Technology is taking over our time and attention, and it's not just not funny anymore, it's sad, right down to the , anxiety and bipolar disorders. I regularly publish research on the impact of technology on mental health. and in his telegram channel, and during this time a certain number of observations have accumulated.
OK, Google, what do we do in a world where technology is the link to our professional, social, and personal lives? Can technology be used? and attention hygiene to improve life?
Approaches
You can approach the decision radically: cut off any connection, buy a flip phone and throw away the iPhone, take a vacation, make yourself digital detox, drive to Vipassana or go to Koh Phangan.
You can accept the fact that this is a new reality: the world is accelerating, a vertical solarium is not the limit of progress, technology is progressing, there is no privacy. It's time to calm down. Yes, and the pharmaceutical industry is not asleep, it has blue pills for any occasion ...
This is all great, but I would like less drastic measures. For one reason or another, for myself, I chose to live in the most technologically (over)saturated place on Earth, in San Francisco, and from this, keeping the boundaries of my time, attention and energy became a daily practice for me.
I get high from the fact that I have access to the latest technology, but I also enjoy the fact that I have friends that I can meet at any moment; lectures and workshops, which I can easily break into in the evening; almost any weekend I can go to nature or travel by car.
The middle path is close to me, without extremes. To organize it, I had to experiment a lot, optimizing my time and technological space.
10 habits that stuck
I have a small set of practices that allow me to take control of technology into my own hands. I will list them below:
- Screen Time: Default 0 minutes for all dopamine stimulating apps. I need to invest time to enter a password and allow the app for 15 minutes after which it gets back on the banned list. This reduces the time I spend in applicuhs.
- The minimum set of applications on the phone. 10 messengers? 6 social networks? 7 bank apps? No thanks, one per group is enough.
- Key communication in 1-2 channels: Telegram for all basic conversations, SMS/Apple Messages for American contacts and close friends.
- Restriction of Google and Facebook products. These companies make money from advertising, and to do this, they need to optimize products around engagement and duration of use metrics. Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft make money by selling physical products, apps, and subscriptions. Other things being equal, I use products from the last group.
- All work applications are on the computer. The phone has only basic applications for communication, navigation, money exchange, etc.
- Top 3 apps according to my Screen Time statistics have been removed from the phone. Created three hours a day for myself. Magic!
- Notifications only for phone and SMS messages. It is disabled by default in all other applications.
- There is a second phone that I use for attention-consuming applications. For example, I use it to manage Instagram and update Facebook. Access to it is limited.
- Applications on the phone are grouped by basic principles / Jobs To Be Done: conversation, movement, reproduction Β―_(γ)_/Β―, writing, concentration, exchange of funds, time management, self-care.
- Browsers are divorced and equipped with attention-saving plug-ins. Chrome for work, Safari for personal projects. And here and there a set of plugins for access restrictions (by time, resources, part of the site, way of perception): UnDistracted, Stay Focused, Decreased Productivity, Mercury Reader, AdBlock. There are many such solutions, but good ones can be counted on a finger, so if it's interesting, I'll write a separate post about it.
10 useful practices that did not take root
- Black and white mode on the phone to hide the color of red notifications. The latter attract attention and create interruptions in work leading to a loss of focus. Instead of the black and white mode that you can select in the settings, I reduced the number of applications and those that are allowed to notify.
- Remove all notifications. Some of the notifications are important, so I turned them on only in important applications.
- Remove all notifications from Lock Screen. The same considerations.
- Delete all social media. Instead, I limited my stay, got a separate phone for the media, where you need to be from time to time, and
- Voice messages instead of text. It did not take root (with the exception of one friend - there it turned into a ritual for a while). First of all, because in Western culture it is not customary to dictate messages.
- Complete blocking of all attention-consuming applications using Freedom, Self Control, etc. Too tough approach, and I'm a vanilla guy in this sense.
- Retrieve apps only via Spotlight (iOS) or Search (Android). I really call some of the applications like this, but all the main ones are divided into folders, which are named after the basic principles / jobs to be done.
- Dark Mode on sites by default. In theory, "dark mode" should reduce the number of bright websites, but in fact it does not work well with different display features of sites.
- Applications for meditation. As you know, mindfulness meditation allows you to get more control over the quality of attention and affects the emotional state. I started with Headspace five years ago, but as the practice got more serious, I started meditating on my own, with a regular timer app.
- Pomodoro timers. Work 25 minutes, rest 5, repeat. After the fourth repetition, take a long break. For someone it works, as it turned out, not for me.
How do you save your time and attention?
Source: habr.com