How I Am Making Tech Work For Me
Intro
I’ve been working on cultivating better habits, and to do that I started with starting to cut out the bad habits. I briefly explained why I’m doing this in my last post, “Redefining My Relationship With Technology”, but I didn’t explain how I’m doing it.
I started researching habits and how they impact time management. My main resources have been Charles Duhigg’s, The Power of Habit, and Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky. Duhigg outlines how habits are formed, but also the deep neurological patterns habits form. A habit is water. They carve paths in your brain that never really go away, and that is why it’s so easy to fall back into old habits. The best way to make a new habit is to change an old one — or redefine it. In Make Time Knapp and have devised a four-step framework and 80 tactics to “find focus and build energy” throughout your day. The framework is easy enough, the steps are: highlight, laser and energize, and reflect. It is easy to go through life on autopilot. It’s easy to go through weeks, or even months, and later look back on them and realize you’ve accomplished almost nothing meaningful. I know that’s happened to me, and I’m sure it’s happened to you. We have convinced ourselves that by reading news articles and watching an educational video that we’re being productive, but without action it all means nothing. This is the framework that I am adopting to re-work my day.
Firstly, it is essential to choose a daily highlight, or, at minimum, a weekly Highlight. That is, one meaningful goal that you want to accomplish. Stop putting it off for “someday” and make it today. My highlight right now is to write more. I love writing, but it can be hard to carve out time to sit down and do it. This is where the other steps of the framework come in. Laser is all about getting focused and staying focused. It takes 23 minutes to re-focus after a distraction — there is no such thing as a quick phone call, or a short trip to the Twitter timeline. A simple 5 minute distraction can create a time-crater in your day, and that is why it’s important to develop better focus habits. The meat of Make Time is spent discussing laser habits and how to remain Energized throughout the day, and that’s what the meat of this post will be about. But, it is also important to Reflect at the end of the day. In part, I am rolling my highlight and my reflection together. I reflect by writing, and thus get better at being in the habit of writing. What does any of this have to do with making tech work for me though? These are the foundational pillars that I’m building my better tech habits upon.
iPhone Wrangling
First, my iPhone had to get dumbed down. I was inspired by Jake Knapp and his distraction-free iPhone. I didn’t go full blown Knapp, but definitely far enough that I made my friends and family blink. Like Knapp I got an iPhone in 2007, but it’s taken me a little bit longer to reconsider how I use it. When was the last time you ignored how you use something daily for 12 years? Basically, I have been long overdue for an iPhone shake-up.
I started with deleting all of my social media apps, and it felt good. So good that I went ahead and deleted just about everything else on my phone that isn’t essential. I have gone from having 200+ apps on my phone to 63, and I won’t be surprised when it’s less than that by the end of the year. While it’s nice to have any app I could possibly need on my phone at any given time, it’s far from necessary. It’s not hard to re-download an app when I need it, and it’s just another way to force me to make more purposeful decisions with my phone.
In addition, I took control of my notifications. The default for notifications is a never ending firehose of apps vying for your attention, and I’ve made it a more purposeful trickle. For instance I used to get over 250+ notifications a day keeping me up to date on breaking news, sports scores, stock prices, tweets, instagram, snapchat, and so many more; but now I average a little over 100 a day from text messages and a daily weather update.
In addition to all of this, I am also leaving my phone behind more. It’s a jarring experience at first. I still feel like I’ve lost my phone when I’m out and reach into my phone-less pocket, but it’s not a bad thing. It’s allowing me to have more meaningful experiences that I’m actually experiencing rather than filtering them through my phone screen. I’ve been running more, and I know it sounds like a crazy idea, but running without music or a podcast is freeing. I’m just giving my mind more time to wander instead of constantly bombarding it with new content.
The next step of leaving my phone behind is not taking it to bed with me. I have always been a voracious reader, but since the dawn of iPhones and iPads I’ve taken to falling asleep too regularly Netflix and Twitter. That’s changing this year. I’m not taking my screens to bed anymore. The blue light from our devices wreaks havoc on our brains before bed. I’m trying to get more restful sleep so that I can wake up earlier and more refreshed.
Getting Some Headspace
I’m trying to be better this year. That means doing more of somethings (running, having a stable sleep schedule, eating better, etc.), and less of others (staring at my phone and basically the opposite of everything in the list above). One of the new habits I’m trying to work into my routine is meditating with Headspace. The point of meditation isn’t inherently to be better, and it’s definitely not the stereotypical vision of meditating — you know the one where you sit on cushions on the floor with crossed legs in a state of perfect stillness. It’s more about cultivating awareness and compassion (I’ve been told by a number of people I lack one of these, but I’ll let you guess). It’s not necessarily about controlling or emptying the mind, but more about being at ease with the mind. It’s also 40% off for the year right now, and I figured for $5 a month I could meditate instead of buy a cup of coffee.
Track Those Activities
I’ve had a couple of different activity trackers and I’ve tried using my phone to track runs, but none of it has stuck. When Apple Watch Series 4 was announced I knew I needed it, but I promised myself it would be on the condition that I would exercise more. We’ve all made this empty promise to ourselves many times before, but I’m making good on it. The utility of activity tracking differs from person-to-person, but I’ve found the positive reinforcement and the gamification of fitness with Apple Watch to finally do the trick. I have a pretty attainable daily Move goal, but it’s still at a threshold where I have to go on a run or a walk to hit it. That being said, it is pretty easy to close all your rings and not put in a whole lot of work, and that’s where personal commitment comes in. Part of my effort to be *better* is to run more and work out more. I have goals for 2019, and I need to start working out to accomplish them.
I might add a sleep-tracking app to the routine soon, but for now I’m keeping tech away from my bed. I need to actually figure out how to be a semi-decent sleeper before I start tracking it.
Conclusion
Long-term change doesn’t happen quickly, and I don’t expect change to happen overnight. These are just some of the changes I’m making in 2019, but I’ve already started noticing a difference in the first 2 weeks of the year. I’ve made it past Quitter’s Day, and I don’t plan on stopping anytime soon. 2019 is the year of long-term change.
