In our last blog, we looked at digital wellbeing, what it is and how we can start becoming more aware of our digital behaviour, at work, education, personally and socially.
Did you take up the challenge? If so, what did you learn and how do you feel about it? There is no right or wrong answer – it’s about how you feel and the impact it has on your life and those around you.
If you noticed that you spend an amount of time you are uncomfortable with or feelings you don’t like, what have you done about it?
Has it worked? If you’ve not done anything, let’s explore a few techniques that can help.
Techniques to help manage your digital wellbeing
Let’s consider your notifications and apps.
Notifications
- Switching off notifications is one of the simplest hack-backs. You’ll gain a lot more than you’ll miss out on – time, space, clarity for starters. This means sounds, badges and banners. Start with sounds if you find it too difficult.
- When at work, if you must be available constantly via email, slack, Teams, etc., it is time to challenge policy. Does your employer want constant access to you or enhanced creativity, thought and productivity?
- ‘The Right to Disconnect’ – does your organisation have a policy? If not, you could look into what other companies/countries are doing to allow employee boundaries and explore it with your organisation.
- If you are a manager/director – look at your policies and be bold. Don’t just allow disconnecting but encourage and model it!
- At school/college/uni, focusing on one thing at a time, your lectures or your social network improves the quality of your learning as well as your connecting. So, if you can’t manage (yet) switching off notifications, put your phone out of sight and on flight mode during periods when concentrating will really make a difference. Our brains really don’t multi-task well.
- When at work, if you must be available constantly via email, slack, Teams, etc., it is time to challenge policy. Does your employer want constant access to you or enhanced creativity, thought and productivity?
Apps
- App visibility: So, you’ve managed to switch off the notifications but still check your email or Instagram every 10 minutes. Time to hide it! Put apps where they are less visible, don’t open them or if they are really not helpful, just delete them. It is easy to remove your work email from your phone! A simple toggle lets you turn it off without deleting the account. The adage ‘out of sight, out of mind’ is really true! It’s so less tempting if we don’t even see the app.
- App deletion: Actually, this is a big topic. We’ll let it sit for now and see how you feel about it
What next?
And that brings me to the summary – keep asking yourself how you feel!
How do you feel about your behaviours?
How does the presence (and absence) of notifications make you feel?
How does a specific app make you feel?
How do you feel about someone else (notification design) telling you what to do etc.?
And, what else could you be spending your time on?
There are so many questions you can ask yourself, but the most important things overall are how you feel and the benefits or harms what you are doing bring you.