Recently, a friend challenged me to keep my smartphone out of the bedroom for ten days. Apparently, this would prove that I'm not addicted to it, etc. I was trying to explain how I'm not really addicted to it, so whether I keep it in my bedroom or not wouldn't matter - but I decided to take up the challenge. Perhaps I'll update here once that's complete? Or perhaps not. But this got me thinking...
As someone who tried to actively reduce the number of friends I had on Facebook and completely cut off Facebook from my life by creating an alt profile back in 2012, Social Media, smartphones and digital living have been concepts that I've constantly observed, reworked to fit my life, and then kept evolving principles - all for better mental health, I guess.
So here is a loose collection of principles/actions I've taken over the years, that have helped me to "manage" my digital life. (Adding this point later: while I started this list as things to do for Digital living, I also added in a few points about physical well-being and health, which I think are inseparable from my Digital wellbeing)
1. Email
One of the best thing I've done, is to ditch Gmail in favour of a paid service that manages their own servers. They block ALL incoming email by default, which makes spam in my inbox non-existent, almost entirely. I currently have just two emails unread in my inbox, waiting for my action. If you would like to ditch mental anxiety over unread email, and not think of checking email as a "painful chore", you probably need to ditch your email provider and move to a provider who's quite harsh with non-personal email - as harsh as you want/need them to be.
2. Night Shift / Blue light dimming
For four years now, I've had devices that can start yellowing the display when the sun sets, and revert it back at sunrise. I've religiously set this up - phone, tablet, laptop - and I've actually noticed the better (more restful) sleep I get when I started doing this. So much so that now, the main light bulbs in two rooms of the house are smart lights that can do the same - they're white during the day, and start dimming + yellowing as darkness falls. Less eye strain; less headaches; overall, better me.
3. Laptop/work not in the bedroom
After the first leg of the pandemic when I worked like a madman for a few months, I just got up one day and settled on a very simple rule: no laptop (or any work work) in the bedroom. So if I'm just chilling on the bed, and I get call to check a formula / algorithm / whatever, I have committed to myself to drag myself to the table and open up my laptop to check. This took about a week to get used to - but making a space specifically for my laptop on the table in the other room, keeping my backpack+laptop out of the bedroom completely, actually helped. This also got me to start using my tablet solely for entertainment and personal web browsing, etc. - while on the bed or otherwise. A segregation of type of work between devices can help manage your digital life. (Yes, I do check work stuff on my phone - but it's a quick-and-dirty kinda checking; nothing intense, nothing really being created.
4. Disable Notifications
This was another big help. I've always been a little curt with notifications. I hate how companies+apps use notifications as a way to bring you spam - offers, news, etc. I hate it, hate it, hate it. So what was the solution? Switch off notifications from ALL apps. Except a few critical ones. Even when I had social media apps installed, their notifications were off. So what's critical for me, you may ask... Phone, Messages, WhatsApp, Google Pay. Uber. You get the drift - only things that need immediate + urgent attention. "Aha..." I can almost hear some of you. "You've got WhatsApp notifications on! That's not great!!" Well, the next point may shed more light on that.
5. WhatsApp Archived Chats
Let me preface this by saying, I absolutely detest Meta (previously Facebook). The fact that they've made their business built on getting my info (on the pretext of connecting me with my friends!) and then use that to show me targeted adverts is just hideous. But, I'll admit that this one feature is WhatsApp is absolute genius and makes it so easy for me to manage my digital life. Here's what I do: unless the person I'm talking to on WhatsApp needs a response from me, or I need a response from them - they get archived. Something like that utopian email goal of "inbox zero". Now, I've never really reached zero chats in either my business or personal WhatsApp numbers, but: I've gone down to just 2-3 chats in my inbox, and when I'm working on a project involving several people, it's gone up to 15 as well. But 15 chats in my inbox during the week of a project is better than 500+ chats in my WhatsApp inbox.
A word of caution, though, regarding this: when I tried going all militant on my Business WhatsApp number with this concept, I quickly realised that I was missing important work announcements that I should be receiving and responding to as quickly as possible - so I switched my Business WhatsApp policy to only archiving chats with non-immediate colleagues / superiors and related groups. This usually leaves about 10 chats in my inbox, but I can deal with those, I guess.
_____________________________________________
Whoopie. This got much longer than I intended. I'll save the remaining for a part 2 edition.
