Over the past few months I have been conducting a personal experiment to bring back ownership of my attention. It began with spending less time on social media, and has pushed me into an ongoing battle with my email.
I think I have now, finally, cracked the method and wanted to share it with The Coaching Room community.
Why look at a Digital Detox?
I believe we are all being abused by marketers, and this is coming from a marketer. Your attention is being hit by so many low quality emails and social media messages that you may not even realised what life would be like without it.
We used to complain about adverts on television, but now increasingly personalised ads are targeting our minds with messaging designed to grab attention – and ultimately, get sales.
Everyone is waiting for Artificial Intelligence to arrive from the sky in the form of a robot, but really it is here and now in our lives as machine learning, trying to win the battle for our attention on social networks.
Putting it simply, I’ve found there is more ‘space’, more choice, and less unnecessary/unvaluable attention being spent by ‘pulling it all back a little’.
How do you get started?
I want to keep this brief, but take a look at these first steps…
Social Media
Turn off social media notifications on your mobile device (h/t to Chris Brogan for pushing me on this one)
Log into social less frequently, and with more awareness of what you are seeking to achieve
Unfollow people and conversations that are simply ‘wasting your life energy’
Note: Make sure you don’t have any social notifications making their way into your email, unless you want them
Stop deleting emails, start unsubscribing from lists i.e. completely unsubscribe from newsletters and email subscriptions that don’t provide you with value (I use unroll.me)
3rd party websites – unsubscribe from programs that ‘get you points’ for using their system, and then tell you how many points you get via email.
The outcome is to have email arrive that is ONLY of value to you, not to ‘them’.
The time has come to own your attention again – and you will find you get one heck of a lot less emails, creating space in your Inbox.
I hope this blog and email helped – more tips like this every week, here at The Coaching Room.
