Screening for Distractions

Our smartphones are arguably our greatest cause of potential distractions.?

Most of us have our phones with us 24/7, and we tend to keep adding apps.?

The right apps can help us get things done.? But with every app, comes an additional stream of notifications that either distract us, or draw us into unintended use.

Distractions are what keep us from focus.? And focus — is a critical ingredient for being highly effective.

These micro-distractions can compound insidiously (I know, it’s a strong word) — and can impact our productivity in ways we never expected.

If like me, you’ve experienced being all too often interrupted by a notification on your phone… only to end up spending over an hour reading an article, or scrolling through social media updates — then you know what I mean.

Today — my ‘1% Better’ action — was three-fold:

1. ‘Cleaning up’ my phone — deleting apps; and for every remaining app, selecting how I want to receive notifications — so I would experience significantly fewer distractions.?
2. Creating a repeatable process for it — because this act of ‘decluttering my phone’ is personal, and uniquely suited to how I do things (meaning — there isn’t a single checklist that I would simply follow); and?
3. Setting a calendar event — to repeat the same process every six months.? I blocked out 4 hours on the last Sunday every June and December, with an event title ‘Screen For Distractions’.? ‘Screen’ — referring to my iPhone of course.? Having attempted to ‘clean up’ and organize the apps and notifications before, I realize that it’s important to set aside enough time to do it.? Half-completed attempts didn’t give me the results I had this morning.

So — what’s the process?

If you simply search “how to set up your phone for productivity and focus + apps and notifications”, you’ll likely find a good range of resources.

Recognize that it’s all about FOMO.? And then deal with it accordingly.

For me, the main thing was to recognize that all my actions (or inactions) were driven by FOMO. ?

• What if I still need that app in future?? Well, just download it again!
• What if I forget that such a useful app exists?? Well, add it to a ‘list of favorite apps’; but in the meantime, delete if if not in use.?
• What if I miss an important notification on this app?? Well, get notified — but choose either ‘in-app’, or ‘push’, or ‘email’… just not all three… unless it’s super-important.

With that, I was able to delete at least half of the apps on my phone, shut down at least 70% (guesstimate) of my notifications, and organize my remaining apps in logical groups and screens.

Once you do the above and want to get more tactical about optimizing your phone — look up the many useful videos and articles out there.

To recount my actions for getting “1% Better Every Day”…

1. Day One — Make a Public Commitment
2. Day Two — Set Moonshots. Kill Small Goals
3. Day Three — Raise the Stakes
4. Day Four — Plan to Fight Intelligently
5. Day Five — Write My Anti-Goals
6. Day Six — Reduce Wine Consumption
7. Day Seven — Design (and Establish) a Routine for Rest
8. Day Eight (Today) — Build an Emergency Contacts List
9. Day Nine — Make Time to Get Naked
10. Day 10 — Understand the Hard Times Growth Paradox
11. Day 11 — Stay Strategic, but... Make Time for Craft
12. Day 12 — Create a Plan to Increase Effectiveness on LinkedIn
13. Day 13 — Create an Inventory of Bottlenecks, Friction & Flow (BFF)
14. Day 14 (Today) — Screen (my phone) for Distractions

Let's see what tomorrow brings...