decluttering your mind with an app is just silly

I’m trying my best not to be petty (I think I’m failing)

before we start, I just wanted to say a big, huge, really, really gigantic THANK YOU to everyone that subscribed to this newsletter in the last week. I went from 14 to over 300 of you and it’s just humbling and exciting and a little scary at the say time. you all made my week ♥️

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I heard about it first on threads. the newest version of iOS now has a journal app that everybody was going crazy about. it even gives you journaling prompts.

how… lovely.

a few days later, a creator I used to follow on social started showcasing the travel journals she created to document her travels. they were all online. she did them on her iPad and they looked beautiful. for a second I thought ‘hey, maybe I should try that.’

I never did.

because I love learning and have been doing lettering since before it was cool, I also got targeted with a bunch of ‘how I take notes’ content that showed these amazing people creating for school the most beautiful notes I have ever seen in my life.

they were all on ipads. and those were not their real handwriting. they wrote and then asked the app to adapt their handwriting so it looked better.

I was immediately disenchanted.

a quick search through my app store shows at least 10 apps focused on journaling. they have prompts! cute stickers! color-coded tags! passwords so nobody can read your entries! so you take journaling to the digital world.

it’s easier, right? more practical.

I read a really interesting essay a few weeks ago talking about starting a collage journal online. not really online but, you know, using a device. and as interesting as it sounded, I felt sad after reading it.

listen, I have absolutely no intention of throwing shade on these creators and writers (and I encourage you to do the same). there’s beauty in everything they did (still do). some of them I still subscribe to because their stuff is great. others I don't follow anymore simply because I’m no longer on tiktok.

the sad part, for me, is the ‘device’ part of the equation.

these apps say that we can declutter our minds—but do it on a screen, it’s better! they want us to reflect and create memories and slow down while using a highly addictive and overstimulating device.

it might be the prettiest app ever made by man (or AI), but it’s still an app. you still need a screen. you’re still looking at the same carbon rectangle you stare at every single day for numerous reasons.

there’s no friction.

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in search of friction

a few days ago I commented on another essay about how I decided not to buy books anymore. I have a few exceptions, some writers I really want to support and that write stories I love, but other than that, my go-to place to read right now is montréal’s grand bibliothèque.

I love that place. I love it fiercely, but curse it with the same amount of passion on a weekly basis.

you see, my book ban has some rules. for one, the most obvious is I can’t buy books. the second is, I have to avoid at all costs reading e-books. my kobo is happily used for dramione fanfiction and newsletters only. that leaves me with the solo option of getting physical books from the library.

meaning I put a lot of books on hold and sometimes they get released all at the same time or, even worse!, once a week, so there I go on my weekly commute to BAnQ.

see what I mean?

I’m living a real-life enemies-to-lovers-to-enemies-to-lovers.

the thing though, is the friction. because I made it harder for me to read. now, listen, I love to read. I’m an avid reader. I’ll read all day if you let me (it happened more than once). but being a library aficionado means I have to be patient. and read faster than I want to.

and sometimes - the horror! - give a book back before finishing it.

that happened five times in february. I’m not exaggerating.

I’m telling you all this because the friction is intentional. things got too easy, you see. with a click I can buy as many books as my bank account will let me (maybe 3?). I can journal to my heart’s content by opening the notes app on my phone and typing away.

I can listen to music, watch a movie, create a travel journal. hell, I can even have a boyfriend if I want. (yikes.)

it’s too easy. too convenient. and as weird as it sounds, I’m missing the friction.

which is why I will die on the ‘journal-by-hand’ hill. people tell me to write it down on an app and I scream ‘AWAY WITH YOU, VILLAIN' as if I was a shakespearean character.

because the truth of the matter is… screens made our lives small.

I mean, I talked about it on my first-ever post here. my life started to feel tiny because I got used to being alone and online all the time. and it’s uncomfortable to write by hand and go to the library when it’s -28°C outside and you just want to be emma stone in ‘easy a’ singing to natasha bedingfield on a loop.

(hey, I like that song, ok?)

but alas. being online all the time doesn’t make me feel less lonely - or declutter my mind. at all.

i love

Austin Kleon

’s idea (actually, i love austin kleon, period) of having an offline station for creative work. it makes so much sense to engage your body in a craft, be it writing or making a collage, painting, just plain old doodling or whatever fills your bucket, before moving to your online station.

mine is journaling. I write by hand. I write a lot. like morning pages type of writing. like ‘I-have-cramps-in-my-right-hand-if-I-skip-a-day’ type of writing. and I bullet journal. because if there’s a man I love more than austin kleon, it’s ryder carroll, the creator of the method.

(btw, I 100% recommend his book, ‘the bullet journal method’, because it’s so much more than a book about bullet journaling.)

