed that I was using Instagram particularly way too much, and in a way that made me feel hijacked. I think hijacked is a really good word because I would get onto Instagram just to check my DMs, because I do a lot of posting for my coaching on there and I get a lot of DMs. So I go on just for two minutes, and then next thing I know, I would look up and two hours would have gone by and I couldn't tell you what I was doing. I was just on that homepage just watching reels, reading the posts, and I just kind of thought, is this how I really want to spend my time? Because I don't feel good when I finish. Like, it's not. Like, I spend two hours on Instagram and I feel amazing. I feel bad, I feel stressed, I feel tired, and I feel annoyed with myself for letting myself get hijacked. But the thing is, we need to cut ourselves some slack, because those tech companies, because of their ad revenue model, so they make their money from showing you advertising. So selling advertising space on their platforms, they sink vast amounts of money and resources into figuring out how to exploit our psychology so that we spend the maximum amount time of time possible on their platforms and they can show us things to buy. Right? So I think we sit here as individuals thinking, oh, what's wrong with me? Like, why do I get stuck down these scroll holes? There's nothing wrong with you. You're just a human. It's like they put a lot of effort into. Into getting you to stay there. So I think we really need to cut ourselves some slack on that. But I severely restricted the tech that I was using in December, and I continue that through January and February. And I just feel like a different person. And as I was going through this process of removing all unnecessary, like, apps and sites and things from my life, I did a lot of reading and research into, you know, what is going on what happens to us when we're just indiscriminately using our devices. And the more I found, the more I realized it really ties in with my interest in the nervous system, but also in what we need to be creative and how, you know, our devices can keep us from being creative in the ways that we want to be. So that's kind of where I went with it.

Emily:

Yeah. So, okay, so tell us a little bit more about, like, what did that restriction look like for you and what were the results? I mean, you said you're feeling a lot better, but, like, what are the results? Are you creating more? Like, what are you doing with that time? What have you found? How do you feel different?

Gauri Yardi:

So what I did was I took social media off my phone like you did. I also decided to restrict my Internet use to 15 minutes, three times a day on weekdays. In terms of personal Internet use. Right. I work on the Internet, so I have to be in my emails and on zoom and things all day long. But for my own personal use, I was trying to treat the Internet as an activity because I'm giving away my age now. But when I first started using the Internet, you got on the Internet and then you got off. But now we don't get off. We're always on the Internet. So I was like, I want to get back to when I was a kid and I had 30 minutes a day of Internet time, and I found that I just have a lot more brain space. I can focus on things a lot more. I found it easier to get to writing as well. So during this time, I've written pretty much every day, which I don't make myself do. It's just something that has happened, and I just find that I'm more in touch with my thoughts. Like, I'm more aware of what I'm thinking, and I'm able to think more deeply and critically in a way that I didn't realize I'd lost. So that's kind of how it's manifested for me. And I'm also a lot less stressed. And that makes total sense because the way that we use our devices and social media just affects our nervous systems in the sense that it repeatedly activates them. Right. So they push us into fight or flight. And apart from making us feel stressed, and that's why you emerge from a scroll hole feeling stressed, that chews through our energy and leaves us too exhausted to do our creative work. And not only that, our devices disrupt our sleep. Right. So that impairs our ability to renew the energy that they use up through fight or flight. So our tech both uses up our energy and prevents us from replenishing the energy. And, you know, this is an extremely common contributing factor to creative burnout. And we often don't realize how much of an impact it has on us and our creativity. And as if that wasn't bad enough, you know, our devices and our social media also prevent us from focusing in key ways that are required for us to be creative and to also do the kind of sustained creative work we need in order to finish novels and other projects. So I'm just so happy to get

Emily:

