The act of pointlessly scrolling 2-4 hours a day on Facebook with small to no value in return really bothered me and I wanted to make a radical change in the way I use social media. I found this book at the right time and it made me quit Facebook. One of the ideas that resonated with me is that most people have the fear of missing out (FOMO) if they quit social media. The truth is, anything that is important to you will reach you one way or another, anyone that wants to contact you will find a way to do so. This way you filter out your fake relationships and make more time for your real ones.

The principles to digital minimalism:

1- Clutter is costly:

When people consider specific tools or behaviors in their digital lives, they tend to focus only on the value each produces. Maintaining an active presence on Twitter, for example, might occasionally open up an interesting new connection or expose you to an idea you hadn’t heard before. Standard economic thinking says that such profits are good, and the more you receive the better. It therefore makes sense to clutter your digital life with as many of these small sources of value as you can find, much as it made sense for the Concord farmer to cultivate as many acres of land as he could afford to mortgage. Thoreau’s (a minimalist) new economics, however, demands that you balance this profit against the costs measured in terms of “your life.” How much of your time and attention, he would ask, must be sacrificed to earn the small profit of occasional connections and new ideas that are earned by cultivating a significant presence on Twitter? Assume, for example, that your Twitter habit effectively consumes ten hours per week. Thoreau would note that this cost is almost certainly way too high for the limited benefits it returns. If you value new connections and exposure to interesting ideas, he might argue, why not adopt a habit of attending an interesting talk or event every month, and forcing yourself to chat with at least three people while there? This would produce similar types of value but consume only a few hours of your life per month, leaving you with an extra thirty-seven hours to dedicate to other meaningful pursuits.

2- Optimization is important:

optimizing how we use technology is just as important as how we choose what technologies to use in the first place.

The reason the second principle of minimalism is so important is that most people invest very little energy into these types of optimizations. To use the appropriate economic terminology, most people’s personal technology processes currently exist in the early part of the return curve (the location where additional attempts to optimize will yield massive improvements). It’s this reality that leads digital minimalists to embrace the second principle, and focus not just on what technologies they adopt, but also on how they use them.

3- Intentionality is satisfying

It is the commitment to minimalism itself that yields the bulk of satisfaction to minimalists. The sugar high of convenience is fleeting and the sting of missing out dulls rapidly, but the meaningful glow that comes from taking charge of what claims your time and attention is something that persists

Digital minimalism can be done following three steps:

Step 1, Define your technology rules

To summarize the main points about this step:

• The digital declutter focuses primarily on new technologies, which describes apps, sites, and tools delivered through a computer or mobile phone screen. You should probably also include video games and streaming video in this category.

• Take a thirty-day break from any of these technologies that you deem “optional”, meaning that you can step away from them without creating harm or major problems in either your professional or personal life. In some cases, you’ll abstain from using the optional technology altogether, while in other cases you might specify a set of operating procedures that dictate exactly when and how you use the technology during the process.

• In the end, you’re left with a list of banned technologies along with relevant operating procedures. Write this down and put it somewhere where you’ll see it every day. Clarity in what you’re allowed and not allowed to do during the declutter will prove key to its success.

Step 2, TAKE A THIRTY-DAY BREAK

To summarize the main points about this step:

• You will probably find the first week or two of your digital declutter to be difficult, and fight urges to check technologies you’re not allowed to check. These feelings, however, will pass, and this resulting sense of detox will prove useful when it comes time to make clear decisions at the end of the declutter.

• The goal of a digital declutter, however, is not simply to enjoy time away from intrusive technology. During this monthlong process, you must aggressively explore higher-quality activities to fill in the time left vacant by the optional technologies you’re avoiding. This period should be one of strenuous activity and experimentation.

• You want to arrive at the end of the declutter having rediscovered the type of activities that generate real satisfaction, enabling you to confidently craft a better life, one in which technology serves only a supporting role for more meaningful ends.

Step 3, REINTRODUCE TECHNOLOGY

To allow an optional technology back into your life at the end of the digital declutter, it must:

1. Serve something you deeply value (offering some benefit is not enough).
2. Be the best way to use technology to serve this value (if it’s not, replace it with something better).
3. Have a role in your life that is constrained with a standard operating procedure that specifies when and how you use it

Solitude is essential

we need solitude to thrive as human beings, and in recent years, without even realizing it, we’ve been systematically reducing this crucial ingredient from our lives. Simply put, humans are not wired to be constantly wired. It is important to have some time alone with our thoughts.

Practices to include more solitude into an otherwise connected routine:

1. Leave your phone at home whenever possible

2. take long walks

3. write letters to yourself

Practices to help us move back toward the type of communication we're adapted to crave:

1. Don't click LIKE (avoid social media interactions and replace them with real ones): The small boosts you receive from posting on a friend’s wall or liking their latest Instagram photo can’t come close to compensating for the large loss experienced by no longer spending real-world time with that same friend

2. Consolidate Texting: This practice suggests that you keep your phone in Do Not Disturb mode by default. On both iPhones and Android devices, for example, this mode turns off notifications when text messages arrive. If you’re worried about emergencies, you can easily adjust the settings so calls from a selected list (your spouse, your kid’s school) do come through. You can also set a schedule that turns the phone to this mode automatically during predetermined times. When you’re in this mode, text messages become like emails: if you want to see if anyone has sent you something, you must turn on your phone and open the app. You can now schedule specific times for texting —consolidated sessions in which you go through the backlog of texts you received since the last check, sending responses as needed and perhaps even having some brief back-and-forth interaction before apologizing that you have to go, turning the phone back to Do Not Disturb mode, and continuing with your day. There are two major motivations for this practice. The first is that it allows you to be more present when you’re not texting. Once you no longer treat text interactions as an ongoing conversation that you must continually tend, it’s much easier to concentrate fully on the activity before you. This will increase the value you get out of these real-world interactions.

3. HOLD CONVERSATION OFFICE HOURS: Make a specific time in the day to receive phone calls without being notified, tell your people about this time "The 5:30 rule" so they can feel comfortable calling you in at this time without prior notice.

Hey, Thanks for reading this quick summary! hope it helped you refresh your memory or gave you an idea about the book.