Last week, I was working on my personal website, fully immersed in what some might call "the zone"—that state of intense focus where your mind is completely on the job. Everything was going great until... a friend sent me a text message.
So I checked my phone, replied to him, and when I tried to get back to work, I lost the f*cking connection I've had with my work.
I'm sure you've been there too! Deeply focused on something until a notification pops up and messes up you flow, feeling like an annoying interruption to what was once seamless work.
I promise, there's a scientific explanation to this:
Multi-tasking is fine for a computer. our human brains aren't made for it—we can only think about one thing at a time, and we're so bad at context switching. Just imagine a football player on the field texting or taking a selfie while playing, it just impossible to do both well!
Moreover, studies have shown that it often takes more than 25 minutes (on average) to resume a task after being interrupted. 25 MINUTES! GODDAMN!!
The Problem with Notifications
Now that we've understood why it matters to protect ourselves when we're "in the zone", let's talk about notifications.
In fact, there are two problems:
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Notifications were never designed for you to make your life better. They were made for apps to reach you easily. And they work perfectly; your phone buzzes many times a day for ads, for promotions, for messaging platforms urging you to reply to your friends/family/co-workers, or even strangers. And for every situation, you are notified immediately.
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Imagine if every social media platform were a real-life shop. You are supposed to chat with your family in the Facebook "shop", then switch to be with a friend in that Instagram "shop", then spend some time chatting with a date in that Tinder "shop", then be with a coworker on that Slack "shop", being with everybody, everywhere, all in less than 1 hour. That's crazy! And everyone wants a quick reply. I mean, are you serious??
What About Your "Own" Time?
You'll live about 80 years (on average). It's like you only have 80 pages in your life biography book, and if you're reading this, you've already used up quite a few. You don't have much time left. Shouldn't you spend it enjoying life instead of being stuck in this crazy cycle of answering, answering, and answering?
In fact, I was aware of this situation, and I've seen and experienced some solutions. Here's what I learned:
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Many CEOs I've met often have a human assistant at work who handles emails, LinkedIn, and more. It's a full-time job at this level!
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I'm not a big fan of the "Do Not Disturb" mode. Many notifications aren't useful either during work hours or outside of work hours. I prefer a solution that works 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
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I didn't disable all notifications because some are urgent and important—I won't deny it, notifications from banking apps are important. But I don't think it's the case for Pizza Hut deals or Uber promotions.
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For communication, I keep urgent access through "SMS/Calls", but if you use it for non-urgent matters, I'll block you :) And if you send me a meme on Instagram or if you comment to a LinkedIn post, don't expect an immediate response (unless I'm already on the app), but I'll check it as soon as I'm on it. Chill, mate! 😄
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For work, I only check messaging apps (like Hangouts, etc.) when I choose to, but sure, I do regular checks. Believe me, many things aren't as urgent as they seem.
Oh! I tried the Gmail shortcut in Arc Browser, but it kept turning red every time I got an email with a small preview of it. It was supposed to help, but it just ended up being annoying. -
At first, it feels weird not to have notifications anymore, a main phone screen with no red icons telling you that you have unread stuff. But trust me, once you start enjoying the peace that comes with it, you'll never go back. And the less