This article first appeared on the Weekly Log newsletter.

We find ourselves surrounded by gadgets that promise to make us faster, smarter, and more efficient, yet many of us feel more disconnected and overwhelmed than ever before. This paradox is at the heart of what I call "Conscious Computing," a concept that challenges us to rethink our relationship with technology.

Much of our relationship with our tech is unconscious. We scroll, watch, and consume not because we need to, or even want to. We do it because it’s there. Conscious Computing asks a simple question: what are you computing for? What do you want to create, solve, or learn? It’s this question that helps us to harness the potential of tech without losing our humanity in the process.

In a new video series, I explore how we can be more intentional about our tech-use using an intention paired with the conscious computing scale.

Intention

What do you want tech to help you do? Maybe it’s to read more, write more, workout more, or play more. Setting the intention can help you start filter for the tools designed to serve that intention.

That’s where the second tool comes in: The Conscious Computing Scale.

The Conscious Computing Scale has five criteria to help you dial in the features you need from your tech: Input, Throughput, Stayput, Compute, and Output. These dials help you contextualize your tech choices based on your goals.

Input: Curating Information
This dial is about managing the flow of information into your life. This dial is about finding the right signal to noise ratio. We want to dial in just the information we need to support our intention and filtering out the rest.

Throughput: Using information
This dial is about interacting with information. What features do you need to capture, navigate, and organize your inputs? Too many features, and you’ll get overwhelmed or distracted. Too few, and you may spend more time sorting than working.

Stayput: Cultivating information
This dial is about focus. It’s about actually doing the work. This often boils down to connectivity. Too little, and you may not have the tools, data, or resources you need to work. Too much, and you may disappear down some internet rabbit hole.

Compute: Creating new information
This dial is about how much of the work is done for you rather than by you. Too little, and we risk making little progress. Too much, and we risk any real sense of accomplishment.

Output: Honoring Your Intentions
Finally, this dial about integrity. How do our results align with our original intentions? Too little means you couldn’t achieve the result due to the lack of technology. Too much and the result will feel meaningless because technology did the work for you.

This scale helps us answer the question at the heart of conscious computing: does this thing help me lead the life I want?