Are You Addicted? How To Overcome Digital ADD
You're like a cocaine addict needing a fix. You crave it. You need it. You'll DIE without it.
The two biggest culprits?
Your smartphone and watch.
They cause massive distraction. They take away your inability to be bored. They put pressure and overload on your mind.
I turned off the notifications on my Apple Watch because of the useless, intrusive updates.
I even got addicted to looking at the time, for no reason.
My phone is no better. I look at it for calls, text messages, Whatsapp, emails, or new articles I can read to keep my mind busy.
It's stupid.
It hurts productivity.
It creates a strain on my brain.
I call people out on it. Someone on my team and I went on a business trip.
We went out for a few drinks, and in 10 minutes, I saw him look at his watch five times.
He looked at his phone several other times.
I asked him, do you know how many times you look at your watch?
He had no clue.
It's a tick. A habit. An addiction.
It's rude. People are losing their attention and focus.
Delete social media apps from your phone. Give yourself certain times in the day to look at them, only on your computer.
In Cal Newport's book, Digital Minimalism, he had a great tip to remove all the useless apps from your phone.
Yes, social media is one of them.
If you can't do this, you're a dog without its ball.
Ball, ball, ball…
You're addicted.
You won't die, I promise.
Give yourself times in the day to look at your social media accounts or other media sites on your computer.
Don't go over the time allotted.
Are you concerned with the salad someone ate, the photoshopped picture of someone on Instagram, or the murder that happened in another state?
If you are, cool, but what value does it bring to your life? Is it helping you hit your goals?
It's a no for most of us.
Spend time doing something creative or learning.
Use the time you spend on social media to get your brain out of the drain and put it to use.
Just imagine the time you spend endlessly looking at your phone and putting it into learning or developing a new skill.
What would that do for you over a year?
If you're in sales, imagine spending the hour a day you spend mindlessly looking at your phone, and instead you watched sales training videos, you role played your calls and presentations, practiced perfecting your writing, or read a few of the top sales books.
What would that do to your sales career over a year?
You can apply this to anything.
You're allowed to be bored. Own it.
It's okay to be bored. Your mind will race. Ideas will flood your neural network. You'll get off your ass and do something.
I was sitting with my son on the patio one afternoon watching him play.
The urge hit me. Look at your phone (I have a habit of wanting to read articles from key people I follow).
It was right there.
Like an addict and his bag of blow sitting right in front of him.
I need it!
I resisted the urge and asked my son if he wanted to draw. He said yes and asked if I could draw him a snowman.
So I did.
I'm a terrible drawer.
I can barely read my own handwriting.
But I was impressed.
It tapped into my creative brain, which was great.
When you want to grab the digital, use it as a trigger to go outside and play with your kids.
The family and I were watching a movie after dinner. Since I live in Florida right now, the sun doesn't set until 8 pm.
It was beautiful out.
I looked at the tv and asked myself what this was doing for us.
Nothing.
A mind-numbing distraction.
I looked over to my oldest son and asked, do you want to go outside and play.
He said yes.
We spent the next hour wrestling in the grass, him and my wife kicked the soccer ball, and my youngest son sat on my chest and watched all the fun and madness.
If that's not better than watching tv or looking at a stupid post on social media, we have our priorities screwed up.