I do it by hand. and sometimes, it gets messy in here, let me tell you. I get angry and just start screaming at the page until my hand can’t keep up anymore. or I make a mistake. there’s smudges on many of my letterings because I wasn’t patient enough to wait for the ink to dry. my brain dumps are endless (and I hardly ever go through everything I write).

I also have a commonplace journal. a place I’m writing about the books I read and the movies I watch and things that catch my attention. I want to start collaging, but god forbid I refuse to do it on canva.

maybe I’m turning into that weird old lady that refuses to see the world has changed.

but I don’t know… i feel like being passionate about having things done the analog way has its perks, you know?

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a little about ownership

I cannot, for the life of me, remember where I’ve seen this first, but I remember someone saying how weird it is that we don’t own things anymore. your movies are on netflix or amazon prime. your pictures are on a cloud (whatever that means), your social media is a rented house that can be taken away from you at any time.

(I still mourn the end of orkut—and if you don’t know what that means, I’m sad for you, really.)

our essays are online, some books are published only online, videos, friendships, memories. we don’t have anything to our names (don’t even get me started on things like housing).

but when I look over an old journal… oh my.

I actually tear up just thinking about it. I remember the one time I put my coffee cup on top of a blank page, on my first day living alone, and accidentally got it stained, but wrote over it anyway. there are memories from when I first moved out of my parents’ house to live with friends. my first heartbreak, so many small victories, obstacles and thoughts written out in any way I could.

goals achieved and others that never left the page.

my journals are a visual map to my emotions. I can tell when I was angry, sad or happy just by glancing over my handwriting. the words don’t matter that much, but I can see how I evolved and grew and had setbacks, how I got over them. going through physical pages changes my brain’s chemistry. you know?

when I left brazil, my mother took four boxes of memories I gathered over the years. everything from brochures to train tickets that I kept from my travels. memories that I wanted to transform into scrapbooks of my life after I moved here.

dear, dear things I had that reminded me of being alive.

those boxes are now somewhere in a landfill because my mother moved and thought those boxes were a ‘waste of space’. “you should have digitized everything,” she told me.

I think about those boxes every day since.

and how I lost part of my story. maybe she’s right, and I’d still have it if it was in a cloud. would it be the same, though?

I really don’t think it would.

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use your hands, dammit!

to be honest with you, my biggest fear is to become like the humans from the movie ‘wall-e’, completely chained to a screen and a chair.

ever since I wrote this post, I’ve been thinking about what I want to be remembered for. but the truth is, I don’t really mind being remembered. but I do care about looking back, on my last day on earth, and thinking: ‘man, I’ve lived a beautiful life’.

somehow, that imagination does not include journaling on an app.

but it does include doing things with my hands and learning how to cherish each moment for what it is. save it the way I can. maybe the only memory I’ll have is the mental pictures I took. maybe I’ll have a train ticket. maybe I’ll have a full scrapbook or travel journal.

heck, I might even share it all online.

but starting offline is where the magic happens, I think.

and those memories, whatever their first format may be, will be mine, and mine alone.

we also need to consider the privilege of it all, you know? I’m not blind to that. for some people, a device is everything they have access to, to learn and see the world. it might be their only door to a different life. and maybe they lack the knowledge of doing better not because they lack intelligence, but because they lack incentive and good role models.

late stage capitalism wants to keep us in the loop (ugh) for a reason.

and, listen, if you really want to declutter your mind, I’m here for you. just don’t do it on your phone, you know? it won’t work as it should. again, I think it’s very impractical to believe we can live a life without the internet (or even social media). but we can look for ways to regain a bit of ownership.

(and maybe teach with kindness and patience to those that don’t know any better.)

another hill I’ll die on? digital devices will hardly ever help you really declutter and relax. they’re not made for that. maybe that’s a hot take. or maybe that’s my ‘crazy old lady with extreme opinions’ side speaking.

but something about the negative effects everyone is talking about rings true.

it’s no wonder science keeps confirming that hobbies are good for you—for your mental and physical health—, making our memories better, our bones stronger, lowering feelings of stress and anxiety, and even contributing to our self-esteem.

anyway.

going back to decluttering and to end on a happier (?) note, here are some ideas to declutter your mind away from the screens.

• go for a walk (the third - and last, I swear - hill I’ll die on)

• journal by hand on a notebook (don’t know where to start? answer this question: ‘what am I feeling right now?’)

• make a collage of old magazines or even grocery store flyers

• play a board game with your friends

• have a commonplace book nearby and write down things that interest you

• meditate (I know, that’s a hard one considering our attention spans)

• talk to a friend about what’s on your mind

• start a bullet journal (I can write more about it if you want)

• sign up for a dance class

• practice boredom (I used to schedule five-minute boredom breaks to practice ‘doing nothing’)

• organize your wardrobe

all tactics tried and approved by yours truly 😉

I hope they help you too.

(and if they do, let me know in the comments!)

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that’s it for today.

take care,

maki.