It all started with a discussion on what to “fast from.” You see at our church we are doing a 21 day “fast.” You know “crucify the flesh.” Hear God better. That kind of thing. My pastor doesn’t want us “bragging” about our fast but mine is so weak, it really wouldn’t be bragging. I’m just going to give up bragging.
I mentioned it to my wife whose response was, “You should give up Facebook.” After 48 years of marriage, you would think she would run out of silly things to say. I gave my usual response to silly things, that would be an eye roll.
I would never give up Facebook. My 2253 friends (that is the real number. I’m a real friendly guy) hang on my every utterance. It did seem that Facebook was a bit of a distraction to which I had become addicted. What to do?
What I did decide to do was to make my friends less annoying. Wish that worked with the family. I was being notified every time someone burped on Facebook and I felt obliged to respond, like, comment, un-friend, something. I was getting notifications several times an hour and each time I would stop what I was doing. So I went to Facebook, Settings, Notifications and turned them all off. You may not want to be so radical. Now I go to Facebook when I have time and not when someone burps. It’s amazing how many of my “friends” have acid reflux. Since I’ve become less responsive to my friends, I think they respect me more. In fact, right after I did that someone hacked my account. Now that’s respect.
I liked this new found freedom so much I went on killing distractions. I picked up my iPhone and went to Settings – Notifications. Here I recommend being judicious. You probably want notifications from Weather Channel but maybe not from Candy Crush. You might want to wait to turn off notifications as they become annoying. This one is much more personal. So go where you will. Personally, I turned off about 90 percent of my notifications. So far I haven’t missed anything important…but how would I know?
Next, I attacked my inbox. I use Gmail but whatever you use there is probably something you can do about the emails you always just delete. It often seems like a good idea to request “updates” but the privilege is often abused. In Gmail, I can set up filters. I click on an email I don’t want. Click on Filters. Then I can set them to be deleted or “Skip the Inbox” which means they are archived. If archived, I can search them out if I ever need them. Be sure to apply the filter to all emails that fit the criteria and poof they are gone. Another distraction bites the dust.
Finally, I turned off my TV. I don’t mean permanently which might not be a bad idea. I used to work with the TV on. Talk about distracting. Now I just turn it on when I want to watch something. Then I turn it off again. I also reduced my ear bud time. I love to work, swim or drive listening to music. I haven’t stopped that. That would be ridiculous, but I have cut back. I am getting to really like listening to the birds and the rain. Well, for sure the birds, not so much the rain. Rain is an excuse to stick the earbuds back in.
It’s amazing how much more efficient I’ve been since going on this distraction murder spree. If you have some favorite distraction killers or comments or questions about mine. Let me know. Just don’t distract me. I’m busy writing a blog.
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