Rewire your life — make this small change
The human of today is drowned in technology.
Do you feel guilty about the excessive use of smartphone? Imagine the last time how you felt when you used smartphone at work or home for over an hour or 30 mins and suddenly realize it’s not fair to work or your family? You suddenly realize that your spouse or kids better deserved this time than those meaningless and endless scrolling. The truth is that humans aren’t consuming smartphones, it is sadly the other way round.
I want to share my example of how I restricted the use of smartphone in my life and how it got my life (time) back.
If you are someone who checks his mobile phone at the start of the day, you should read this blog. The reality is that most of us begin our usual day by checking for office emails, WhatsApp messages, and we instinctively get tempted to respond to it and lose the first 30 minutes of our day which we can consume better in planning and exercising. Some of us are addicted to WhatsApp, some with FB/ LinkedIn, and a vast majority of us do appreciate the harmful effects of getting carried away from using technology but the credit goes to our intelligent mind that never gets short of adequate rationalization. If you are a teacher, the reason is that exams are nearing and it’s important to respond to the student’s queries. If you are a employed professional, you have an urgent deliverable/ communication that needs to go out. If you’re a consultant or trainer, it is your client that needs a quick response or constant connectivity is also significant if you need more work.
But what we don’t realize is how it is affecting our brain’s creative and imaginative power. It is not permitting us any time to pause, reflect and think. Be it about work or life. I tell you about myself, I used to be a regular book reader before going to sleep. My brother and I used to regularly have a bedside book with us, and I lost the practice 3–4 years ago due to the use of smartphone. I only read when I needed to prepare for a training program or lecture. Not only that, I lost the time and will to do exercise which also impacted the way I feel about my body.
Here is what I did:
- Treat smartphone as an extension of your laptop. The laptop is a device we usually use for and associate with work, and since smartphones are now mini-laptops with all that you have on a laptop is now shrunk to your palm. Therefore, this device also needs to be shut down when you shut down your laptop. A practical implication of this is that I open and shut down my smartphone and laptop both at the same time. They are both operated within office hours.
- Whatsapp is a tricky medium — it is used for both personal and official conversations. But to make things clear and simple, I now treat it as an official medium, and therefore, WhatsApp is only used on WhatsApp web on my laptop. To me, it is less sticky that way.
I know what your mind might be feeding you now — what happens if someone needs me for an urgent task post-office hours. The short answer is to revert to ‘the original phone’. After work, I keep my new iconic Nokia 3310 device on which is smart enough to make calls, receive calls, and send text messages if needed. Trust me, you will only send messages in this device if you REALLY NEED to — if you remember what texting was in pre-smartphone times ;)
Once I made this small change, I can tell you nothing really affected my work but it helped me reclaim my crucial 1–2 hours back, which I now use to read, learn new things, and make better and real connections with the people I love.
Distractions are so expensive. They will cost you time, opportunities & even your pre-destined place of greatness. Commit to the person you are becoming. And BE-come that!
Badami.
