From the archive: 2019, the seed of everything since — a digital marketer deciding his own writing shouldn’t be optimized. Seven years later I write a newsletter about being the human in the loop; this is where that turn began.
Over the last few months, I have been thinking a lot about what this blog means to me and how it fits into my life, and I hadn’t realized how much Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism has changed my entire perception of my work and digital life. I started this blog when I first began freelancing almost eight years ago, chronicling my journey to building a life around writing. Now, I write every single day, tallying up words for novels, essays, and short stories while working on my craft within my career as a digital marketing professional.
So, I’ve been thinking: where does this blog fit into a life where I’m no longer a freelancer?
The blog had become a burden
Honestly, my blog exhausted me — in a similar way to my podcast, The Working Poet Radio Show — because it began to seem like a burden rather than a passion. I know that sounds awful, especially to the people who have read or listened. But I noticed two reasons these projects were feeling like a burden: one, I was really busy at work, with writing, and with my family, so something had to give. And two, I was focused on the wrong metrics — organic traffic, shares, page views — and not on connecting with an audience.
As a digital marketing professional, I have the tools to grow a digital presence, and I still see the value in this for any writing professional. I dedicate my day to helping clients achieve those goals, and I thought: shouldn’t I be doing the same thing for my own blog? I pursued writing here the way I approached my work: SEO-optimized blog posts, listicles, social boosting. But it struck me this week: I don’t care about those things anymore for my own personal work. They are exhausting.
What Digital Minimalism actually changed
My thoughts really started to change after reading Cal Newport’s Digital Minimalism. It’s a book that explores a lifestyle where you use digital technologies to support value — true value — rather than allowing the behavioral techniques that Silicon Valley (and digital marketing professionals like myself) employ so that a user keeps scrolling, keeps sharing, keeps staring at a device. Newport’s book proved to be one of the most useful books I have ever read, and it helped me reorient myself toward what I care about: building a career and a community, writing books, and being there for my family.
Because of this book, I have written six chapters of a new novel and read 18 books in a month and a half. And during this time, I’ve come to a conclusion: I need to start writing without caring about being read. Well, maybe that’s not right. Clearly, I want to care about an audience. Maybe it’s more along the lines of: be yourself, and your audience will find you. That could be it. I don’t know. Realize what you value and focus on that… maybe. I don’t know.
The reading list
- The Line Becomes a River, Francisco Cantú (recommend — Kerouac, if he’d worked at the border)
- The Psychology of Time Travel, Kate Mascarenhas (don’t recommend)
- Digital Minimalism, Cal Newport (one of the most useful books I’ve ever read)
- How Not to Die Alone, Richard Roper (recommend)
- Ultralearning, Scott H. Young
- Churchgoers, Patrick Coleman (alert: San Diego author)
- This Is Not Propaganda, Peter Pomerantsev (awesome read)
- Writing to Persuade, Trish Hall
- The Fault in Our Stars, John Green (excellent, party time)
- The War for Kindness, Jamil Zaki (pass)
- The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Joseph Campbell
- The Whole-Brain Child, Daniel Siegel (awesome)
- Neuromancer, William Gibson
- Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
- The Sense of Style, Steven Pinker (incredible style book)
- Paper Towns, John Green (amazing!)
- The Disordered Mind, Eric R. Kandel
- Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger (not as good as I remembered)
— Joe
