How To Deal With Digital Distractions

May 15

For months now, I have been struggling to start writing at five in the morning. This is one of those days. It's already 7:49 and I have just started composing my draft. I'm just fortunate that it's raining and the kids preferred to stay in bed.

I am always up around 4:30. However, after my morning prayer, I end up spending more than an hour scrolling through Instagram. Sometimes I watch an episode or two of any of my favorite TV shows online.

These are my most common digital distractions. I lost my writing momentum this week dues to these distractions. Thus, I know I have to deal with them.

Greetings once again my wonderful read.cash friends, readers, and sponsors. It's a rainy Sunday morning here in our city. With this cold weather, I actually wanted to go back to bed and catch more "Zzzs".

Smartphones and tablets are highly convenient to use. With a touch of our fingers, we can now easily access any social media platform and games. However, with this convenience, we are easily hooked to social media and other forms of digital entertainment. More often than not, they distract us from doing the necessary things.

The question is, how do we deal with these digital distractions?

How To Deal With Digital Distractions.

Plan your day

The first step is to plan your day. I have already planned my activities each day. Especially my morning and evening routine. My schedules are not too rigid though. Creating a rigid schedule could be daunting and could be more discouraging than helpful.

If needed, you can use an app like Evernote to plan your activities for the day. Evernote has a lot of templates you can easily use.

Focus On Your Goals and Your Plan.

Planning is just the start. However, executing the plan can be another story. You need to focus on your goals and your plan. To that, experts suggest reading your goals at least twice a day. Once in the evening before you retire, and once right after you wake up. As for planning, spend some time before you retire at night to plan for the next day. Then read your plan before sleeping. In the morning, read your planned activities for the day.

Focus on Your Work

Once you start work, set a time limit when you want to finish that task. Set up a timer if you want to. Right now, I have the app Focus-To-Do running in the background with a 25-minute timer. You also have an option to play white noise in the background. This is more effective if you are using a headset to eliminate outside noise.

Discipline Is Needed.

Perhaps to some of you, this can be easily done and might have been doing it already. But to some of us, doing it and keeping on doing it can be a struggle. That's why we need the Big Daddy "D" of Discipline here.

Especially with the existence of mobile technology, a Big Bad Double "D" is just at the tip of our fingers... DIGITAL DISTRACTIONS.

Just Five Minutes More...

Image by natureaddict via Pixabay

Perhaps, you have heard this phrase often from gamers... or you have even used this phrase as well. You say this while playing mobile games or scrolling through social media like Facebook or Instagram and you knew that you needed to stop. Most of the time, the "Five Minutes" can turn into fifteen minutes or an hour. Before you know it you have spent more than two hours on Facebook or your mobile game.

Get Rid of Digital Distractions.

The best way to deal with digital distractions is to get rid of them. I have recently uninstalled a game that I know I will be hooked on again. (Yes, I played that game before and got rid of it and got tempted to install it again two weeks ago). However, there are apps that you can not easily get rid of. But there are some ways to limit them.

One way is to disable the 'Notifications' of your social media apps like Facebook.

Limit App Usage.

One thing I love about Huawei devices is the build Screen Time tool. Not only it can monitor how much time you spend on each app, but you can also set a limit on each app.

Digital Balance

Digital balance shows you how much time you have spent on your device and on each app. You can also set a time limit for each app everyday.

Away time

With Away time,all apps are blocked except for those set to "Always Allowed". This can be used to schedule regular break times and to stop using your phone or tablet for a while.

"Always allowed" are not blocked by the "Away Time".

With these features, I can block unnecessary apps from running at certain times. Or limit their use each day.

Android devices have a similar tool named "Digital Well Being and Parental Control". But I still have to explore how to use it effectively.

In Closing

Planning, discipline plus a little help from some apps can help you get rid of digital distractions. With these, you can focus on more productive things to do. I will be exploring more apps in the future that can help us to improve our productivity online.

Thanks For Reading.

Image Credits:

Lead Image: by Geralt Via Pixabay

Other images are screenshots of Screen Time.