Quit Social Media
Stop using social media entirely (or run a 30-day detox first). Mechanism: removes the Attention Engineering slot machine, letting attention stay whole — which compounds into Deep Work capacity and calmer leisure (“no constant hum of stimuli… background hum of anxiety”).
How to do it
- Run the 30-day digital declutter (from Digital Minimalism): delete all social apps from phone, resolve not to access on desktop.
- Expect a genuine detox: the first ~2 weeks feel uncomfortable, “like missing a limb.” After that it settles; replace with deliberate high-quality leisure (newspaper, radio baseball, hardcover books).
- After 30 days, evaluate each platform with two questions: “Would the last 30 days have been notably better if I could use this service?” and “Did people care that I wasn’t using it?”
- Ongoing filter — the Craftsman Approach to Tool Selection: adopt a tool only if its positive impact on your core goals substantially outweighs its negatives. Any-benefit reasoning (“I might miss out”) doesn’t count.