to talk to you about this today. Yeah, I mean, the crazy thing is, so I. I did a similar thing. I. I took all the apps that weren't essential off of my phone, and then I also blocked all notifications, except for, like, a couple of key people that can come through my smartwatch. So then I just kept my phone out of my reach because that was one of the things Susan Dennard was talking about in her article and in podcast that Cal Newport did that. I'll link in the show notes as well about your phone's ubiquity. Like, if it's in your pocket, you will reach for it. Like, you will have a nervous sort of habit of reaching for it. When you have a half a second of boredom or discomfort, you'll reach for it for a distraction. And I found that that was hijacking my nervous system because I'd be almost looking for a reason to not, right? Like, whenever it was uncomfortable to draft, I'd be like, okay, let me look for a reason. Let me look for someone else to talk to. Let me look for, you know, something to compare myself to on social media. You know, I mean, like, let's. Let's see how everybody else is writing so many words, and I'm sitting here struggling, right? But I found when I left my phone, I just left it plugged into the wall sort of at the back of my office. And so I started writing in my bedroom. And so I didn't have my phone on me, and I had blocked all my apps using an app blocker on my computer. And I was writing. I wrote, like, 20,000 words in two weeks of a first draft. And I, like, had fun, which never happens for me for first drafts. I never think they're fun. Rachel can attest to this. When I was doing my first draft last summer, I was like, this is terrible. But I think a lot of it had to do with. I just let myself sink into my thoughts and be there in the discomfort. And it really wasn't that bad. You know, like, sometimes if you just give yourself a few minutes to think through a solution, you'll come up with one versus if you just distracting yourself and not letting yourself sort of sink into that. It can take a lot longer to. And. And then be a lot more distressing to come up with answers to things and come up with decisions and. And because it's harder to hear your own thoughts when there's just like this barrage of distractions.

Gauri Yardi:

Absolutely. And I think turning off your notifications and putting your phone away or your device away is key, because getting those notifications and repeatedly checking our devices for messages or likes or whatever it is, it does fracture our attention and it prevents that kind of deep thinking. You were talking about the deep thinking that we need in order to be creative and work on challenges and problems in our writing. And each time we're distracted by our devices, we actually pay a cost. Um, and if you want to dig into this more, I recommend reading Johann Hari's book Stolen Focus. Um, but when we switch from our work to looking at our devices and then back to work again, we actually lose a lot more time than we think, because each time we're interrupted, it takes a significant amount of time to get our heads back into our work. And actually, studies show that that process of, like, coming back to your work, that can take anywhere between 15 and 25 minutes. Right. So what we think of as just a quick check of our notifications, you know, a couple of minutes here and there, it actually costs us much more than that. So then when we're interrupted multiple times throughout the day, we're potentially losing hours of our thinking time just in switching. And that also just contributes to our general feeling of being, like, rushed and not having enough time to do the things that are important to us, like write.

Emily:

Yeah, Yeah. I was finding that in my work too. Like having notifications, having access to my email all the time, I would just obsessively check it, and then I would get an email that wasn't urgent, but my brain would be like, oh, if this is something else to do instead of this, like, difficult client work. Right. That I'm working on over here. And so it would pull me out of the focus to a way that was inefficient. Right. And it's not like I'm not. We're not coming at this from a hustle culture. Like, you must use every minute of your time the as much as you want. But I do Think there's so much. There's this lost time. It's almost like it makes me think of that. Like, what's the word for the ghost energy that's lost when something's plugged in but not turned on? Like, that's what it feels like. It's like this time is being drained from us when we have access to distractions, technological distractions, that is. Like, there's hours in the day where you could have more time to write or have more time to do X, Y, Z, or the things that you love if you found a way to sort of mitigate that. And I've really seen that in the last. The last couple of months as I've. I've started to limit my access to my phone and my access to. I. I have limited email to. I don't look at it until 9 o'.

Gauri Yardi:

Clock.

Emily:

And then I kind of go through all my emails and I. I block it for the rest of the day until the end of the day. And then I look at my email again. And that's helped me a lot. Cause I can. And I got that from you. I got that. I did that since we last talked because I was like, yeah, I really don't need to have access to it all day long, you know, and. And so I'm able to focus and get my work done so much faster, which leaves more time for writing and, you know, all of that. So I do think people are not. I. I wish people could be more aware of how much time they're losing.

Gauri Yardi:

Yeah. And one of the things that really hit me while I was doing this sort of decluttering, digital decluttering process and reading about this is that, you know, what you do with your time ends up being what you do with your life. Right. Because time is really all we have. So by hijacking our attention and making us spend more time than we actually want to on, you know, apps or devices, tech companies are literally making money by selling your life. And that really freaked me out.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

Yeah. They say that if you. If you have downloaded something or you're. You're participating in something that is free, like, you didn't have to pay for it. You are the product.

Gauri Yardi:

Yes.

Rachel:

So they're selling us. We're not getting Instagram for free.

Emily:

We've become the thing they're selling.

Rachel:

Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, they're selling all of our data, they're selling our habits, they're giving us ads, which makes us buy things. I mean, like, we are the digital product in that Model. And that's how a lot of this is happening nowadays.

Gauri Yardi:

Free but not free, but not absolutely.

