Recalibration

Why simplifying my life starts with restoring balance between digital and analog attention

My word for the year is simplify. At least, it was. Lately, another word has quietly nudged its way into the conversation: recalibrate. Not as a replacement, but as a companion—one that recognizes that before you can simplify, you often have to pause long enough to notice what’s out of alignment.

I’m a web designer and an author. Two jobs that live almost entirely on screens. Most days, my attention is divided among tabs, drafts, image files, notifications, and analytics. Even the creative work—the work I love—comes mediated by glass and light. Somewhere along the way, the screen stopped being a tool and became the default setting.

This year, I’m paying attention to where I pay attention.

It’s a subtle shift, but an important one. I’m noticing how easily my eyes drift to my phone in quiet moments and how often I reach for the screen to fill even the briefest gaps of time. Waiting for a movie at The Little to begin; standing in line at Wegmans; sitting on a bench in Highland Park; watching the sun rise over Lake Ontario. These were once small pauses in the day that let my mind wander. Now they’re filled with distraction.

Recalibrating, for me, doesn’t mean abandoning technology or romanticizing a screen-free life. It means restoring balance. It means letting screens return to their proper role, rather than occupying every spare inch of visual and mental space. It means choosing presence—sometimes imperfectly, sometimes intentionally—over constant input.

A quieter life waits just beyond the glow of a device. It’s slower, less optimized, and harder to quantify—but richer in ways that can’t be tracked and measured.

Simplifying is about subtraction. Recalibrating is about alignment.

This year, I want both. Fewer digital demands. More analog rituals. Less noise vying for my attention. More space to linger, observe, and be bored enough for something meaningful to surface.

I don’t expect perfection. I expect awareness. Maybe that’s the real work—not escaping the online world entirely, but learning when to step back from it so life can meet me where I am, unfiltered and unscrollable.

This essay is a part of a series—Traveling Close to Home: Reflections on the Space Between Leaving and Returning.