Doesn’t it feel great to be super responsive?
So gratifying to send an immediate “yes!” to your client about that meeting.
Or the first to report on your favorite movie in that Facebook group.
Or to “like” that tweet immediately after you get an alert about it?
If this is you my friend, consider yourself a UJ: An Urgency Junkie.
Urgency Junkie’s are driven, ambitious and overall go-getters.
That’s exactly why UJ’s like you react the moment you receive an email or a response to your latest post or tweet.
Urgency Addict, you need to stop this behavior.
Put an end to the constant reactiveness to every text, message, beep, ding or alert you hear or see.
TruthBomb: It is a total productivity buzz kill.
Research shows that we receive at least one email every four minutes and one other notification (like a text or tweet) every three minutes.
Feeling the need to react (yes, just reading the email or text counts), tears you away from your current focus.
Plus, think about this. Everyone is busy. Do they really need to hear from you as imperatively as you think they do?
Uh…NO.
If you’re struggling with:
- not getting enough of the important work done all day
- getting buried in emails and texts
- always feeling distracted and scattered…
….PUH-LEASE, for the love of all things efficient, turn off ALL your notifications.
Those little buggers are ruining your ability to get anything done and to reach your full potential.
I’m not kidding about the “addiction” part either.
With every response to a text, tweet, email, ding, beep, alert and notification, you get a dopamine hit (this controls the “pleasure” systems of the brain), making you feel pure enjoyment, which motivates you to want more, more, more!
It’s like a party going on in your brain. And every time you react or respond to a distraction you get rewarded with a shot of the party drug, which addicts you to this behavior.
So, good news – your addiction to reacting is not your fault.
Bad news – keeping your notifications on – is.
If turning off alerts from email, social media, news and anywhere else that is distracting you, is giving you heart palpitations – Relax.
Instead of living in constant reaction mode, block out time on your schedule throughout the day for these very tasks. Like:
- Block 10 minutes at the end of each hour to respond to your texts and tweets
- Block 15 minutes to respond to emails AFTER you’ve focused on a task for 40 minutes
- Block 30-60 minute increments to check and respond to email three times a day (the rest of the day your email tab is closed!)
Beyond staying focused, other powerful benefits to kicking those little notification buggers to the curb are:
- Higher energy: you’ll see a significant increase in energy level when your brain power doesn’t get sucked throughout the day
- More time: look forward to at saving at least an hour in your day (to get the same stuff done that you were before)
- Better results: reach your goals faster, with more clarity and quality
Will it be scary to turn off your notifications?
Of course it will!
Every change from your norm feels uneasy at first. But no change will come from doing things like you’ve always done them. So…
- Take a small but mighty step outside your comfort zone.
- Have faith in your ability to eliminate distractions that are holding you back.
- And have the courage to turn off those little notification buggers. (You will thank yourself later).
To getting more of the right things done!
Xo,
Mridu
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