The one change that worked: I set my phone to ‘do not disturb’ three years ago – and have never looked back
-
I've been activelly managing my mobile phone pretty much like that since the 90s because after getting my first mobile phone I quickly figured out that if allowed to the thing just turned into a source of near-constant urgent non-essential alerts, in other words, unnecessary stress.
Decades ago, I learned about the whole 4 quadrants thing in management:
https://www.testprepchampions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/4quadrantstimemanagement-1024x768.jpgYou're supposed to work mostly in the "Important Non-Urgent" quadrant as much as possible and mobile phones if not properly managed constantly pull you to the "Not Important, Not Urgent" which is the worst quadrant to be working in.
In this perspective the problem with mobile phones (and e-mail also to a great extent have a similar problem) is that all notifications/calls look equally important from the outside, so you have to stop doing what you're doing to check them because they might actually be stuff from the "Important and Urgent" quadrant, but unless you tightly manage it, most of them are not, not least because, if you push back on it hard the people who constantly work in the "Non-Important, Non-Urgent" quadrant (i.e. those who are bad at managing their own time) will make that your problem too.
So what do I do to manage it so that my phone is not a source of stress:
- Calls to my phone for work subjects outside work always (this is important) get a "I'll talk to you when I'm back at work". You have to inflexibly refuse to handle work stuff outside work otherwise the number of work calls will just creep up. Also do it from the very start of a new job: your work colleagues need to be trained to expect that from you and you need to provide them with an actual positive out (i.e. "I'll talk to you when I'm back at work" and actually do it). If an employer needs you to provided out of hours support, that has to be in the contract and there has to be a work phone just for that which will be ON during the hours contracted for that and OFF otherwise.
- Call to my phone for work subjects during work time get triaged and non-urgent or non-important stuff get's back a "I'm busy now, I'll talk to you about this when I have the time" if I indeed have something more important or urgent on the plate. Again, train your colleagues to expect that if they call you with non-urgent or non-important stuff there you will not be giving them that sweet feeling of having dumped the problem on somebody else - the objective here is not to "deny service", it's to as much as possible have other people do the triaging for you so that you're only interrupted by things which are worth it.
- E-mail is for non-urgent stuff: when I have the time I'll look into it. On my phone E-mail arrival notifications will be turned off. Again, work colleagues need to be trained by you to expect exactly that from you. Be organised yourself and have regular "check e-mail" times - this is part of getting other people do the triaging for you.
- All application notifications default to OFF. Very few ever get turned ON and if they abuse it they get turned OFF on the settings. The sending of a notification by an application is a choice of whomever is the maker of the app, hence follows their choices and generally serves their purposes, which means that most application notifications are in some way or another a marketing choice, either directly some kind of sales pitch or indirectly to "remind you of that app", which means they're most definitelly neither urgent nor important. Only a handfull of applications deserve to have notification enabled IMHO, and sometimes even some of those abuse that and stop deservings it.
TL;DR - Triage things so that you're as much as possible spend your time doing Important Non-Urgent things (You go after the non-urgent to reduce the number of things that through doing nothing about it whilst they're not urgent, go from potential problem into "Oh, shit everything is burning!"). Activelly segregate contact channels based on the triaged level of subjects. Train your colleagues from the start to expect just that (i.e. that e-mails don't promptly get responded) and always push back from the start against misuse of contact channels (i.e. non-urgent non-important stuff coming via phone gets a response along the lines of "I'm busy with more important stuff, so send me an e-mail about that and I'll look into it when I have the time"), so that essentially other people will be triaging that stuff for you before they even contact you. As for smartphone Apps, by default assume that notification sending is driven by Marketing considerations of the maker of that app and hence are neither important nor urgent (personally I default to notifications OFF for most apps).
Thanks for bringing up the quadrants. I've been aware of them but feel like I haven't been using them optimally to figure out how to best focus my time and energy. Somehow I didn't realize important/non-urgent was the primary one to focus on...
-
Thanks for bringing up the quadrants. I've been aware of them but feel like I haven't been using them optimally to figure out how to best focus my time and energy. Somehow I didn't realize important/non-urgent was the primary one to focus on...
