20 Minutes can change course of your life
In this modern world where electronic gadgets are present in every hand, connectivity to Internet is a considered as basic human right and lack of such resources is perceived disadvantage, we are moving towards a future that may not need the strengths this universe has given us from the process of evolution over last thousands of years. The most miniscule and achievements of generative AI are already supporting my point and I know you are shaking your head in affirmative while reading this line.
Like any other modern discovery, from light bulb to atom bomb, every invention comes with its own pros and cons, and it is left to the conscience of users for how to make use for himself and for larger community. The governments in most cases just regulate the conditions for availing such technology by putting some process to qualify individuals that are deemed fit to use it.
However, one such technology that mostly comes with minimal of such regulations is Internet and Mobile phones. Its penetration is reaching to remotest of areas to an extent that it has already reached places where packed drinking water is yet to arrive.
With all the benefits and possibilities of saving lives, this technology comes with its own evils which are equally catching up with its users. There are so many of them and debates are ongoing on each of them for few years already. But I am writing this article to highlight one particular of them that actually is not a direct medical/health/environment issue but occurs due to overuse of this fruit of science.
I am sure you will agree that with the increasing use of mobile phones, our span of thought process, our attention to details around us, our power of concentration is increasingly going down and in last decade smart phones users has reached a stage that they find it impossible to concentrate or worse sit idle for a few minutes without fiddling with their devices.
The extent of such behaviors is to such a level that even the platforms like Medium needed to introduce a feature showing approximate minutes a user will need to read a given article to be able to mentally prepare them on how much attention the article will need. From my personal habits and discussions, I can safely conclude that I rarely read a text/article that takes me anything more than 5 minutes. It really feels taxing when face with such a situation on screen or on printed paper. Additionally, I nearly myself dying inside if have to write a paragraph using pen and paper.
I believe that this problem is compounded by the concept of “Reels” that different social media applications has introduced in last decade reducing our concentration to less that 30 seconds. While there is whole lot of scientific stuff about release of dopamine and how it can affect us in long run due to frequent behavior of watching reels. I am talking about the incapabilities we are not grooming that are stopping us from doing things that really matter for our own lives.
So, for quite some time, I was trying to find a way to get my concentration back to at least a 30-minute level so that I can focus on one task to be able to complete the objective I start the activity with. I was in really deep pain when I discovered that despite my best efforts it took me 10 days to complete 15 pages in the first book I started to read after corona pandemic was over. Every time I started reading, within a couple of minutes my mind would remind of 10 tasks that I have pending on me. The same task will not pop in brain if I am doing any other thing on planet which in most cases would be scrolling mobile apps for some random reels, news articles giving me information that I don't need and I don't need to remember in future.
So, from different sources (that included these very reels I watched earlier), I tried creating a small habit that did not seem to be particularly difficult at the beginning because I spend at least 8–10 hours a day with my laptop. I started breaking down my time in minimum block of 20 minutes. I decided that I will work on 1 thing at a time for block of at least 20 minutes especially things that I hate to do. (like book reading, exercise, meetings I attend at office or for personal matters). I started using my stopwatch in mobile phone, I bought couple table-top watches for every desk that I frequently use to do this. I would work on the single activity for at least 20 minutes before I allowed myself any kind of distractions or a mini break of 2–3 minutes before I start cycle again. Initially it was extremely frustrating and hard to not pick up my mobile and scroll something while I was doing something that demanded my full mental attention.
But a bit of persistence started bearing the fruits around 25 days after. I realized that I am able to recall the exact discussion happened in which meeting on what day without referring to the published minutes of meeting. My fitness also improved due to better focus on physical exercises like yoga, running or playing sports like badminton, squash.
You will know that you have aced this habit when you will be able put down the phone in exactly 20-minutes as prepare to start something in the next 20-minutes slot that does not need mobile phone.
I hope this helps. All the Best.
PS — This article was written and published in 3 such 20-minutes slots over a single day.