Emily:

There's all a conspiracy going on behind the scenes for real.

Rachel:

So I just watched. Gary, have you seen the TV show Chernobyl?

Gauri Yardi:

No, not yet. I'm meaning to, though.

Rachel:

You've seen it, Emily, right?

Emily:

Yes. And I know you and Amelia watch it every time.

Rachel:

We watch it all the time. I watch it all the time. Like, it is one of my favorite series. I think it's incredible tv. Like, it's really great. But this. I'm gonna make, like, a. A. A connection here, so hear me out. But, like, at the beginning of that show, the opening line is, what is the cost of lies? And then we learn about the disaster, and we see that, like, the Soviet government knew that the reactor at Chernobyl could possibly explode, and they hid that information. So then it comes back around at the end of the show. The cost of lying was, like, a gajillion dollars and people dying and cancer for 25 years, and you still can't go back to the exclusion zone. So, like, the cost is unfathomable. Right? And so, to me, I have felt so much pressure recently is like, what is the cost of using my device? Not just in my creativity, but, like, in my parenting, in my relationships, in my. In my everything. And it's a very heavy cost of being, like, connected to that device all the time that if you stop and think about it, it's pretty uncomfortable to make sense of.

Gauri Yardi:

Yeah, absolutely.

Emily:

That, I think, is what made me so angry when I was like. And I put the app back on my phone, and then I just got completely hijacked. And I was like, who? I didn't give anyone permission. I mean, I guess I did, but, like, no one has permission to just, like. To just, like, have this impact on my life and just take all of these moments of joy and these moments of deep thought and these moments of, like, moments with my child. Right? Like, just like Rachel was saying, there's. There's so much cost to this, and it's. It's not our fault. Like, we have been. They have intentionally sort of hijacked us, you know, brainwashed us into doing this. But that doesn't mean it is one of those areas where we actually can take back some agency. I feel like there's a lot of things in the world that feel uncontrollable right now. And that's. I think one of the reasons why I got so into this is I was like, this is something I Could do something about, like, absolutely, I can reduce the impact that these corporations have on, you know, my life. And that was very empowering to me to be able to be like, okay, I left my phone up here for a couple of days, and there's such a drastic change in my day to day life and day to day being like, I feel like that can be, if you allow it to be very, very empowering.

Gauri Yardi:

Absolutely. And I think to get there, we also have to really understand what the harms are, because we see the benefits of social media and apps, Right? We adopt them because we want to stay connected to our friends, or we want to connect with people across the world who we wouldn't necessarily be able to meet or we want to engage with ideas. And so devices and social media and sites, they're not wholly bad, because if they were wholly bad, we could just let them go, you know, without a problem. So I think the key here is understanding really what the impact they have on us is and what we get from them as benefits, and then balancing the benefits with the harm so that we can go in, get what we need, and then get out again and not get hijacked. So I think that's kind of key.

Emily:

And you were talking about.

Gauri Yardi:

Yeah, I was just gonna say I wanted to pick up on something you said about the costs, both of you, and how, like, angry you feel when you get hijacked. And then you realize, like, oh, I've missed out on. On moments in my life. I really wanted to kind of talk about that anger piece because something that's really interesting about the way especially social media works is, is that they exploit this natural human tendency called negativity bias. So negativity bias just means that we pay more attention to things that, like, upset us or make us angry versus things that make us feel good or neutral. And that kind of makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, because if you've got, say, a hungry lion to the left of you and a big heaping plate of your favorite food on the right, and you ignore the lion in favor of the food, well, you're not going to last for very long, are you? And so, because they want our attention, social media algorithms especially will serve us more and more upsetting content to keep us on their platforms. Because enraging is engaging. But the thing is, content that makes us angry or scared or upset activates our nervous system and puts us into fight or flight. And so seeing that kind of content repeatedly makes us feel like we are constantly under threat, which makes us more vigilant and much more quick to go into fight or flight. And if you think about the average person spending three to four hours on their phones, because that is how long the average person spends on their phones, that is a lot of time spent with an activated nervous system engaging with things that are upsetting and scary. And the thing is, fight or flight is an extremely energy hungry process. Right. It's really only supposed to be used sparingly when you're in real danger. But we're actually spending hours and hours in that state and maybe even all day if there are other stressful things in your life, like, you know, you work a demanding day job or you're the parent of young children. And so so many of us are living in a chronically energy deficient state. So that means by the time we deal with our other responsibilities, there is nothing left in the tank to bring to our writing. And that's, you know, we have to think about that really seriously. Yeah, yeah.