As always, there are no right or wrong things to do here - just things that might work better for an individual. If you disagree with something I've said, or have a better way to do something, or have other ideas you've tried that help you manage your digital life, please leave your comments below.
As someone who tried to actively reduce the number of friends I had on Facebook and completely cut off Facebook from my life by creating an alt profile back in 2012, Social Media, smartphones and digital living have been concepts that I've constantly observed, reworked to fit my life, and then kept evolving principles - all for better mental health, I guess.
So here is a loose collection of principles/actions I've taken over the years, that have helped me to "manage" my digital life. (Adding this point later: while I started this list as things to do for Digital living, I also added in a few points about physical well-being and health, which I think are inseparable from my Digital wellbeing)
1. Email
One of the best thing I've done, is to ditch Gmail in favour of a paid service that manages their own servers. They block ALL incoming email by default, which makes spam in my inbox non-existent, almost entirely. I currently have just two emails unread in my inbox, waiting for my action. If you would like to ditch mental anxiety over unread email, and not think of checking email as a "painful chore", you probably need to ditch your email provider and move to a provider who's quite harsh with non-personal email - as harsh as you want/need them to be.
2. Night Shift / Blue light dimming
For four years now, I've had devices that can start yellowing the display when the sun sets, and revert it back at sunrise. I've religiously set this up - phone, tablet, laptop - and I've actually noticed the better (more restful) sleep I get when I started doing this. So much so that now, the main light bulbs in two rooms of the house are smart lights that can do the same - they're white during the day, and start dimming + yellowing as darkness falls. Less eye strain; less headaches; overall, better me.
3. Laptop/work not in the bedroom
After the first leg of the pandemic when I worked like a madman for a few months, I just got up one day and settled on a very simple rule: no laptop (or any work work) in the bedroom. So if I'm just chilling on the bed, and I get call to check a formula / algorithm / whatever, I have committed to myself to drag myself to the table and open up my laptop to check. This took about a week to get used to - but making a space specifically for my laptop on the table in the other room, keeping my backpack+laptop out of the bedroom completely, actually helped. This also got me to start using my tablet solely for entertainment and personal web browsing, etc. - while on the bed or otherwise. A segregation of type of work between devices can help manage your digital life. (Yes, I do check work stuff on my phone - but it's a quick-and-dirty kinda checking; nothing intense, nothing really being created.
4. Disable Notifications
This was another big help. I've always been a little curt with notifications. I hate how companies+apps use notifications as a way to bring you spam - offers, news, etc. I hate it, hate it, hate it. So what was the solution? Switch off notifications from ALL apps. Except a few critical ones. Even when I had social media apps installed, their notifications were off. So what's critical for me, you may ask... Phone, Messages, WhatsApp, Google Pay. Uber. You get the drift - only things that need immediate + urgent attention. "Aha..." I can almost hear some of you. "You've got WhatsApp notifications on! That's not great!!" Well, the next point may shed more light on that.
5. WhatsApp Archived Chats
Let me preface this by saying, I absolutely detest Meta (previously Facebook). The fact that they've made their business built on getting my info (on the pretext of connecting me with my friends!) and then use that to show me targeted adverts is just hideous. But, I'll admit that this one feature is WhatsApp is absolute genius and makes it so easy for me to manage my digital life. Here's what I do: unless the person I'm talking to on WhatsApp needs a response from me, or I need a response from them - they get archived. Something like that utopian email goal of "inbox zero". Now, I've never really reached zero chats in either my business or personal WhatsApp numbers, but: I've gone down to just 2-3 chats in my inbox, and when I'm working on a project involving several people, it's gone up to 15 as well. But 15 chats in my inbox during the week of a project is better than 500+ chats in my WhatsApp inbox.
A word of caution, though, regarding this: when I tried going all militant on my Business WhatsApp number with this concept, I quickly realised that I was missing important work announcements that I should be receiving and responding to as quickly as possible - so I switched my Business WhatsApp policy to only archiving chats with non-immediate colleagues / superiors and related groups. This usually leaves about 10 chats in my inbox, but I can deal with those, I guess.
_____________________________________________
Whoopie. This got much longer than I intended. I'll save the remaining for a part 2 edition.
As always, there are no right or wrong things to do here - just things that might work better for an individual. If you disagree with something I've said, or have a better way to do something, or have other ideas you've tried that help you manage your digital life, please leave your comments below.