A few Fridays ago I had a rare occurrence. I witnessed something I hadn’t in quite some time and at first I wasn’t sure how to feel. So I snapped a picture so that I’d have proof that it happened. The proof isn’t for you, really. It’s for me. It’s to remind me, in my darkest hours, that there once was a break in the clouds. That for a fleeting moment the forces of good converged over my coordinates and granted me peace.
For just a few minutes, I had no unread emails, texts or social media notifications.
Yes, I’ve seen it. The unicorn. The Great White Buffalo. Atlantis.
It exists and it’s beautiful.
Appreciate the magnitude of this, the miracle of modern technology at rest. No little red circles with numbers inside of them hovering like exponents above icons on my iPhone.
For me, these symbols are parasitic and exist only to feast off my essence. (Dr. Strangelove, anyone?) When I see those little reminders of messages unmet I grow anxious. I try my best to remember my breathing exercises. It doesn’t always work. Those message counters have but two things to say to me:
1) You’ve got people waiting for a response, Bucko.
2) You’ve got no idea what messages are waiting for you! They could be friendly or they could be hostile, lying in wait. Why don’t you find out, Bucko?
I hate being called Bucko. This is how I see my phone though. Sometimes as a friend. Often as a nemesis.
I’ve begun leaving my phone in the car, in another room of the house, or simply elsewhere when I’m not working and when I’m with my family. I leave it downstairs to charge at night. I don’t want it near me. I mildly resent what it represents and the power it has come to wield. I feel guilty when I realize I’ve been staring at it for too long when in public. I try not to use it when I’m in a line or even just hanging around with other people. I don’t achieve restraint all the time, but when I’m present to it I can find success. I’ve even turned off the notifications on many of the apps like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Pandora started sending notifications even. They were asinine and usually made me mad. So I turned those off, too.
I also installed an email service the other Eric recommended, Unroll.me. It’s free and it collects all subscription emails that infiltrate your inbox. You then select which to aggregate and add to a once daily roundup email. You can also mass-unsubscribe from the ones you wish not to receive but haven’t gotten around to jettisoning. The whole process takes about 5 minutes, maybe.
Little by little I forfeited mastery of my attention and solace to the ambiguous promise of connection and productivity. I reckon I can regain it the same way.
You could do the same were you so inclined.