Emily:

But I think this is such a, you know, to go back to the empowering piece. It's such a beautiful way to be. Like, you can get some of that energy back. You don't have to feel like this is the way you have to be forever. Like by shifting your relationship with technology, with your phone, with whatever it is that's, you know, sucking that energy away. Like, you can reclaim some of that. And I think that's just really, really cool. It feels like lost hours that we just get to miraculously find again.

Gauri Yardi:

Absolutely. I've read, so I have like a reading goal. I think a lot of people have reading goals, but my reading goal for the last four or five years has been 26 books a year because that's just what I could fit in. I have read 12 books in two months. So, like, I guess my time was going to social media and I didn't really realize or consent to it. So that is just marvelous.

Emily:

Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful. It's wonderful. Okay, so how do we. There's so much to talk about here and I know you have lots more you want to say, but I definitely want to leave some time to talk about, like, what if this is resonating with anyone who's like, I, whatever Gallery and Emily are doing, I need to do that. How do we get there? Like, what are the steps and what is there to, you know, to start thinking about and start doing?

Gauri Yardi:

Yeah. So I really like Cal Newport's approach. So he wrote a book called Digital Minimalism. He also has a podcast, which Emily mentioned earlier, and his approach is to do what's called a digital declutter. So in his process, which I've adopted myself, I didn't initially adopt this because I didn't know about it. But then when I went back to work in January, I noticed that my personal screen time was increasing. So I was like, okay, what's another approach? So I went to Cal Newport's book and he has like a three step process, which I did. The first step is that you look at all of the apps, devices, tools, sites that you use regularly and you decide which of those are optional. And he defines optional as if you take them away for a month or you restrict the way that you use them for a month, nothing bad will happen in your personal or professional life. So that was step one. Step two is to withdraw all of the optional things from your Life for about 30 days. So I'm doing the month of February. So I got rid of basically every app from my phone except the weather and a couple of health tracking apps and a couple of messaging apps that my parents use to contact me. And that's all that is on my phone now. So because of that, my screen time on my phone went from like an hour a day to seven minutes a day, which was hilarious to look at. And then once you've kind of done that 30 day declutter period, at that point you can decide what's coming back into your life. And he also has like parameters around deciding what comes back. And it's, you know, does this piece of tech fit in with your values? Is it the best use of tech to further your values and goals? And if so, can it be brought back into your life with boundaries around it? So can you control the way that you use it? And I just love that because it's such a clear pathway to follow.

Emily:

Yeah, yeah. I actually pulled a quote, so I pulled a quote from the book about this because this was what made Cal's book stand out to me against all the other sort of anti tech books that I have been reading was this idea that think like you have to sit with like, what do you value? What do you value in life? And Rachel and I did an activity with a coach, a coaching coach, a coach's coach a while ago where we had to, remember we had to do that thing where you like pick a value, I value this over that and you get to like your top six values. So Cal doesn't recommend this, but it made me think about that and I went and I redid it. There's a bunch of if you just do like, values quiz online. It's really helpful.

Gauri Yardi:

Yes, I've done this too.

Emily:

Yeah, yeah. So Cal's whole idea is like, figure out what your values are and how you want to live your life and then ask yourself, how can tech, like, benefit that? How can I use tech to help me with, like, sustain those values? And is tech the best thing that I can use to, you know, pursue and fulfill those values? So for instance, let's say you value family, right? My family lives very far away from me. So the idea of just like not communicating with them on tech is not. That's not, that's not okay for me. But making time to actually video call with them instead of just texting them is a much better way to fulfill that value in my life. Right. And so thinking through, like, what are the ways that you, what do you value? First of all, like, a lot of people don't sit with that, and I think that that's really important. And then asking yourself, how can tech be a tool towards that value versus, like, just using it? Because people say it's, you know, it'll make your life a little bit more convenient. The quote that I pulled is, I don't know what page it's from, but it's from the book Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. He says digital minimalists see new technologies as tools to be used to support things they deeply value, not as sources of value themselves. They don't accept the idea that offering some small benefit is justification for allowing attention, gobbling services into their lives and are instead interested in applying new technology in highly selective and intentional ways that yield big wins. So I just really liked that, like you said how he's like, it's not evil, right. We don't have to like say, no tech forever role analog, but you can be more intentional about how you decide to use it given what your values are. So, yeah, love that.

