Day #17: NO-tifications

If you got today's post because your phone went 'ping!'... we need to talk.

“You don't have to reply right now.
In fact, often, you don't even have to reply at all.”

— Jason Chatfield

Last year I closed all my social media accounts. My Facebook, my Instagram, my Twitter. They were ruling my focus and attention more than anything, and it was the best thing I ever did.

Remember: Not everyone needs to like you. Especially not an infinite abyss of strangers.

Notifications from social media, messaging apps, email, and other apps are the reason you look at your phone over 100 times a day. Tomorrow I'll go further into the social media aspect of this, but for today, let's focus on the broader notion of Notifications.

If you do an attention audit; you'll notice that as soon as you focus on one thing, your focus becomes split (or completely removed) when a notification of some kind pops up on your screen or your phone. Or your smartwatch. (See how many ways our focus is divided?)

Your brain is not designed to multitask.

We've covered this already. Notifications encourage multi-tasking, thus, you need to learn to say NO.

I won't go into all the reasons here why social media is gamed like a casino for your valuable attention, but I will ask you to read the following 3 posts on how to fix it and say NO to constantly replying to notifications when your time and attention could be better spent on the things that are meaningful to you.

Being a people-pleaser, your reflexive "Reply" to every request is so deeply ingrained in your personality that sometimes it feels like saying NO is impossible.

You can master how to say NO. 

Baby steps. NO takes practice. Start small, and work your way up.

- Jason

Immediate Recommended Reading: 
Jason Chatfield -- Why I Closed My Social Media Accounts To Focus On Something Way Better (2021)
Jason Chatfield -- Waiting for a GFC In The Attention Economy (2018)
@TechForMindfulness -- Taking Control of Notifications to Take Back Your Attention (2018)