On digital minimalism: an experiment

I announced on Instagram just yesterday that I was going to be cutting back on my Instagram time for the next few months. Instead of going on four times a week for between 40mins and an hour each time, I will be using the app twice a week for 30-40mins. When I added up that I spent approximately four hours each week on Instagram (it sounds even worse when you say it out loud) I was astonished. Even though I don’t ‘check’ the app- all notifications have always been turned off, it still adds up to a staggering amount of time. Imagine what I could do with an extra four hours a week?

As many of you know, I have dabbled in digital minimalism for some time- taking every weekend off social media, and sometimes off digital technology altogether. I have been known when on holidays to completely switch off my phone and leave it in a cupboard for a few weeks (sorry Mum!). When I first downloaded the Instagram app back about five years ago, I made a bargain with myself- that I could only use the app if I could regularly take time off it. It has also occurred to me in recent years, as my following has grown, that I have become more reliant on Instagram to run my business. Having all your eggs in one basket is a very risky business model indeed, I’m sure you will agree. For example:

Remember that time Instagram stories didn’t work? What if it had been on a shop update day and I couldn’t show my yarn to everyone? What if everybody gets sick of Instagram advertisements (much like what happened to Facebook) and nobody uses it anymore? Or what if it just suddenly stops working? Or what if I don’t want to have to commit four hours of my life every week to using an app that I don’t particularly like the ethos of (to hold your attention for as long as possible)?

Aside from risky business models, I have found my attention scattered in the last year and a half. I think this is down to how I use the technology that I own: I am no longer treating it as a tool to be used for my purposes; in some ways I have allowed it to use me for it’s purposes and what it wants to extract from me.

So the next few months are going to be an experiment in digital (read: Instagram) minimalism. I am going to strip back my Instagram usage in the hope that people who really love my work will want to stay in touch in other ways. Namely by signing up to my newsletter, (thank you SO much if you have already[you can sign up by scrolling to the bottom of my contact page and entering your e-mail address]), by subscribing to my YouTube channel (I won’t be checking comments for a while- once every fortnight perhaps) or by reading this journal. (As a side note, I am researching RSS feeds, how they work and if it would be a good idea for this journal).

In the past I’ve just used this journal as a way of distributing information about yarn coming in shop updates: it will still be used for this, but it will also function as a notebook- to record finished objects, what I’ve been up to and random thoughts about things such as digital minimalism, living a simple life or the occasional post about walking in my locality. Kind of like a juicier, more luxurious, ad free Instagram page.

So I hope you can understand why I need to try this experiment: I would like to cultivate the focus needed to create beautiful yarn, to see if my business can cope without Instagram and to create the space to implement a more simple workflow to my days.

If it doesn’t work and people don’t buy my yarn, I will go back to using Instagram on a more full time basis (but maybe I’ll have to be stricter with myself), but if it works- voilá- I’ve got myself an extra four hours every single week. Now there’s something you can’t buy.

Emma