Gauri Yardi:

Absolutely. And I think, yeah, connecting it with your values is where it really works. Because other people can tell you how you should use tech. Right. But until you connect it with what you want as a person and what you value, it's not going to be personally meaningful to you and so you're less likely to stick to it. Yeah. So I did that values exercise as well. And health always comes up as my first value. And so that's been really instructive for me with using tech. It's like, so I think moving forward, the things that I am going to use tech for are things like symptom tracking and that kind of Thing and also connecting with friends, because that's a big part of my well being. But some of the other things, like Googling random things, like one time I really wanted to Google what is Watergate again? Because I keep forgetting I don't need to do that. You know,

Emily:

that's the best example. I love it. So any other steps in that process? I. I kind of took us a. Went deeper on the side road there.

Gauri Yardi:

Yeah. No, that's cool. No, those are basically the steps. The last step is to figure out, like, what. What you value and how to use tech to bring that about. And I know Kel Newport says that doing the declutter process is really important because if you try and decide how you want to use tech before you remove it, you're not really able to disengage from the parts of tech that are addictive enough to be able to look at it clearly and decide for yourself what you want to do. And I found that to be true because when I first started doing this in December, I decided how I wanted to use certain things without having done the declutter. And then as soon as January came around, I came back to work. It all went out the window because I hadn't really disengaged in the way that I needed to, and I hadn't learned what I needed to learn by having that distance from the tech.

Emily:

Yeah, that's really. That's really key. Yeah, I need to. I was gonna start my deep dive, and then I went on vacation and it's like, all went out of the window. It's like, I need to. I need to start my declutter soon. But I'm excited too.

Gauri Yardi:

So I wanted to mention, like, one thing that has really changed for me, and it relates to mind wandering. Right. So basically, mind wandering is that type of internal or inward focused thinking that our brains do when we're not doing anything that requires thought. So things like daydreaming or thinking about the past is mind wandering. And so is thinking about a problem we're working on in a looser, less focused, less structured way. And mind wandering often gets a bad rap because it's seen as, like, a loss of focus. But in Johan Hari's book Stolen Focus, he says it's actually not. It's a specific form of attention. And a few really important things happen during mind wandering. But the one that's most relevant to creativity is it allows us to make new connections between ideas or experiences. So tell me if this sounds familiar. It probably does. You've been like, sitting at your desk, you're working on a problem in your novel and you're not really getting anywhere, so you decide to take a break and you go off on a walk, and you're just having a great time on your walk, looking around you, thinking about this and that. And then out of the blue, a solution to your plot problem or whatever it was just suddenly hits you, right? So that's mind wandering working for you. And I realized that there is almost no time pre digital declutter when I'm just alone with my thoughts, Right. I always have a shower, right.

Emily:

Where everyone says they always get ideas.

Gauri Yardi:

Yeah, yeah, right, exactly. But even then, me personally, I was playing a podcast in the shower, like on one of those Bluetooth speakers, right? So in digital minimalism, Cal Newport talks about solitude as being that state of being where you're free from the input of other minds. And I was not ever getting time free from the input of other minds. And as part of the declutter, I reduced the amount of, like, listening that I was doing. The amount of ideas that I've had in this time is crazy. Like, compared to before, I thought I was a person who didn't get very many ideas. Turns out I am. I just wasn't able to hear them because I was never letting my mind wander.

Emily:

Yeah.

Gauri Yardi:

Oh, my goodness. Yeah.

Emily:

I loved that part of his book, too. That idea of, like, because I always get my ideas when I'm camping. Because when you're camping, you don't have service. And so I always get a little antsy, which I think is part of this too. Like, why I'm doing this now. Because it's wintertime and I haven't been camping in several months, and I'm, like, going out of my skin because I haven't had time to let my mind wander. And so trying to find ways to integrate that into my, like, at home life has made at home more pleasant for me. So, yeah, I love that. So, okay, so question before we finish this, I think a big question that slash anxiety has come up for me that might be coming up for, like, some of the creatives that are listening to this is this idea of, like, as creatives, if we're planning to put our work into the world, we probably have to market it somehow. So how do you balance that need to be on the Internet to, like, sell something, right, with this, you know, with this desire to be away from the Internet so you can do the creating? I feel like. I just feel like you probably have a lot of some great wisdom on that, and I think this is one of the reasons I've hesitated to do, like, full declutters is because I'm like, oh, that's not sustainable. Because as soon as I need to start marketing something again, I'm gonna have to bring those things back into my life. Um, so I'm just curious, what are your thoughts on that?

