The digital world is hectic. There’s always a new group chat message, breaking news story, or email that demands our attention. This can make it harder than ever to stay focused on your daily activities – whether that’s work, parenting, or studying.
Here are five easy ways to avoid, reduce, and remove digital distractions from your day-to-day life.
1. Avoid Looking at Your Phone
Let’s start with a simple but tough one. The best way to avoid digital distractions is to avoid looking at your phone often throughout the day.
If you can, keep your phone away from the place where you’re working. It’s so easy to be distracted by a notification when your phone lights up, even if you were focused on a piece of work. Remove the distraction by moving your phone, and you also remove the temptation to check it so regularly. If you need to be able to answer calls, make sure your volume is set to loud or pair it with a smartwatch or fitness tracker so you can hear it wherever you are.
2. Check Social Media at Set Times
If limiting your phone time feels too extreme, start with setting some limits on how often you check your social media.
It’s tempting to see what’s new on Instagram or scroll through your Facebook feed, but it’s easy for this to take over and reduce your productivity levels to zero. Cut back on the mindless scrolling and constant competition and give yourself set times to check social media. This might be on your lunch break and a couple of other times during the day. It’s up to you whether you limit your time in the evenings too, but you could try an 8pm curfew for electronics.
3. Turn Off Unnecessary Notifications
We all know how easy it is to be distracted when you see your phone light up. First you need to see if it’s important, and then chances are you need to unlock your phone and jump into an app or conversation. This all takes you away from what you were doing.
Fight back against digital distractions by turning off as many app notifications as possible. Take a look through your apps and decide what you really need to be notified about. This might be just your calls and messages, or you could include apps like banking apps or email. If you receive a lot of emails throughout the day, turning off notifications and checking in regularly can help you stay more productive.
4. Leave Online Groups if You Don’t Participate
If you’re active on Facebook, chances are you’re a member of more than one Facebook Group that you no longer need to be part of. It’s time to clean up your groups and only stay a member in those that you participate in or get enjoyment from.
Work through your list of groups and immediately leave any that don’t sound interesting to you or that you don’t remember seeing in your feed. With a smaller group left, make a decision about whether you want to stay in the rest of them. This will have an impact on your feed and notifications, so you should start to see more content from friends and family and fewer notifications about content you don’t care about.
5. Mute Your Group Chats
Group chats are often the easiest way of staying in touch with everyone these days. This means they can be chaotic, with multiple messages every minute – causing distractions just when you don’t need them. Don’t be afraid to mute your group chats and stay focused on your day.
Our group chats are often filled with our closest friends and family. They know you can’t be available all day to jump into the latest discussion or gossip, so don’t put yourself under pressure to read and reply right away. By muting your chats you can check in when it suits you and catch up throughout the day.
Manage Your Digital Distractions the Easy Way
With these simple tips you’ll be able to manage your digital distractions and stay focused on what matters most in the moment. Enjoy the extra productivity and let it inspire you to find new ways to make the most of your time.
Photo by John Tuesday on Unsplash