Well, as /u/[email protected] pointed out, people tend to be forced to, at the very least, work in the Urgent and Important quadrant because that's what one has to give top priority to, no matter what (and part of the work of triaging the demands on one's time is to make sure one doesn't miss or delay things from that quadrant because of too many Non Important stuff interrupting one's work).
However you want to try and get yourself in a situation were Non-Urgent Important stuff is what you do most, because amongst other things by tacking potential problems in Important domains before they become Urgent, you have a lot more space to do it properly, something which in turn avoids further problems due to one's half-arsed solutions for Urgent not working anymore of breaking easilly when touched.
In summary, Non-Urgent Important is the ideal, Urgent Important is what gets top priority, Non-Important is what you do when there's nothing in the other 2 quadrants to do.
-
I've been activelly managing my mobile phone pretty much like that since the 90s because after getting my first mobile phone I quickly figured out that if allowed to the thing just turned into a source of near-constant urgent non-essential alerts, in other words, unnecessary stress.
Decades ago, I learned about the whole 4 quadrants thing in management:
https://www.testprepchampions.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/4quadrantstimemanagement-1024x768.jpgYou're supposed to work mostly in the "Important Non-Urgent" quadrant as much as possible and mobile phones if not properly managed constantly pull you to the "Not Important, Not Urgent" which is the worst quadrant to be working in.
In this perspective the problem with mobile phones (and e-mail also to a great extent have a similar problem) is that all notifications/calls look equally important from the outside, so you have to stop doing what you're doing to check them because they might actually be stuff from the "Important and Urgent" quadrant, but unless you tightly manage it, most of them are not, not least because, if you push back on it hard the people who constantly work in the "Non-Important, Non-Urgent" quadrant (i.e. those who are bad at managing their own time) will make that your problem too.
So what do I do to manage it so that my phone is not a source of stress:
- Calls to my phone for work subjects outside work always (this is important) get a "I'll talk to you when I'm back at work". You have to inflexibly refuse to handle work stuff outside work otherwise the number of work calls will just creep up. Also do it from the very start of a new job: your work colleagues need to be trained to expect that from you and you need to provide them with an actual positive out (i.e. "I'll talk to you when I'm back at work" and actually do it). If an employer needs you to provided out of hours support, that has to be in the contract and there has to be a work phone just for that which will be ON during the hours contracted for that and OFF otherwise.
- Call to my phone for work subjects during work time get triaged and non-urgent or non-important stuff get's back a "I'm busy now, I'll talk to you about this when I have the time" if I indeed have something more important or urgent on the plate. Again, train your colleagues to expect that if they call you with non-urgent or non-important stuff there you will not be giving them that sweet feeling of having dumped the problem on somebody else - the objective here is not to "deny service", it's to as much as possible have other people do the triaging for you so that you're only interrupted by things which are worth it.
- E-mail is for non-urgent stuff: when I have the time I'll look into it. On my phone E-mail arrival notifications will be turned off. Again, work colleagues need to be trained by you to expect exactly that from you. Be organised yourself and have regular "check e-mail" times - this is part of getting other people do the triaging for you.
- All application notifications default to OFF. Very few ever get turned ON and if they abuse it they get turned OFF on the settings. The sending of a notification by an application is a choice of whomever is the maker of the app, hence follows their choices and generally serves their purposes, which means that most application notifications are in some way or another a marketing choice, either directly some kind of sales pitch or indirectly to "remind you of that app", which means they're most definitelly neither urgent nor important. Only a handfull of applications deserve to have notification enabled IMHO, and sometimes even some of those abuse that and stop deservings it.