Gauri Yardi:

Oh, my gosh, I have so many thoughts because this is the issue that I had in January that I needed to, like, do the declutter to fix. So I don't use Instagram personally anymore, but I use it professionally, and I feel like I have to be on there quite a lot. Like, the pressure to be on there is quite high. But even within Instagram, there's ways that you can use it that don't pull you into the scrolling part. So one thing is, it is on my work phone, but I barely turn on my work phone. My work phone is off in its box in a drawer. So I typically use Instagram on my browser, and that makes it a lot harder to scroll because you don't. You don't have to land on the homepage. So I have the DMs part bookmarked, so I go straight into the DMs, and then I can deal with those. And then the notifications as well come up on the left. And I just never go to my homepage. If I want to visit a particular creative's page, I will do that. Like, I'll go specifically to their profile, but I never let the homepage load because otherwise I will be there for hours. So there's ways that you can kind of adjust the way that you use things. And I also have specific times a day when I go on Instagram and I use the app Freedom. You can use any app blocking software to do this. I block it at all other times. Like you were mentioning Emily with your email, because otherwise I will just open it up. And I think I've been kind of watching myself to try and figure out what the pattern is of when I try and go into Instagram or when I try and open my emails. And it's usually when I need a little break. I need to just. Like, I'm deep in a problem or I'm, like, really thinking about something and my brain is getting tired and I need a little break. So I've been trying to stare out the window instead. And that has actually been working. It sounds so silly, but, like, it's a genuine need to have to, like, rest for a second. And I think that we Can. Yeah. Give ourselves that in different ways. So it's just about, like, watching what you're doing and where you're getting tripped up and figuring out how to adjust the way that you use things in order to mitigate that.

Emily:

Yeah, it's really powerful once you do start to block things and take them off. Watching your body, like, because you. You'll still reach for it. Like, for a while, you'll reach for it. You'll try to open the browsers, it'll be, like, blocked. And then you. And then it gives you an opportunity, or at least it's given me an opportunity to. To do that gut check of, like, why. Why did I do that? Like, why? What is drawing me? Like, you said to the apps, and it's probably different for. For different people. I'm sure there's overlap for. For most of us. But, um, you know, is it boredom? Is it distraction? Is it discomfort? You know, there's like a. There's usually some kind of emotional need that your body is reaching for that it thinks that that app will fulfill, which the app probably won't fulfill and might make worse. Um, but that's why. Right. That's why we're being drawn to. To reach for it subconsciously. Um, and so it's not. You'll realize it's not your fault, really. Right. Like, your body is just kind of programmed. We have to unprogram it.

Gauri Yardi:

Absolutely. And we have to identify what our needs actually are and what is the best way of getting them met. And I think that something like a declutter can give you the space to find that out, and it can be uncomfortable. I've been through some discomfort in the declutter process, especially when I realized how much I use, like, comfort podcasts as a way to get through difficult stuff. But there's other ways to get your needs met that don't hijack you or don't cut you off from your mind wandering.

Rachel:

One of the things that I've been thinking about through this conversation and also through, like, other, you know, this idea, this concept is not strange to me. I mean, it's been pressing on me pretty hard the last couple months because of the news and feeling like, like, I need to witness what is happening in our country, and I feel like an obligation to not turn away from that. And I feel like I have a lot of privilege where I absolutely could just turn it off and not look at what's happening. And I've struggled with that, and I've struggled with,

Emily:

like,

Rachel:

the I as a neurodivergent person and having adhd, like, the need for stimulation feels incredibly acute to me. And that's, I think, a big part of the reason why I continue to be drawn towards my phone. And, like, personally, I. I know, you know, I've been thinking about ways to transfer that stimulation elsewhere or, like, you know, talking to my doctor about finally getting on Adderall or something, like, getting a stimulant so that I don't feel this constant need for stimulation all the time. But do you have any tips or advice for neurodivergent creatives that are, like, you know, working in when writing is not stimulating? I actually do find it very helpful to pick up my phone, get a little stimulation, and then go back. And like, for me, that is an. Is a benefit. Like when you were saying earlier how much time it takes to get back into focus for things. I don't experience that. Like, it's pretty easy for my brain to switch back and forth between all this focus, but I get stuck in the trap of, like, okay, well, I was gonna do this for like, two minutes, and now it's been like 30 minutes. Like, so that still happens to me, but this, I just feel like my brain is meant for these devices to, like, capture me. And in your readings and in both of your work, does any of this talk about, like, you know, how to minimalize for neurodivergence or, like, everything, again, everything feels like it can apply. I just feel like it's just another hurdle for so many creatives, that creative work is not always very stimulating. And so it is really hard to stay active into it. And I use, like, focus timers on my phone, which help a ton and help me stay, you know, not on those apps. But anyway, anything else coming to mind about, like, this sliver of neurodivergent writers?

