Day 8: Say No to Notifications
Welcome to Day 8 – and week 2! — of the Phone Breakup Challenge. Last week, we focused on establishing a baseline and setting goals. This week, we’re going to make changes to our phones and our physical environments to make it easier to set—and keep—boundaries with our phones.
Today’s assignment is to drastically reduce the number of notifications you receive. I actually call notifications “interruptions” – because that’s what they do: they interrupt whatever we’re doing and get us to pay attention to an app.
Imagine that you’re in the midst of a priceless or enjoyable experience—say, spending time with your best friend, or reading a bedtime story to your child—and ask yourself: what is worth being interrupted for? Then go into your phone’s notifications settings and turn off all notifications except for those that are worth the potential interruption. I personally only allow notifications for phone calls, text messages, navigation cues, and calendar reminders. (And I keep my phone out of my bedroom at night – more on that later this week.)
You don’t have to keep these notifications turned off permanently, but it’s important to start by reducing them to a bare minimum. That way you’ll know that whatever notifications you decide to turn back on are notifications that you truly want to get.
So take a moment to ask what’s worth getting interrupted for—and then go into your phone’s settings and turn off everything else. Feel free to share what you did—and how you feel—in the comments.
To scrolling less and living more,
PS:
As always, you can ask me and your fellow participants questions—and share observations and insights with each other— by leaving a comment.
You can also send me questions privately simply by responding to your daily email, but I encourage you to engage with the community; you may be surprised to discover that other people are struggling with the same thing!
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