TL;DR - Triage things so that you're as much as possible spend your time doing Important Non-Urgent things (You go after the non-urgent to reduce the number of things that through doing nothing about it whilst they're not urgent, go from potential problem into "Oh, shit everything is burning!"). Activelly segregate contact channels based on the triaged level of subjects. Train your colleagues from the start to expect just that (i.e. that e-mails don't promptly get responded) and always push back from the start against misuse of contact channels (i.e. non-urgent non-important stuff coming via phone gets a response along the lines of "I'm busy with more important stuff, so send me an e-mail about that and I'll look into it when I have the time"), so that essentially other people will be triaging that stuff for you before they even contact you. As for smartphone Apps, by default assume that notification sending is driven by Marketing considerations of the maker of that app and hence are neither important nor urgent (personally I default to notifications OFF for most apps).
7 Habits?
-
7 Habits?
No idea. I learned it from a manager who went into a management course, was taught it and not even a week later was back in full reactive mode treating any new thing coming in as Urgent Important even when non-urgent or at least non-important, as she had been doing before going to that course.
Let's just say she was a lousy manager.
-
This post did not contain any content.
Seems a lot of comments are arguing about this as if it's an all-or-nothing. I use a dumbphone (for many reasons), but even it allows me to configure DND settings to allow certain phone numbers to audibly ring through. Surely smartphones can do the same? I find being with someone whose phone is constantly making noises to be very irritating--and more so if they interrupt our conversation to check it every time.
My not-so-dumb flip phone also has 3 indicator lights on the closed cover -- red if battery is low, a green envelope if I have a message or other notification, and a blue phone if I've had a call (even those can be disabled). So I don't have to touch it or do anything other than glance in its direction to know I have a message. "Smart" phones can do such simple things as this, can't they?
-
Well, as /u/[email protected] pointed out, people tend to be forced to, at the very least, work in the Urgent and Important quadrant because that's what one has to give top priority to, no matter what (and part of the work of triaging the demands on one's time is to make sure one doesn't miss or delay things from that quadrant because of too many Non Important stuff interrupting one's work).
However you want to try and get yourself in a situation were Non-Urgent Important stuff is what you do most, because amongst other things by tacking potential problems in Important domains before they become Urgent, you have a lot more space to do it properly, something which in turn avoids further problems due to one's half-arsed solutions for Urgent not working anymore of breaking easilly when touched.
In summary, Non-Urgent Important is the ideal, Urgent Important is what gets top priority, Non-Important is what you do when there's nothing in the other 2 quadrants to do.
That is pretty much how I feel - like I'm putting out the fires every day, but not actually progressing on what I want or plan to do. It's a tough balancing act that I'm still trying to figure out... time management is a tough skill to learn when it doesn't come easily or naturally.
-
That is pretty much how I feel - like I'm putting out the fires every day, but not actually progressing on what I want or plan to do. It's a tough balancing act that I'm still trying to figure out... time management is a tough skill to learn when it doesn't come easily or naturally.
Yeah, that stuff it's pretty hard to learn and it's worse when you've never worked in an environment where people in general tend to practice good time management - a lot of thing you would normally not risk doing because they look like time wasting turn out to be the key to saving time and problems (which in turn, are also time when you're the one that has to fix them) later, but only after you've seen it in action can you know for sure that such things will in overall save you time (and can actually justify doing them to others because you've seen them actually work).
I was luck that after 2 years working, having chosen to leave my country I ended up in The Netherlands, and the Dutch are very good at working in an efficient and organized way that properly respects work-life balance, so I learned a lot from them and watching and learning how they worked and the results of it, gave me a whole new perspective into the work practices from my first job which until then I though were "the way everybody works in this area".
-
Yeah, that stuff it's pretty hard to learn and it's worse when you've never worked in an environment where people in general tend to practice good time management - a lot of thing you would normally not risk doing because they look like time wasting turn out to be the key to saving time and problems (which in turn, are also time when you're the one that has to fix them) later, but only after you've seen it in action can you know for sure that such things will in overall save you time (and can actually justify doing them to others because you've seen them actually work).
I was luck that after 2 years working, having chosen to leave my country I ended up in The Netherlands, and the Dutch are very good at working in an efficient and organized way that properly respects work-life balance, so I learned a lot from them and watching and learning how they worked and the results of it, gave me a whole new perspective into the work practices from my first job which until then I though were "the way everybody works in this area".