Gauri Yardi:

Mm. I think, again, it's very individual. So I know you were saying you don't experience that need or like, that time it takes to get back to work after you open your device. So I think there's ways that you could use that you could just open the device, but then you have to find a way to get yourself out, which I think is the key. So I know not everyone likes timers, but sometimes timers can work well. They work well for me. I'll set it like 15 minute timer, and when it goes off, I have to drop whatever I'm doing and go back to work. Something else that I've heard is really helpful is body doubling. Yeah. So then you're getting the stimulus of another person. So when you need to dip out of your work for a second, you can see somebody else on screen. Maybe if you're using like a video thing, or you've got someone else in your environment, see what they're doing for a second, and then go back into your work. So there's definitely ways. I don't know that there was anything specifically written in the books that I've read. Did you see anything?

Emily:

Unfortunately, no. And that was one of the things that was bugging me because I was thinking about that while I was reading some of this stuff, and I was like, this works for me, but I don't have, you know, I have an. The. The typical. Typical whatever brain.

Rachel:

You're.

Emily:

Ignore me. What's the word? What's the word?

Rachel:

Neurotypical.

Emily:

So I'm like, these are written for me, but I know there are people. Neurotypical.

Gauri Yardi:

How?

Emily:

I can't even say that word. Neurotypical. Typical. Thank you. I knew it. But my brain was just like, couldn't say it. So ye. So I was reading these books and I was like, this isn't gonna. Like. Some of this doesn't apply to folks whose brains work differently in terms of how they focus and how they. What they need to be able to focus and how they process distractions. So somebody needs to write something about it. But I do think. I do think what is applicable. Is this the idea that Cal talks about with the values? Right. Because if it is. If it's a value, you know, in writing, it's helpful to have a. Distract. You know, to have distractions or to have whatever. Whatever you need to. To keep writing interesting. Right. And keep your brain invested. Is Instagram the best way to do that? Right. Or is there something else that could be on your phone or some other way that you could get that? I think that that's kind of where he's at, is like, okay, where is tech helping you? Is that the best way to. To fulfill that need? Or is there something else that you could do to fulfill it? And so I think that could be a helpful way to sort of reframe the information that's not written for that purpose, unfortunately. That's a really good point. Yeah, I. That makes me want to go search for it because I'm sure it's. Everybody's talking about this right now, so I'm sure that someone is talking about it from that angle. We're all.

Rachel:

We're all overloaded.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

And again, it. It does feel very hard. You know, we can't isolate our writing lives from life. So, like, in the United States, life is pretty dark. It feels like sometimes, I mean, maybe not for my personal experience, but for witnessing it. And it's really hard to separate that, to feel like, okay, my creativity exists outside of that and I don't feel those pressures. I absolutely need to limit them. Like, I, I am exposed to so much, which has been incredibly draining. But, like, it's just really, this is me complaining. This is not necessarily me being like, solve this problem for me because I. A lot of what we talked about today I completely agree with. And like, it's. This is going to be very. I think it's just going to become even more pivotal for people to be thinking about how to manage their nervous system.

Emily:

Yeah.

Rachel:

In this world.

Emily:

