Digital technology is designed to make our lives easier, make things better and improve our productivity, but somehow, we waste more time than ever. over when you lose focus on digital. It’s something that I consciously have to work on every day. Out of all the apps on the phone, I believe the social networking apps are the most distracting. Whenever I try to do a difficult task – be it writing this blog post, completing my painting, or anything else, social media is always easy and rewarding. immediate benefit that I get. The harder the task I do, the more temptations there are to take a quick look at the app. Receiving small ‘pings’ of notifications and social media interactions sends a rush of dopamine to the brain, giving us a reward per use, and it is highly addictive.
Therefore, a large part of completing tasks on time requires us to manage and overcome these digital distractions. Here are some techniques that I find the most effective
Turn off all notifications on your phone.
All day long, my phone lights up with new notifications from one of the social networking apps, and I’ll keep checking them, creating anxiety and unintentional distraction. By simply turning off social media notifications, you can get rid of the constant trying to check your social networking apps. And better yet, you can simply keep up with all the updates whenever you’re ready at the time you choose!
Remove social media apps from your home screen
All of my social media apps are on the home screen of my phone, so I check them out whenever I have some spare time – like waiting for a microwave timer or waiting for the code to compile. And needless to say, more often than not, I spend more time on social media. After moving these apps off the home screen, I had to consciously search for apps if I wanted to open them. This is often enough to prevent me from opening apps and ending up spending too much time on them
Turn your phone on airplane mode
Here’s an obvious solution to one problem: Put your phone in airplane mode or better yet, turn it off completely. When you are working on something important or very relevant and really in the area, you don’t want things like email notifications or phone calls to distract you. It can be difficult to return to that focus once the initial distraction occurs.
Set strict boundaries
One system I developed to prevent social media from invading my personal time/space is to never look at my phone late at night or early in the morning. This is my time for personal affairs and I don’t spend any time on social media. What makes the biggest difference for me is limiting social media and smartphone use, and it also comes with its respective benefits – helping to set myself up for the day and Help me get a better night’s sleep.
What do you guys do to manage distractions on social media and keep yourself on schedule?