Envious, that sounds like a great experience. Trial by doing is probably the best way for most people to learn. I'm very verbal, but even for me, reading things doesn't necessarily make it stick any easier.
-
Seems a lot of comments are arguing about this as if it's an all-or-nothing. I use a dumbphone (for many reasons), but even it allows me to configure DND settings to allow certain phone numbers to audibly ring through. Surely smartphones can do the same? I find being with someone whose phone is constantly making noises to be very irritating--and more so if they interrupt our conversation to check it every time.
My not-so-dumb flip phone also has 3 indicator lights on the closed cover -- red if battery is low, a green envelope if I have a message or other notification, and a blue phone if I've had a call (even those can be disabled). So I don't have to touch it or do anything other than glance in its direction to know I have a message. "Smart" phones can do such simple things as this, can't they?
I have my phone set to DND at all times, and I can confirm that you can allow certain notifications to come through. Only important notifications and calls from contacts come in. My peace of mind improved quite a bit with this change.
-
I have my phone set to DND at all times, and I can confirm that you can allow certain notifications to come through. Only important notifications and calls from contacts come in. My peace of mind improved quite a bit with this change.
That's good. Some of the comments were making me wonder!
I think some people may not realize how detrimental it can be to their quality of life or stress level, to have something constantly interrupting their attention or that it's something that can be controlled without having to completely cut themselves off.
-
I disable notifications for most of my apps anyway, but the neural connections are still there and hard to undo. Breaking them is a long process in my experience... or maybe I reinforce them too much still.
Bro ya need to use your neuralizer
-
As a Dr’s kid nothing you have said sounds unusual for your job. My dad didnt like getting calls asking for free care but he was more than happy to run to the neighbors house when my buddy, aged 5, called at 3am and said “The baby is blue!”. That baby is 45 years old now and not blue.
Tbh suddenly changing skin color is nothing normal for humans
-
imagine being the emergency contact for loved ones and responsible for small children and elderly, and just ghosting them in a clutch because you cant be bothered to configure your notification settings. fuck your life.
Yeah, they solved that over a decade ago. Both iOS and Android let you override DnD for contacts and or repeat callers.
-
This post did not contain any content.
Late to the party, then. Most people I know disabled them a decade ago and didnt look back.
-
This post did not contain any content.
I mean, you can set DND to be on at certain times so that, short of an emergency that is sent tagged as such, you won't get notifications during certain hours of the day or night. Y'all don't need to get all bohemian self righteous with the whole "I've disconnected from the world through my phone and have never looked back". Seriously, get over yourself. We all have our crosses to bare and DND is a great feature for some "leave me alone" time but there's no need to become a virtual hermit in order to have some peace and quiet.
-
Late to the party, then. Most people I know disabled them a decade ago and didnt look back.
Been on silent for over a decade too, but in an outlier and friends phones are so damn annoying.
-
This post did not contain any content.
Removing Google Play Services did the trick for me. No more marketing notifications, just bliss and essential notifs from foss apps that don't use Google. No more compromise with these fucking corps.
-
This post did not contain any content.
Own your notifications or they will surely own you.
-
I changed mine to all calls after a friend called 2am from a cell and I didn't get it. Still only certain texts though
Should have it set to repeated calls from any number ring through.
-
Seems a lot of comments are arguing about this as if it's an all-or-nothing. I use a dumbphone (for many reasons), but even it allows me to configure DND settings to allow certain phone numbers to audibly ring through. Surely smartphones can do the same? I find being with someone whose phone is constantly making noises to be very irritating--and more so if they interrupt our conversation to check it every time.
My not-so-dumb flip phone also has 3 indicator lights on the closed cover -- red if battery is low, a green envelope if I have a message or other notification, and a blue phone if I've had a call (even those can be disabled). So I don't have to touch it or do anything other than glance in its direction to know I have a message. "Smart" phones can do such simple things as this, can't they?
I miss blinkenlights on smartphones. They went out of style circa 2015, and now all you get is the screen turning on momentarily, or some variant of a dim always-on view that wastes battery.
