Have you felt too distracted and unable to focus on important things in life. Have you tried deleting apps or your social media accounts and failed. Then this article is for you.
In this article I am listing some of the strategies I employ to keep me focused on the important tasks I need to do in my life and not waste my time or loose my sanity.
The Overstimulation Problem
In my opinion the problem is not distraction, but it is the overstimulation of our brain. All these different social media and news apps provide us with valuable information. But the only problem is they never stop, they have an endless feed of information for our brain. I think I have found a way to coexist with these apps and engage with them intentionally.
In this modern world you cannot stay away from these apps but you can definitely control them instead of the apps controlling you. And deleting them is not a good solution (except for Youtube, I will explain why)
1. Turn off all notifications on your phone
This one seems obvious but a major step towards regaining control of your thoughts. Notifications can cause disruption to your thought process no matter how benign they are. Once disrupted it takes a lot of mental strength to refocus your brain
So you should disable all notifications from your phone. Then enable only the ones which you feel are time sensitive, may be the ones from your banking apps or calls and messages from your immediate family members etc.
2. Remove all these apps from your home screen and Siri suggestions
I use iPhone and I have removed all the distracting apps from my home screen. There should be no indication to my brain when I open my phone to go into these apps. Out of sight out of mind kind of thing.
Also remove them from Siri suggestions. Most distracting apps I have on my phone but not on my home screen are
- News
I can intentionally open them if I want to but there never will be a cue to my brain to open them from external sources. You will stop mindlessly opening the same app again and again unintentionally.
3. Logout of your most used social media accounts
This one is for the second level of addictive apps in which you just keep reading other peoples’ thoughts and ideas. Twitter is the one for me. May be for you it is Reddit. Whatever it is. Just logout from the apps you think your brain gets overstimulated from. You are just creating a barrier to easily enter these apps.
4. Delete Youtube app from your phone
Youtube is like a mini TV in your pocket always there to watch. In my childhood I remember my parents use to say the TV is an idiot box in front of which you waste valuable time and gain nothing.
Youtube is just that idiot box but always one tap away in your pocket. For me this was the biggest drain on my mental energies
Deleting Youtube will free up a lot of your time. I understand that Youtube has a lots of useful educational stuff as well but we don’t need it all the time in our pockets. This is what creates overstimulation. Unintentionally watching stuff which has no relevance to our immediate goals.
You can intentionally sit on your desk to watch educational videos on YouTube or open it on Safari on your phone. But never the app!
5. Make a pledge not to read any news on weekdays
News websites and apps count on the fact that negative news gets more views. So they handpick all the negative things going around all over the world and feed it to everyone. All this information has no impact what so ever on your life.
For news I have taken a pledge that I will not read or watch news everyday. I have kept news reading and keeping abreast with the world for Saturdays. This has really improved my habit of always opening news websites whenever I was feeling bored or stuck on something.
For this I did not block or delete anything, just exercising my mental control to just not go there and thankfully it works!
6. Don’t open apps with endless scrolling feature
Be very very careful of any app that has an endless scrolling feature. Just remove them from home screen. If they are important and you enjoy them schedule a block of time to go through them preferably only on weekends so that you stay focussed on your important goals during the weekdays.
7. Replace your free time with another fun activity or a boring activity
Now that you have made all above changes, what will you do with your free time? Believe me you will have a lot once you take above steps even after a hard day at work. To stop falling back in the trap of overstimulation and mindless scrolling, you must find activities which you can do in your free time.
You can play guitar, watch a movie, go for a run, listen to music, water your plants, talk to your partner, play with your kids, watch your favorite show on TV. Start a side hustle!
Or I would suggest schedule a 30 mins block to JUST NOT DO ANYTHTING! It is very important to feel bored which our brains have forgotten given the constant stimulation it gets. Just look out the window, watch plants grow, stare at the ceiling and think deeply about anything that your are curious about.
8. Create a list of all the things you need to do
Lastly, to keep yourself focussed, create a list of all the things you need to do. Keep this list at someplace which is out of sight at all times except for when you are planning your day.
Take 3 most important items from it and put in a card, sticky note or your work notebook and add anything else going on in your mind to this list and again stow it away. Do those three tasks and try to look at the big list only once a day. You will get better at it, the more times you do it.
Conclusion
So these are the steps I took to regain my focus and keep myself from getting overstimulated and hence stop getting distracted. It has helped me focus on my work more deeply and also enjoy these modern world apps much more intentionally.
Hope you found this article useful in your journey to be more focussed and productive. Please comment if you found it useful.
