One of the benefits of filtering your life that I have experienced is that as I absorb less, I start to retain more. Let me explain. Before I deleted all of my social media accounts, I was constantly absorbing information, the problem with that was that my attention was being taken every which way constantly. Although I was exposing myself to a lot of information, it was all shallow at best and I wasn’t retaining much of my everyday life because my mind didn’t have the time to process anything.

Instead of giving my mind time to rest and reflect, which is a vital part of absorbing information, I “rested” by zoning out scrolling through social media, and instead of giving my mind a break, I overloaded it with loads of new information, most of which was useless at the end of the day.

That insurge of information, most of which was of hardly any significance to my development, took up much of the processing power that my conscious and subconscious mind could’ve been using to process what happened during the day or to focus on the things I actually care to learn about. My memory was foggy, and I would find myself thinking about some useless thing I saw on the internet instead of what I wanted to learn about or focus on.

As soon as I cut the cord with social media, I found it significantly easier to recall the important information I wanted to focus on. I didn’t have all of that background noise cluttering my mental space and I felt more involved in what was happening day-to-day in my life.

I was absorbing less information to absorb more information. That sounds a little confusing. By absorbing less random and relatively useless information, I was able to absorb more information about whatever I was exposing myself to during the day, and by applying filtering, I made sure that the information I was absorbing was beneficial and important to me. I retained more of what was important because I freed up mental space and energy that I was wasting on things that were serving no higher purpose.

I cleared my mind of mental clutter and made more room for things I actually care about. I went from a shallow ocean of information to a deep lake of knowledge. By narrowing the spectrum of information that I exposed myself to, I deepened my understanding of those things I regarded as important and beneficial, and I retained more of what I learned.

It’s a paradoxical phenomenon. I absorb less to retain more, and by doing so, I absorb more. The significance lies in what you apply it to. I absorb less of the useless and detrimental information by filtering it out and by doing so I retain more of the important and beneficial information that I increase my exposure to which causes me to absorb more of the good stuff and retain less of the bad stuff.

Once I had realized the significance of my findings and the benefits of filtering by deleting social media, I started to apply it with more vigor to other things in my life. I’m not saying you have to delete your social media, but you can start by filtering it out.

Think about how certain accounts and posts make you feel and think. Do they promote the mindsets you are trying to foster? Do they distract you from what’s important and fill your mind with useless clutter? Does that clutter prevent you from getting the most out of other things you find more important? There is only so much you can fill your mental space with, and there is only so much you can process in a day.

You can get more out of your day and more out of life by filtering what you expose yourself to. Not having any sort of discrimination with what you allow into your mind can have detrimental effects that you may not fully understand until you experience what it’s like to cut out the useless and detrimental things, most of which you may allow in without much of a second thought about it.

If you don’t believe me, at least experiment with filtering, and give it an honest attempt and judge the results for yourself. Filter. Absorb less, retain more.