Is your life too noisy? How to rediscover silence amidst the digital mayhem

Is your life noisy? I mean this literally. Do you have quiet time during the day, when you can hear yourself think? I have thought a lot about finding quiet time because I noticed about six months ago that I had almost no time to think.

Despite the fact I’m sharing this in a blog, I’m not exactly a huge user or consumer of social media or the Internet at large for entertainment purposes. If you begin a question with “have you seen…”, my answer is almost always “no.” Although, pictures of dogs and videos of baby elephants are always welcome. Since I don’t spend a lot of time on social media, I thought that I was immune to the attention-hogging epidemic of the digital age.

However, in my mission to be efficient and keep up, I had virtually eliminated any opportunity to be alone with my thoughts and let them run free. As soon as I woke in the morning, I turned on NPR while I got ready and ate breakfast. Both morning and evening, my commute was filled with emails, news articles, music, podcasts with more podcasts while I made and ate dinner. Later in the evening, I’d fit in TV and phone calls to friends and family. I was in a relentless noise cloud and needed to make some changes (steps below).

Now, I’m not criticizing any of these tasks or suggesting that you should not do these things. In fact, I still do all of them. The difference is that I do less because I actively choose when I want to engage with media. I’m able to find time throughout the day to check in with myself.

The reality is that the Internet offers unlimited information and entertainment, but we have limited resources – namely, time and attention. We need to become aware of how we spend our time and attention so that we can allocate these more carefully.

One obvious way to institute some stillness in your life is to meditate. However, many of us have fundamentally forgotten how to be still. It can be jarring to sit quietly, focus your attention, and observe your thoughts. While I certainly recommend trying meditation, you don’t need to sit cross-legged on a pillow for an hour. There are lots of ways to rediscover your own mind.

Here are a few I would recommend.

Challenge yourself to do at least one task a day in silence. No music, TV, podcasts – even in the background. Listen to your own thoughts. They’re still in there somewhere.
Create a digital log. Record how many TV shows and podcasts you keep up with, and how much time that takes. Be honest with yourself about how much time you spend with these and other media. Notice when you use them. Are you bored? Are you uncomfortable? Do you feel you should watch this TV show because everyone else in your office watches this TV show? The goal here is to learn to actively choose what information you allow into your life.
Try a digital purge. Eliminate any subscriptions that don’t add value to your media diet. Get rid of old shows you’ll never watch. Pick one news app. Unsubscribe from YouTube channels you’re no longer interested in. Treat this like cleaning out your wardrobe. If the item no longer fits, eliminate. The great thing here is that you can always redownload or resubscribe if you miss that program.
Go extreme and try a digital detox. Take a long weekend and disconnect. I tried this recently and found it incredibly refreshing. I could not recommend it enough.
Turn off desktop notifications or push notifications (assuming your job doesn’t demand instant response time). Use do-not-disturb mode liberally. Check your notifications manually. You may not need all the notifications you receive, and you’ll be far less distracted.
Meditation is absolutely worth a try. Give it some time if you do since it isn’t easy. When I first started meditating, I invariably fell asleep… Start with just a few minutes of sitting quietly. Don’t worry about whether you’re “doing it right.” There is no one way to meditate.