Yeah, I think so. To go to your, to your comment about that, Rachel, I also, that was one of the reasons, you know, with all this stuff that was happening in Minnesota, to be frank. And like all the, you know, just everything that I was seeing on, on Instagram, it felt like you needed to, like you said, like, you, we need to witness what's going on. We need to understand what's going on. We need to know what's going on. But there's, like Gauri was saying earlier, there is Instagram buying your attention by making you feel enraged, right. Versus knowing what's going on. Right. And so I think there are. And it's tricky, right, because the news doesn't always tell the full truth. And so you need to have access to, you know, individual voices. Right. There's things to balance. But I do think one of the things that Cal suggests is, is creating times within which, like these are the 30 minutes a day where I look at Instagram and I witness, right? And I prepare my nervous system for that and I prepare for what's going to happen afterwards. Right? A way to bring myself out of it, to bring my nervous system down versus just like feeling like we have to witness every second of every day because that causes a paralysis. Right. One of the things that I, that I've been able to do is I got an app called Instapaper. And what it does is it just allows me to, to click on any website. So I use it for substack and I use it for the news. So I take five minutes and I go through substack and I go through the news and I insta paper everything I want to read and then it auto downloads to my Kindle the next morning. So when I wake up and my phone is off my computer's off. I have all these articles that I just read and it allows me to like catch up on what's going on not at a social media level, but at like a news level and at like a, you know, substack article intellectual conversation level without getting sucked into random. You know, I, I did not do that over my vacation because I, my Kindle wasn't on wifi, so I had, I downloaded substack to my phone and it was like totally a scrolling, like I just like went into, you know, the whole. And I recognized what was happening and I was like, I'm just gonna let it happen and then I'll like pick up my habits when I get back home. But it just wasn't feasible for me to do that on my vacation. So I just, I could feel the difference. Right, Is what I'm saying between like, I'm going to collect all this information, I'm going to read it at an intentional time versus I'm just going to let it hijack me at any moment in time. I think there's a, there's a difference. And then with that extra energy and that extra time, I think there are ways we can actually engage with our communities and like try to do things that, that improve our, the things we can improve right within our agency, within our communities, within our control. And if we just spend our time paralyzed by Instagram because Instagram's making money off of us being paralyzed, like, you know, then, then that doesn't help anybody. Right? So I do think there's, there's ways to, to manage it. And it's all about like having intentionality behind how, when and how and why you're using tech.

Gauri Yardi:

And I think one of the benefits that you brought up of that intentionality, Emily, is the curation piece. So you're curating a collection of articles for yourself from reputable sources, things that you want to engage in, rather than having the algorithm curate it for you based on what is going to keep you there the longest. So I think there's a quality difference there. And also with the state of generative AI at the moment, you can't always tell that whether what you're looking at is real. So getting your news from, you know, something a bit more reputable, even if it's like, you know, on the ground, grassroots, not the media, is always going to give you a better understanding of what's happening than things where you're like, is that real?

Emily:

Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. We live in crazy times.

Gauri Yardi:

We live in crazy times.

Emily:

Gallery, this was so wonderful. I know we need to wrap up. I want to talk for like six more hours.

Gauri Yardi:

So much to say.

Emily:

But maybe, maybe we could curate something else to talk about and keep this conversation going.

Rachel:

Part two,

Emily:

a deep dive into one specific aspect of it or something. Because yeah, I do think this is a very important conversation to be having for so many reasons. Right. With the state of the Internet right now, the state of the apps right now, the state of the industry marketing right now, like there's just so much that is tied up in this and yeah, we're just so grateful to, to have you, that you gave us this time. Can you tell folks where they can find you and how they could work with you right now if they want to and all that good stuff?

Gauri Yardi:

Absolutely. Okay, so if you're a burnt out writer or you're otherwise too exhausted to write, then I have a free 5 day mini course that you'll be interested in. So it's called Return to youo Art and it will help you get back to writing no matter how exhausted you are or how long it's been since you last created. And I've made this really suitable for really, really tired people. So you'll get a video to watch every day. It's less than five minutes long and there'll be a task for you to do that will take you less than 10 minutes and by the end of the five days you will be writing again. So to sign up for that you can head to my website@garyardi.com it'll be in the show notes. If that's not for you, if you're not burnt out but you'd like to connect with me, then I would probably invite you to sign up for my email newsletter. I send out a letter once a week. Thank you. I put a lot of care and energy into those emails. They're usually about creativity and the nervous system and some random thing that I'm experimenting on with my life like screen, free time, et cetera. So if you go to my website, Gary yardy.com and scroll to the bottom of any page, you'll be able to sign up there.

Emily:

Oh, wonderful. Well, thank you so much, Gary. We'll put all the links for all the things for gallery and for all the resources we talked about today because I know that I got all those resources, G and they were all incredible. So I'm going to put them in the show notes for everybody who wants to go check that out. Because I do think that learning like G said earlier, learning about the impact that tech has on your body, on your nervous system, on your mind, is the first step to being able to grab control over it. So, yeah, so we'll put those resources in the show notes.

Rachel:

Awesome.

Emily:

All right. Beautiful.

Gauri Yardi:

Thank you so much.

Emily:

Thank you.

Rachel:

If you want to build a successful, fulfilling, and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on our email list.

Emily:

Sign up now to get our free email course, the Magic of Character Arcs. After seven days of email magic, you'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the night.

Rachel:

Link in the show notes. We'll see you there.