How to Take Charge of Your Technology

“When you pay attention to boredom it gets unbelievably interesting.” ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

Is your technology controlling your life?

Are you constantly distracted by it?

Do you feel like you spend all day responding to email or checking social media?

Much has been written about the connection between the ubiquity of mobile devices and our ever shortening attention spans. Not surprisingly, our technology has also been blamed for the decrease in the quality of our relationships and our productivity.

Some observers of our current trends may blame technology for these declines. But our technology, like money, is just a tool. It’s neither good nor bad in itself. How we use these tools say way more about us than about the tools.

Granted, our technology makes it easy for us to become distracted. Some spend inordinate amounts of time on social media, while others are constantly checking email, texting, or browsing the internet.

How do we break these potentially addictive behaviors?

We first must understand our hardwired needs driving these behaviors.

The spiritual needs driving our technology use

My personal vice when it comes to technology is not social media, texting, or web surfing—it’s email.

I find myself checking it way more than is necessary. If I’m feeling a bit bored or impatient while waiting in line at the bank, I reflexively take out my phone to check email—even after checking it just five minutes before.

Whenever I’m working on a blog post and get stuck (as I regularly do), I automatically switch to my email browsing tab for relief.

Most people, by substituting their technological drug of choice in the previous examples, will recognize similar patterns of behavior in themselves.

What are the spiritual needs driving these behaviors?

Our need for novelty and comfort.

This means that we have a natural aversion to boredom and discomfort. Distraction serves as a powerful mechanism for attacking both problems simultaneously. Distraction, by the way, did not arise with the advent of the smartphone. We’ve always found ways to distract ourselves.

However, in the past we had to create or own distractions. Today, a world of readily available distraction is literally at our fingertips.

Our needs for novelty and comfort are not bad in themselves. Distraction serves a vital purpose to our sense of balance and well-being. But our increasing reliance on distraction to avoid even the most minor of discomforts is doing more harm than good.

Distractions feel good in the moment, but if left unchecked, they can have disastrous consequences long-term.

An experiment

Cal Newport, In his book called Deep Work, argues that our highly distracting environments have reduced our capacity to accomplish difficult tasks that require our full attention and focus over extended periods of time. Deep work, he believes, is critical for increased productivity, for breakthroughs in many fields of knowledge, and even in our quest for the good life.

In order to accomplish deep work, we need to become more comfortable with boredom and discomfort. The book has inspired me to face my challenges with distractions to increase my productivity for sure, but also to improve the quality of my most important relationships.

In the last few years, I’ve already taken important steps to help break my addiction to email:

1. I stopped checking email first thing in the morning.
2. I turned off push notification on my phone so I’m not notified automatically whenever an email comes in.

Inspired by Newport’s book, I’m going to experiment with these practices over the next few weeks:

1. Close my email browsing tab. Additionally, when working with a browser, I’ll limit the number of open tabs to one or two at a time.
2. Restrict the checking and processing of personal email to three times a day or less—no earlier than 8 a.m. and no later than 6 p.m. Limit work emailing to work hours and limit checking to no more than three times a day.
3. Develop a process to help me empty my inbox daily. If email is your particular vice, this blog post by Michael Hyatt is worth the read.
4. Absolutely no mindless checking of email. I’ll no longer check email when waiting in line or feeling bored.

I know that, initially, it will be difficult to do all these all the time, but I believe that even partial success will see a dramatic rise in my ability to focus. This success will inspire me to push myself further.

Build up your attention muscle

If you struggle with some other technological vice, most of these strategies will work for you as well.

The most important thing is that you have an intentional plan to help you reduce your distractions and increase your attention capacity.

Difficulty and boredom will become your friends.

You’ll become the master of your technology.

And you’ll give yourself the opportunity to focus on the things that truly matter.