Quotes About Mindfulness

Digital minimalists see new technologies as tools to be used to support things they deeply value—not as sources of value themselves.

Thurston struck up conversations with strangers. He enjoyed food without Instagramming the experience.

the skillful management of attention is the sine qua non of the good life and the key to improving virtually every aspect of your experience.

resist switching to these distractions at the slightest hint of boredom.

At the end of the workday, shut down your consideration of work issues until the next morning—no after-dinner e-mail check, no mental replays of conversations, and no scheming about how you'll handle an upcoming challenge; shut down work thinking completely. If you need more time, then extend your workday, but once you shut down, your mind must be left free to encounter Kreider's buttercups, stink bugs, and stars.

The ability in question is called "attentional control," and it measures the subjects' ability to maintain their focus on essential information.

Their rituals minimized the friction in this transition to depth, allowing them to go deep more easily and stay in the state longer.

forcing you to resist distraction and return your attention repeatedly to a well-defined problem, it helps strengthen your distraction-resisting muscles,

your mind, as it was evolved to do, will attempt to avoid excess expenditure of energy when possible.

I call it digital minimalism, and it applies the belief that less can be more to our relationship with digital tools.

You see how few things you have to do to live a satisfying and reverent life?

To work deeply is a big deal and should not be an activity undertaken lightly. Surrounding such efforts with a complicated (and perhaps, to the outside world, quite strange) ritual accepts this reality—providing your mind with the structure and commitment it needs to slip into the state of focus where you can begin to create things that matter.

You must be on your guard for looping, as it can quickly subvert an entire productive meditation session. When you notice it, remark to yourself that you seem to be in a loop, then redirect your attention toward the next step.

moment can feel strangely flat if it exists solely in itself.

I earlier quoted Winifred Gallagher, the converted disciple of depth, saying, "I'll live the focused life, because it's the best kind there is.

Shutdown complete"). This final step sounds cheesy, but it provides a simple cue to your mind that it's safe to release work-related thoughts

The goal is not to simply give yourself a break from technology, but to instead spark a permanent transformation of your digital life. The detoxing is merely a step that supports this transformation.

Tim Ferriss once wrote: "Develop the habit of letting small bad things happen. If you don't, you'll never find time for the life-changing big things.

After running my tough experiment [with cancer]… I have a plan for living the rest of my life," Gallagher concludes in her book. "I'll choose my targets with care… then give them my rapt attention. In short, I'll live the focused life, because it's the best kind there is." We'd be wise to follow her lead.

cultivating "concentration so intense that there is no attention left over to think about anything irrelevant, or to worry about problems.")

attention restoration theory (ART), which claims that spending time in nature can improve your ability to concentrate.

To summarize, to succeed with deep work you must rewire your brain to be comfortable resisting distracting stimuli.

Having a casual conversation with a friend, listening to music while making dinner, playing a game with your kids, going for a run—the types of activities that will fill your time in the evening if you enforce a work shutdown—play the same attention-restoring role as walking in nature.

Digital minimalism