According to a study, the average person touches their phone 2,617 times, checks email 74 times and receives 46 notifications. When you’re tied to your phone and constantly texting and emailing, you invest time that cannot be allocated to other, more important, tasks.
Steve Glaveski, author of “Employee to Entrepreneur: How to Earn Your Freedom and Do Work That Matters,” offers a smart solution in an article he wrote for Harvard Business Review — to “disable all notifications on both your desktop and smartphone.” If you’re serious about not letting push notifications ruin your productivity, follow the five steps below!
1. Know the Difference Between Activity and Productivity
We either hear it or say it all the time: “I’m overwhelmed!” “I have so much to do!” “I’m so busy!” Welcome to the real world. But there’s a difference between activity (being in constant motion) and productivity (getting important things done). Setting priorities means identifying just the top five things that absolutely need to be completed.
2. Set Expectations
Back in the day, when faxes and telexes were the latest technologies, these communiques were sent out during office hours. If a fax was sent from one country to another, there was no expectation of a reply until sometime in their business day and after they had a chance to think about it. Now, people are on text and email 24/7. In addition to being sleep-deprived, no one has the time to think things through before replying immediately. Set realistic exceptions and don’t expect immediate replies. To be safe and courteous, let them know you’re not looking for an answer until the next morning (or later).
3. Use Your Time as Best as Possible
Time is scarce and like most valuable resources, there’s never enough of it. The only solution is allocation. Start by putting your 168 hours per week into “life buckets.” It’ll vary depending on your lifestyle, but might look something like: Work, family, spirituality (or religion), health, recreation and social responsibility. Once you’ve created life bucket list, stick to it!
4. Control Your Own Calendar
So many employees walk into the office to find their day has been scheduled with meetings every half hour. Not all of these meetings are necessary, let alone take 30 minutes or more. Evaluate the purpose of each meeting and see which ones can be done through a brief conversation by phone or email. Smart managers know to observe the details of everything on their calendar, even if they have an assistant.
5. Kill the Reply All
This is a real time-waster. An email that takes 15 minutes to read is sent to a string of 40 people. Fifteen minutes multiplied by 40 people is 10 hours that could be spent on other things. Surely, not all 40 people need to be on that string — and certainly not on the “reply all” responses of “got it, thanks”.
The always-connected world isn’t going to change, so you must set your own limits and priorities. There’s no way you’re going to get everything done, so you better reflect on what matters most. And turning off push notifications is a step in the right direction.