A Quiet Life
Going analog-ish in 2026
I love that going “Analog” is a trend for 2026. But the way I see it being framed feels a bit too restrictive for me. I’m also worried that it might lead to more consumerism. I could see people trying to purchase new things to keep up with the trend rather than taking a step back from technology and reusing what they already have. And those things will just end up in the landfill.
It reminds me of the early days of my climate journey, when Zero Waste was the trend. It was the era of storing your trash in a mason jar. In 2017, I lived zero waste for a month. I overhauled my life, buying lots of new things to make this transition quickly. A few of those products I bought I still use today. But I wish I had made the transition more slowly, using up products I had before buying new ones.
When I finished the month challenge, living zero waste felt unsustainable in the long term. Since then, I’ve transitioned into living a low-waste lifestyle. I minimize waste when I can, but don’t feel like a failure when I create waste.
So instead of going fully analog, I want to live a Quiet Life. I want to minimize my use of technology when I can, but not feel like a failure when I use it. I want to go analog-ish.
I want to turn down the digital noise, get quiet, and appreciate the world around me. My book, Quietest Places in New York City, is launching on March 3 (and is available to pre-order!). In the book, I selected 67 quiet places to go offline and find calm and peace. For each location, I wrote a guided mindfulness prompt to deepen your appreciation of the environment around you.
For 2026, I want to spend less time online and build a healthy, sustainable relationship with the technology I use. Last year, I built an app called Free Time to help me use my phone more mindfully. And it’s working. It’s so surreal to get texts from my friends saying that their screen time is cut in half. And now that I’m finally done building it, I have the free time I hoped for. I’m making more time for my art and discovering a new style.
In June, I almost started a whole new Substack called A Quiet Life. I even got the domain Analog Club on Substack. The description was “A space for those craving calm. Essays, practical tools, and art on digital minimalism, quiet places, and creative offline living.” Luckily, my friends talked me out of creating a whole separate newsletter and suggested I integrate it into my existing one. So here I am doing that (6 months later).
I’m going to start weaving in updates on my journey towards living a Quiet Life. I’ll be sharing about art, climate, searching for quiet, and creative offline living.
What does quiet mean to you?
When I was writing the Quietest Places in New York, this was my favorite question to ask people. The answers were so beautiful. I’d love to hear in the comments what quiet means to you!
Thank you for your work and care about the environment!
This is one of the few places I can admit this and you might not think I'm crazy: I've been getting up super early and riding my bike in the dark and quiet. There are (almost) no cars. It's quiet. There are stars. I live in a city but there is tons of wildlife at 4am - coyotes, rabbits.