7 Ways to Reduce Digital Distractions
Want to get rid of all the digital noise that steals your focus? We’re sharing actionable tips that work for us — skyrocketing productivity! ;)
1. Remove Everything You Don’t Need
Turn off or put your mobile phone away while working. You won’t be eager to eat a large piece of cake until you see it — so we recommend putting phones or tablets, or anything that distracts you in a bag or another room. When you don’t have these devices at hand, you don’t feel the temptation to use them!
2. Use ‘Do Not Disturb’ Mode
Flight mode is a known way to rid notifications, alerts and calls. However, the ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode allows us to still receive calls from certain people. Moreover, you can schedule this feature according to the working day so that you don’t need to organise it manually.
- Here’s a manual for an iPhone/iPad.
- Here’s the ‘how to’ for a MacBook/Mac.
- If you’re an Android user, here’s a manual for you.
- This is how to tone it down on Windows.
3. Adjust or Turn Off Notifications
If the ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode is not an option for you, there are other ways to minimise distractions. You can set notifications off in the different apps and websites you use. This is a great way to ensure calm during leisure time too. All of us have seen an alert and thought: “Wow, that must be something interesting!”, and then realised that this was just another ad.
Adjust manually and keep only those you truly need, for example, emails. Social media can wait till the end of the day when you have time for checking them.
4. Move Apps from Sight
If you need your phone for work and can’t quite resist the impulse to check messages on socials, move these apps somewhere else. You can create a group for them, bundling them together to stop the individual notifications popping up on your main home screen. The best option for us is to take them to the second or third page of your screen. This will free you from seeing the little numbers next to social apps, so they won’t bother you!
5. Unsubscribe from Newsletter
You’ve turned off all notifications and kept only email alerts. This is great, however advertising newsletters from dozens of companies still find their way to us — even to our business emails. Any platform you have registered on will continue to send their updates to your mailbox.
This is distracting and it’s time to unsubscribe! Look for the “Unsubscribe” button at the end of each email and enjoy the silence!
6. Consolidate Your Feeds
There are great tools out there to help convert social media time into productive discovery time:
- Flipboard brings together news, popular materials and discussions on any topic. When everything is in one place, it becomes much easier to read, collect and share articles. Use it as your customised magazine.
- Tweetdeck shows everything you need on Twitter in one place, thus streamlining your experience. You can customise what you see on the dashboard and make it convenient personally for you!
7. Manage Productivity Tools
Too many productivity tools can kill your efficiency! We recommend choosing a maximum of five to not switch from one to another all the time.
Better use complex apps that combine several features at once, for example, Collabio Spaces, which offers:
- Text and spreadsheets editors.
- PDF annotations.
- Scanning with a phone or tablet.
- E-signatures.
- Organising documents in spaces.
- Cloudless P2P collaboration with local and remote peers.
We’ve shared our overviews of other useful apps you may consider, so take a look!
The Bottom Line
In both the online and offline world, distractions await. We have some helpful hacks to keep you on track:
- Have your goals on the to-do list or put some sticky notes in eye shot — this refreshes your focus and helps you remember what you need to do.
- Track your progress. This won’t let your attention float to socials and maximises your motivation.
- Use sounds to concentrate deeply on the work. Use noise-canceling headphones with pleasant music — silencing the distractions nearby.
- Reward yourself — celebrating even the smallest victories. Have you coped with a task faster than was expected? Eat something delicious. Have you completed your work in 6-hour day instead of 8? Well, you deserve to start your relaxing walk earlier — go ahead! ;)
- Finally, don’t forget to schedule breaks between your daily working sprints. Your brain needs some time to recharge before being productive again. Try following 45/15 working cycles perhaps: dedicate 45 minutes to focused work and 15 to some rest.
We hope that these tips for reducing digital and physical distractions will help you become even more productive and focused!
