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April 2020

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The Slow Media Manifesto

In Productivity 6 Mins Read By

I first got to know about the Slow Media Manifesto after reading “Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport. The Slow Media Manifesto argues that in an age in which the digital attention economy is shoveling more and more clickbait toward us and fragmenting our focus into emotionally charged shards, the right response is to become more mindful in our media consumption:

Early in 2010, a trio of Germans (Benedikt Köhler, Sabria David and Jörg Blumtritt) with backgrounds in sociology, technology, and market research posted online a document titled “Das Slow Media Manifest.” The English translation reads: “The Slow Media Manifesto.“

Slow Media is a movement focusing on the pace of media production and consumption in the digital age. It advocates for alternative ways of making and using media that are more intentional, more enjoyable, longer lasting, better researched/written/designed, more ethical, and of higher quality overall.

Slow Media developed in response to complex media formats and instant communication methods characteristic of digital culture, in which “high volumes of information are updated in real-time and are perpetually at your fingertips.

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Top 20 Quotes on Thinking

In Quotes 4 Mins Read By

If you can control a man’s thinking you do not have to worry about his action. When you determine what a man shall think you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do. If you make a man feel that he is inferior, you do not have to compel him to accept an inferior status, for he will seek it himself. If you make a man think that he is justly an outcast, you do not have to order him to the back door. He will go without being told; and if there is no back door, his very nature will demand one.― Carter Godwin Woodson, The Mis-Education of the Negro

In his 2005 Book, Thinking for a Change: 11 Ways Highly Successful People Approach Life and Work, author and Leadership Expert John C. Maxwell Quips:

What one thing do all successful people have in common? What one thing separates those who go to the top from those who never seem to get there? The answer: Good Thinking! Those who embrace good thinking as a lifestyle understand the relationship between their level of thinking and their level of progress. They also realize that to change their lives, they must change their thinking.

You will become as small as your controlling desire, as great as your dominant aspiration – James Allen

Real thinking is hard as most of us would rather DIE than do it. Here are the top 20 quotes on thinking that could help stimulate you into thinking:

  1. Two percent of the people think, three percent think they think, and ninety-five percent would rather die than think.- George Bernard Shaw
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When someone shows you who they are, Believe them.

In Life 3 Mins Read By

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. -Maya Angelou

In his Book, First Break All The Rules, British author and business consultant, Marcus Buckingham shares the following parable:

There once lived a scorpion and a frog.

The scorpion wanted to cross the pond, but, being a scorpion, he couldn’t swim. So he scuttled up to the frog and asked: “Please, Mr. Frog, can you carry me across the pond on your back?”

“I would,” replied the frog, “but, under the circumstances, I must refuse. You might sting me as I swim across.”

“But why would I do that?” asked the scorpion. “It is not in my interests to sting you, because you will die and then I will drown.”

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digital-minimalism

Book Summary: Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport

In Book Summaries 11 Mins Read By

The idea that it’s valuable to maintain vast numbers of weak-tie social connections is largely an invention of the past decade or so—the detritus of overexuberant network scientists spilling inappropriately into the social sphere. Humans have maintained rich and fulfilling social lives for our entire history without needing the ability to send a few bits of information each month to people we knew briefly during high school. Nothing about your life will notably diminish when you return to this steady state.

Print | Kindle (eBook) | Audiobook

The Digital Minimalism book by Cal Newport is by far one of the most influential books I have ever read because it contained lots of insights and suggestions on dealing with the social media pandemic/addiction.

After reading the book, I took some very tough decision which have been experimenting with for some couple of years (Since February 10, 2018) such as among other things:

  • Deactivated my Personal Facebook, Twitter and Instagram Accounts.
  • I go directly to the pages I want to view instead of going to the homepage of the platforms directly for example:
    www.linkedin.com/in/lanredahunsi instead of www.linkedin.com
  • I only install whatsapp, 1-3 times per week to respond to messages and make some international calls. I have found that whatsapp is one of the hardest platforms to leave and one of the major time wasters as people always have your attention all the time.
  • I use tools such as Rescue Time and Freedom to help me stay focused, block distracting websites and stay locked in with major goals I want to achieve.
  • Remove all notifications on my phone
  • Digital Declutter: Deleted all apps on my phones and only have In and Out apps such as Google Map, Podcast App, Screentime, Google Authenticator,
  • Have high quality activity to replace the always on the internet habits. I replaced the digital maximalism with Reading Books (100 Books Reading Challenge), Ran Multiple Marathons, Run my Blog(s), Exercise More, Dedicate more time to writing IT Certifications, Listen to more Audiobooks.

Think about this: If you use social Media/stare at your screen all day:

  • Social Media – 2 hrs /day – 730 Hours /Year = 1 Month/year = Every 12 years = 1 year on Social Media
  • TV/Laptop/Entertainment : 2 hrs/Day =730 Hours /Year = 1 Month/year = Every 12 years = 1 year on Social Media
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You are not your Job Description.

In Life 8 Mins Read By

Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves.


Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend. ― Bruce Lee

How do you answer the question: What do you do? Do you answer with your present/past Job Description(s). For Example:

The above responses are what have done in the past/presently doing but they are not who I am because I am constantly re-inventing myself like we should all be doing. We need to constantly be in Permanent Beta Mode.

Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes. – J.K.Rowling

In the The Start-up of You, Reid Hoffman notes:

Technology companies sometimes keep the beta test phase label on software for a time after the official launch to stress that the product is not finished so much as ready for the next batch of improvements. Gmail, for example, launched in 2004 but only left official beta in 2009, after millions of people were already using it.

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