On average, a person uses their phone for more than three and a half hours daily. But what do consume at that time are we always glued to the phone just for work-related stuff or we are just procrastinating on it. In this blog post, I am going to share the tactics of using your phone productively so that you would spend the least amount of your time on the phone procrastinating. This blog contains ideas from the book "Make time" by John Zeratsky and Jake Knapp. Check out that book or you can check out our book notes here.
Tag your phone
This is a pretty weird thing. You have to tag your phone as a productivity device. When you tag anything it becomes permanent or at least for some time it stays in your mind that you have to follow it for a little while. So when you tag your phone as a productivity device you get the feeling of doing something productive when you pick up your phone. You can even add a wallpaper saying some good words about productivity this can make your process easier because whenever you will pick up your phone you will see it and feel like "ok I am using my phone for some kind of productive cause and also there is some reason behind using my phone". When you tag your phone as a productive device you should have a mindset that you can only pick up your phone when there is some reason behind it or an actual cause to use your phone. The usual cause can be anything like texting or calling your friend or going through the messages or emails and not just scrolling through Facebook and watch shorts of some TV shows. Read our blog here on how tagging can change your mindset.
Make a procrastination folder.
This is what I discovered last month when I was struggling with getting things done. So what I did was I made a folder in which I added all the apps that were causing distraction in my work. It can be anything like Netflix, YouTube, Google Chrome. The apps which were sucking my attention were all added into that folder and I named that folder 'procrastination'. So whenever you open that folder you will come to your senses that you are procrastinating and when I notice it I exit the folder and get back to my work. When you are not able to see those apps in your regular apps slide you forget about it. The more you notice anything higher its probability to be used. Also, the apps which you regularly use should be kept on your first apps slide [or screen] when you do that you will notice only the useful apps on your list. Keep the procrastination folder 3 to 4 slides away from your usual apps slide. So whenever you feel like you procrastinating you will have to swipe 3 to 4 slides to reach there.
Get rid of social media
The most important step you should take if you want to be productive and improve your social life is by deleting all the social media apps from your phone. Yes, you can also improve your social life by building offline relations. We need real friends in our life rather than having 200 to 300 followers on Instagram. Also when it comes to procrastination social media plays a major role. These apps are designed in such a way so that people will be glued for longer intervals of time. They spend almost half of their revenue to make the app more addictive. They take help from psychologists to know what kind of improvement they need to make people stick to their phones. In the book 'Make time' the authors call social media and streaming platforms the infinity pools which can be scrolled again and again but still you don't reach the very end. Deleting all the social media apps from your phone will make you feel better and you will start thinking more clearly. You might feel like you are missing out on something but actually, you miss nothing it is really important to make people understand that social media is consuming their attention, and your attention is someone else's money. When you give attention to a post or the ads which appear before a YouTube video people get paid for it. The motive is to become productive and not to let them earn money [people have a right to monetize]. Also, people don't care on social media you might feel that they are interested in you because of the life you have but they don't and if people really care about you like your friends or family members they will call you or you can also call them rather than just sending Happy Birthday text messages. Once you delete all the social media apps from the phone you will have to download them again or else you will have to log in to your account which becomes a hectic task and adds in the effort to manually typing the password again and again. And humans follow the law of least effort "less the effort more probability to get it done". You can check out social media once or twice a week I am not telling you to quit it forever but having the app on the phone can make you waste more time on it.
The internet myth
Right now we are using the internet as a basic need including food, clothing, and shelter. China is the top country using internet services with 454 million internet users followed by India with 560 users and the USA 313.2 users according to this report. But what do people do most of their time on the internet? Almost 74% share of the internet users consume online videos, scroll social services, and shopping services online. Internet wasn't made for entertainment purposes [though it might also be a reason]. It was made to connect people worldwide and the internet is the best source of knowledge where you can learn any skill for free put your content out and reach out to as many people as possible. But we aren't doing that thing we are mass procrastinating on the internet and also people are doing unethical things like net banking frauds and hacking social media accounts. Ayush Jaiswal the founder and CEO of Pesto tech had quoted that "Make the internet your friend learn different skills from it because the future belongs to the people having skills and not having a degree because that's what people actually care about". You can indeed learn a ton of skills from the internet you just need to change your algorithm and search for something else apart from entertainment. Take a note of what you consume on the internet.
Gain more clarity
Sometimes we consume so much content like TV and web shows and just keep thinking about it as our mind is running faster and when we have to do some slow pace work like meditation or reading a book we are unable to focus we are constantly in that rut of digital media and that why our thinking becomes blur we lose our mental clarity and also we lose the ability to get something done. To gain more clarity you can do some kind of digital detox that will reset your mind or you can use the screens as little as possible. If your job is a typical 9 to 5 thing where you have to sit in front of your pc the whole time then once you are done with your job get rid of the screens. Look around the world feel the and consume the environment. Take a break from your screens, have a meetup with your friends, or chat with your kids and partner. Try to form the bonds offline. Instead of watching the videos and TV shows online, have a video call with your friends and family members. I and my friends have a chat every Sunday about anything which comes to our mind sometimes we chat about technologies, cryptocurrencies, or even about our life throughout the week. Have these kinds of sessions with the people you love your mood will automatically be enlightened and you might even feel energetic.
I hope these things would have helped you to change your relationship with your phone and other devices. Remember that you are using the phone and not the phone using you. After all, it's always the thing that you choose. Distractions are everywhere you need to choose rightly and make your destiny.
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Till then cheers ✌️
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