Getting Your Mind Back

In the last week, we spoke about Digital Minimalism and looked at strategies around making technology use meaningful. We looked at how to look at apps, auditing them to understand if they add value. Go read the article if you haven’t already.

Ruthlessly manage notifications

App developers are like teachers in school: they think theirs is the only subject we study, when assigning homework. You sleep to an empty notification centre, but the moment you wake up, you realize you have seventy notifications looking at you with expectation writ large on their faces.

This has a few problems:

1. Unaddressed notifications make us feel anxious.
2. Social notifications right in the morning are your gateway to the time spiral.
3. Notifications, before you have had the chance to orient yourself after a night’s sleep, are like starting your car engine with the third gear engaged.

Apart from this, notifications fragment your attention and disrupt focus. They train your brain to seek immediate gratification (by tricking it into thinking that addressing a notification is a real task, for accomplishing which, you get your reward: dopamine). This seriously hinders deep work.

Let us now look at how to be ruthless about notifications.

Understanding notification hierarchy

Notifications can be divided into three categories:

1. Critical alerts: Notifications that truly need immediate attention. Such as security alerts or emergency messages.
2. Important updates: Notifications that are relevant, but do not need immediate attention. Such as calendar reminders.
3. Non-essential pings: Promotional offers, social media likes and comments, news headlines, etc.

If you analyse your notifications, you’ll see that most of your notifications are of the third category. On my phone, over 90% of the notifications were non-essential. In other words, I got ten times as many notifications as were needed. And so, here is what I did:

Taking back control with the Ruthless Approach

This is some work if you already have apps installed on your phone, but here goes:

1. Default to ‘Off’: Whenever I install and open a new app, the app prompts to allow notifications. I select ‘Deny’.
2. I then go into the app settings to see if there are notification filters.
   • If there are, I turn on notifications for the app and individually turn on notifications that I want, keeping everything else off.
   • If there aren’t, I see what kind of app it is, and decide whether to turn on notifications.
   • In any case, I evaluate whether I want to be notified immediately, or in a ‘Notification Summary’ that I get twice in a day.
3. If notification are kept on:
   • Critical alerts get to show me a banner.
   • Important updates go to my notification centre and lock screen without a banner.
     • Some of these go into the summary, depending on their importance.
   • Non-essential notifications remain off.
4. I keep the notification badge and sounds off for everything other than the critical alerts.

Leverage OS tools

Both iOS and Android have focus or do-not-disturb modes. These modes can be turned on at specific times or at specific locations. They allow you to silence all notifications and allow only designated notifications, or the other way around: allow all notifications while silencing specific notifications. Depending on what apps you have allowed notifications on and how you have set up notifications overall, you can set up your focus modes.

Here are the guides to get started with focus modes on iOS and Android.

Scheduled notification summaries are another feature you can use. (Not the ‘Apple Intelligence’ fiasco.) Group the less urgent notifications and review them at specific times. Here is the guide to set this up in iOS; I couldn’t find the Android equivalent of this.

On iOS, some apps have the ‘Time-Sensitive Notifications’ toggle. When the toggle is on, time-sensitive notifications deliver immediately, regardless of whether you have notification schedule turned or not for the app.

The One Touch, One Decision rule

When a notification appears, you must act on it. You have three options:

1. Respond to the notification.
2. Dismiss the notification.
3. Snooze the notification.

The idea here is to not let the notifications pile up. A long backlog of notifications is stressful.

But as you might understand now, before you implement this rule, it is necessary to go through the steps mentioned above. Otherwise, you would be addressing notifications all day.

Uninstall noise-makers

If an app’s primary function is to bombard you with non-essential notifications, consider whether it truly belongs in your life. Daily Hunt was one such app when I first (and last) installed it. Absolute nightmare. Lasted only a few hours on my phone (and life).

A note on messaging apps

We have been talking about notifications at the app level—determining their hierarchy. The same formula applies to people and groups that you get messages from. I have all group chats silenced by default, with a few exceptions. I check them when I have the time and the inclination. Put a note in those chats requesting people to call you in case of anything urgent. They’ll frown, but to those whom you matter will understand.

