21st Century Superpower
Turn off your notifications
#55
The ability to focus is an increasingly rare skill.
Our attention spans are trending toward zero. Deep focus is a hard thing. There are too many distractions & our phones battle for every ounce of our mindshare. Even the links I’ve put in this paragraph tempt you to click and move onto the next thing.
The ability to put distraction aside and focus, really focus on one thing, is a superpower in today's world. Whether it be school, work, faith, exercise … anything ... the person that can deeply commit time and attention to a task will have an advantage & perform better.
You cannot multitask. You might say you can. You might demonstrate an ability to get two things done nearly simultaneously, but you cannot do two things at a time and do them both well.
Get uncomfortable. Try it. Start small.
Next time you get in the car, don't reach for the radio. Ride for just five minutes in complete silence. See what happens. See where your thoughts go. See how quickly you unconsciously reach for your phone. See how uncomfortable it is.
Next time you sit down to work on a task, leave your phone in a different room. If you are doing work on your PC, close all the other applications. Turn off the WiFi to your computer if you are working offline. If you are working online, close all other applications and turn off notifications.
You need to control the notifications. Never have any audible notifications (dings, etc). Even for incoming phone calls, my phone only rings if it is someone in my contacts calling me, an increasingly rare occurrence. Turn off ALL notifications except the 1-2 the you need. For me that is email and text. I have enabled the red notification badge on just those two applications. No pop-ups, no dings, just the red badge. Everything else (social media in particular), I will only see my messages if I log onto the app. I miss very little. I think you'll find the same.
Further reading: Your attention didn’t collapse. It was stolen
“If you read your texts while working, you lose that time, but also the time it takes to refocus afterwards, which is a lot.”