In today’s chaotic reality, one must resist and act against populist leaders, AI massive dangers or pollution creating climate crisis. Whatever the cause may be, humans must spare 5 min or 1 hour on a daily basis to create awareness to sever social issues, however not suffer from burn-out and despair. Here are several of my techniques:
1. Personal decisions that prevent burnout or losing your job, for example:
a. I won’t scroll social media if I have less than an hour (logging in for a few minutes here and there, in between tasks isn’t efficient and contradicts the principle of high impact in minimal effort)
b. I don’t participate in more than 1 protest a week
c. I focus actively on one issue, and to other pressing issues I passively donate money but not my time.
2. Differentiate the kind of task for each of the devices, for example:
a. On iPad I only consume content, articles and videos (Pocket/Feedly) due to the quality of the screen and the lack of distracting work apps.
b. On mobile I only scroll social media, to clear away fake bots and react to threads that are either new (less than 1 hour) or of known journalists, activists and politicians, meaning I won’t be bothered with anything that doesn’t apply to those two conditions.
I use a text-replacement tool for fundraising so I can quickly navigate users to a specific campaign that I’m helping with.
I use a mobile widget as a capturing tool to send text, images. links to my inbox and will act on them via desktop at a later time.
Creating a buffer between consuming and executing is vital for enhanced productivity.
c. On desktop: I quickly scan news-sites via Postlight Reader Add-On, research, edit, write, distribute, fundraise etc. Placing a buffer between the time I capture and the time I execute most often means that a good 50% of what I’ve captured I will not necessarily execute on. This sorting mechanism ensures my social activism is impactful and aligns with HIME = High Impact, Minimal Effort principles.
3. Instant messaging apps are brutal to our efficiency, productivity and well-being:
I recommend not responding via instant messaging apps on mobile (you can consume but not respond) and do all the work of contacting or distributing on desktop applications. You’ll be both timing the responses, typing on a descent keyboard, creating better messages and ultimately receive better responses.
That’s another reason why it’s crucial to have a decent capturing tool and mechanism.
4. Keep web-tools slim & fit, for example:
a. no more than three tags in each (Pocket)
b. no more than 10 folders (Feedly)
c. no more than 3 categories (Skipper)
d. applying FIFO rule (First In, First Out) so that anything that I add (source or content) has to replace something else inside those tools, prevents from them turning into “digital content graveyards”.
A lean digital eco-system = clarity & peace of mind
5. Pray? Daydream? Walk? Dance?
Activism often means loosing some sense of faith in humanity so spiritual work is a necessity to keep ones sanity. I personally do all of the above + listen to Hicks