Embracing intentionality

One is more intentional with technology for a reason. This reason must be your own. Everyone has different reasons. Some examples are:

• More focus
• Better relationships
• Greater well-being
• Enhanced privacy

You could have your reason. Think about it.

The declutter exercise

As discussed in the previous article, look at which apps and accounts really bring value to your life. Discard everything else. This gives you the biggest benefit with the smallest effort.

Set intentional usage rules

Like I said in the previous article, I check the news for fifteen minutes in a day. Similarly, set up your time blocks and time limits for such apps. Time blocks because that will help you establish a routine and therefore, you can tell your brain to wait until the time to use those apps. Time limit will limit exposure and prevent your productive time from slipping into the black hole.

Create tech-free zones and times

I have recently started doing this. I keep all tech away for thirty minutes a day. Doing this is hard. But during this time, I don’t get to touch anything electronic. Other than the e-reader and the camera.

I am trying to not use tech in my bed. No phone, tablet or laptop. Another tech-free zone could be your bathroom. Sitting too long on the toilet seat is linked with health risks such as weakened pelvic muscles and haemorrhoids.¹

Be mindful of new technology

Let’s face it: new tech is exciting. I am usually one of the early adopters of new tech. But these days, I apply the brakes on the urge to try something new. I weigh the potential impact on my time, attention and privacy.

Regularly re-evaluate

Absolutely critical. Every month or so, I go back and check:

1. Which apps are needed, which aren’t.
2. Notification settings; to see if I can cut something down.
3. Access to data such as location, contacts, files, photos, etc.

This periodic review is necessary to ensure you are utilizing tech to the fullest, while at the same time, respecting your own time and well-being.

Real-world benefits to the minimalist digital life

Let us now look at what we actually gain from this exercise:

Improved focus and productivity

I had serious attention deficit before I got started on this journey, even though clinically, I am neurotypical. I could not focus on work, or sit down to write a piece like this, or edit a 30-minute video. At one point, I found it difficult to finish watching a film.

But after I have learnt to slow myself down, I am able to focus on my work for as long as 90 minutes. (With a ten-minute break in between where I don’t touch any gadget; I enjoy a cup of tea or take a walk.)

Improved mental well-being

I sit down for conversations with the family or friends these days. I am a lot less anxious, and I often get bored. Which is a good thing because when I do, I can let my mind wander about random thoughts; the core of creativity.

I have managed to learn a lot more, and I am mindful of what I’m doing. Days (well, mostly) don’t slip by in a blur. And my partner was surprised she was not the only one who could recollect so many details from our dates, movie nights and what not.

Stronger real-world relationships

Extroverted or introverted, we need people around us. The extroverted draw their motivation externally from others, but the introverted also have their circles; smaller but deeper.

Regardless of what social media companies would have us believe, any given human being only has enough bandwidth to nurture about 150 relationships at a time.² Shifting your focus to the real world rather than the made-up (and curated) virtual one helps us form more meaningful bonds because you now have more time and attention for these face-to-face interactions.

Enhanced privacy and security

Attack surface. The more data you have out there, the more of it can be used. By limiting the data, you are limiting the attack surface. When you don’t upload a pic from every place you go, Meta cannot read the EXIF and find out where you went. If it doesn’t know where you went, it can’t effectively profile you on that front.

Secondly, as we discussed in the first article in the series, such data will not be part of a data breach. This means better privacy and security. Conscious choices intrinsically reduce your vulnerability.

Reclaimed time and energy

Less time spent on mindless activities (such as social media scrolling) translates to more time for activities that add value to your life, or to activities you truly value.

Just as digital minimalism enhances our overall well-being and privacy, so too can carefully configuring our devices’ operating systems. Join us the next week as we delve into specific privacy settings for Android and iOS to further empower your digital control.

• Tags:
• Minimalism
• Control
• Privacy
• Security
• Digital