How To Fight Distractions Even If You Are Addicted To Your Smartphone …
5 dead simple ways to fight distractions in the age of smartphones.
Let’s just face it we are all struggling with smartphone addiction, or at least most of us are. The difference is some of us are aware of it while a lot of us are still living under a delusion.
Passively consuming content, watching Instagram Reels and TikTok videos, and watching Netflix while procrastinating on tasks that you should be doing feel great in the short run.
Our generation has become accustomed to receiving a flood of notifications and responding to each one as soon as it arrives.
You can’t seem to get out of it, you know it’s affecting your productivity, and spending the majority of your time passively consuming content on these apps isn’t going to get you anywhere.
But you keep doing it because it’s what your brain wants, which is instant gratification, and you ignore the long-term consequences of what they do to your brain and, ultimately, your personal and professional life.
Don’t believe me? Here are some statistics that will blow your mind.
The facts are baffling and scary, but I’m not here to scare you away, I’m writing this to provide you with a solution to get your time and life back.
I was a part of this statistic too until I decided to get my life back.
I’ll be sharing Five ways that I used to manage the distractions in the age of smartphones.
1. Remind Yourself of Your Goals Consistently:
The cost of mindless scrolling and binge-watching is significantly higher than you realize. It robs you of your capacity to focus and concentrate, and you are unaware that they are dying slowly. The price is an unfulfilled life and unachieved goals.
So, once you understand the costs. You can determine whether or not the transaction is worth the cost. Constantly reminding yourself of your goals will keep you alert and prevent you from getting lost in distractions.
Write your goals or tasks where you can see them every day or find a way to remind yourself in any way that works for you. A constant reminder is the key here. It keeps you motivated while also making you aware of the cost.
2. The Five More Rule:
My gym trainer constantly reminds me that the last few reps are the most difficult, but they also make a major impact on your muscles and mental resilience.
This rule just doesn’t apply to physical exercises it can be used to increase your focus and fight distractions. It’s as simple as it sounds whenever you are about to quit or reach out for your smartphone for another scrolling marathon.
Do the same thing for just 5 more minutes or 5 more times. This could be anything that requires mental effort, such as reading 5 more pages in a book, creating 5 more slides for a presentation, writing 5 more lines for a blog, etc. Just add five extra repetitions.
As a result, it builds mental concentration and resilience, delays gratification, and ultimately combats distractions.
3. Turn Off The Notifications For God’s Sake:
About 90% of the notifications I receive on my smartphones are useless. Notifications from a hundred different apps that I don’t care about and that don’t really matter. But once they go off I get distracted and pick up my phone and start scrolling or doing something else on my smartphone.
And what about the work that I was doing prior to that stupid notification? Well, it hangs in the middle of nowhere because I’m too busy in my mindless scrolling marathon.
Sounds familiar? Turns out these notifications are much worse for your focus than one would perceive.
According to a University of California Irvine study, “it takes an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to get back to the task. There’s nothing worse than being removed from your motivated reverie only to face a serious uphill battle to get back into it when you’re ready.”
The solution is simple, Turn the unnecessary notifications off and remove unnecessary apps to free your phone and mental space at the same time.
It will save you a lot of time and allow you to regain your focus. When you do this, it automatically discourages you from responding to these notifications right away, and you get control of your phone rather than the other way around.
4. Temporarily Divorce Yourself From Digital Devices:
Larry Rosen is a psychology professor at California State University, author of iDisorder, and coauthor of The Distracted Mind. He says that allow yourself to use digital devices but shut everything down and silence your phone.
Set an alarm for 15–20 minutes and when it rings give yourself 1 minute to feed your craving for using your phone and then repeat the cycle until you are comfortable increasing your off-grid time to an hour or several hours.
Start small and then build your focus gradually. You won’t be attracted to your smartphone because you’ll know that you will use it every 15 minutes. It builds mental discipline and it’s a great way to start regaining your focus without entirely giving up your smartphone.
5. Recall Your Past Successes:
I know what you must be thinking. How can building focus and fighting distractions have to do with that? Trust me it is, and it a scientifically proven as well. Recalling the positive events from the past increases your Serotonin Levels.
Serotonin is a chemical that carries messages between nerve cells in the brain and throughout your body. Serotonin plays a key role in such body functions as mood, sleep, digestion, nausea, wound healing, bone health, blood clotting, and sexual desire says Cleveland Clinic.
One more important function of Serotonin is to regulate delayed gratification. In layman’s terms, If the Serotonin levels in your body are low. You are more likely to indulge in behaviors of instant gratification such as gossiping, scrolling social media, binge-watching, drinking, or anything that provides you with instant pleasure.
On the other hand, if your Serotonin levels are high then your focus increases and you are more likely to focus on the things that are beneficial for you in the long term. One of the ways to increase this magic chemical in your body is by recalling past successes.
Other ways include exercising, practicing gratitude, exposing your skin to natural light, etc. So the concept is pretty simple your ability to focus and concentrate is directly proportional to your Serotonin levels. So if you are struggling to focus anytime during your day get your Serotonin levels up.
Wrapping Up:
Fighting distractions is difficult, but the first step is to acknowledge the problem, admit to yourself that you are fighting with it, and look for ways to handle it because, let’s face it, you can’t avoid them.
They have always been present and always will be, despite changes in the kind of distractions or their frequency. I don’t mind distractions when they take your mind off things and help you relax, but when you’re always distracted, it’s bad for your concentration, goals, and life.
You’ll waste the most valuable currency there is; time, which you’ll never get back. I hope that these ideas assist you in regaining your focus and your life.
That’s it from my side. Feel free to share these helpful tips with your fellow readers to help them manage distractions in a better way.
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