Hello group. My name is Jason and I’m a red-dot-aholic. What’s more, I’m going to take a pretty good stab at assuming you are probably a red-dot-aholic too.
The truth is, if we’re really honest about it, most of us who havn’t sworn to some monk-esque celebatic ban of technology, would agree that these these little red critters rule our day-to-day behaviour far more than we’d care to admit.
Think I am being being dramatic when I say this is an addiction? Sadly, science would disagree with you. Responding to these little red dots gives our bodies an instant injection of dopamine, an organic chemical (the same chemical releases after eating food, having sex, or taking heroin) that is proven to satisfy the parts of our brain that crave the gratification of receiving information.
The scary part in all this is that dopamine doing its thing on your brain at the point of receiving information, and regardless of how you actually process that information. In other words, have you ever been interrupted by something important (eg having a conversation with a real human being you actually care about) by a little red dot popping up on Instagram, only to have found out that it was your friend Sally who just had her nails done (which by the way, you didn’t give a crap about)? Sadly you have been a victim to dopamine.
OK, OK, I’m an addict already. What do I do about it?
Well firstly as a self-diagnosed addict myself, giving advice here would certainly be a case of the blind leading the blind, so I would love to hear from you in the comments if you have come up with any good techniques that you’d like to share. That said, as an experiment this week I am going take 4 actionable steps that I think might just work. Feel free to try them also and let me know how you get on.
Step One. Kill the red dots. All of them.
Now to clarify here, I’m not suggesting some kind of technology detox here, and still intend this week to use all kinds of technlogy (including social media apps). However this week I am going to turn off all forms of technology based notifications that tell me ‘something’ is happening. This means turning off all red dot icon notifications on my mobile, desktop or anywhere else I can find them. If I see a dot pop up during the week, I’ll hop into settings and kill it immediately. On top of that I will be killing all forms of push notification, and the only ‘interruption’ I will allow will be a regular cell call, and an SMS text message (silent without vibrate). The result looks something a bit like this:
Step Two. Clear your home screens & desktops.
One of the biggest dopamine temptations is for me is when I open my phone, or sit at my computer. I’ve find myself getting into an instant ritual of clicking all the icons that I know will provide me with my instant hit. Twitter, Linkedin, Slack, Facebook, Whatsapp… all classic culprits. This week I reorganised my default screens (mobile and desktop). First I started by removing all the unnecessary apps on my mac pinned to the dock and taskbar. I also ticked the option to ‘turn hiding’ on meaning that the dock hides itself away when its not being used. Next I cleaned out all apps on my phone to screen 2 or onwards that didn’t involve basic functionality (eg calling, or receiving texts) or apps that are general tools or utilities that don’t generally provide dopamine on tap (eg Google Maps). The result looked something like this for mine and my girlfriend Karins phone:
Step Three. Batch.
I’m a strong believer in batching work generally (especially email) and find that I’m most productive when I am in an environment that enables me to batch. Meaning, splitting up the tasks I need to do (including the routine stuff like checking email, checking Slack, sending a post or two on twitter etc to build a loyal audience, or whatever that task) and doing those tasks together at once at a more planned time. Needing to do something at some point in the day is very different to needing do it it right now and batching these tasks into solid blocks of time not only means you typically get them done faster, but you avoid the massive productivity drain caused by the ‘swapping cost’ doing 10 thing at once and swapping between them all every few minutes. Some believe you are 40% less effective when multi tasking and I completely agree. So this week, I will attempt a similar process for all the apps I use, from Facebook, through to Whatsapp. I still feel I want to check these apps and channels, but with notifications under control as per steps one and two, I feel I am now able to do this when I want to, not when my phone or computer is telling me to.
Step Four. Be tuned-in to how you are spending your time.
I’ve found that this isn’t as easy and simple as it sounds, and exercises like meditation certainly help (couldn’t recommend Headspace more for this), but what I intend to try this week is being properly conscious of where I am spending time my time. I find the constant noise created by poorly managed technology can often lead to the things I really want to spend my time on becoming neglected. For example things like reading a blog or book, learning a new language, listening to a podcast or writing get neglected and replaced by seeing how many new followers I have on twitter, or scrolling through the never ending feed of ‘look at my baby’ updates on Facebook. This week, using my newly created environment I will be trying to either fill my spare gaps of time (on tubes, waiting in a queue or whilst having lunch) being aware of my surroundings, listening and engaging with other human beings, or doing a task that I really want to be spending my spare time on.
How are you managing your technology?
I’d love to hear in the comments how you manage technology and and tricks or tips you might like to share that you’d find useful. I’ll be posting updates later in the comments next week to see how these changes make a difference.
You’ll also find me on Twitter at @jasondainter
