Disruptive behavior

Smartphones can be both a blessing and a curse. For me, they are a blessing when they help me do stuff I want to do. They are a curse when they prevent me from doing something I want to do.

To be more specific: smartphones as enablers provide me with abilities I wouldn’t otherwise have. Smartphones as disruptors prevent me from focusing in on what I want to do.

Smartphones are prone to disrupting my flow in two key ways: obstruction and interruption.

Obstruction

When I turn on my phone, I have something in mind that I want to accomplish. It might be sending an e-mail. It might be reading an article. It might be looking up a word. Regardless, I don’t often turn on my phone to meander about its enticing icons and find something to do.

But my phone has other ideas: Red dots on app icons. Icons in the notification tray. Or even just showing me something I was looking at earlier, the moment I unlock the screen. In this way, my smartphone gets in the way of my getting things done. It is an obstruction.

One way of fixing this is just to get in and out more quickly. A lockscreen voice recording widget can help you record voice notes before the phone gets the chance to get in the way. Prominent homescreen shortcuts for apps that are helpful to your productivity can mean less chance for distraction, too.

Interruption

Other times, my smartphone shouldn’t be involved in what I’m doing, but it inserts itself into my consciousness. I’m reading a book, or talking with a friend, or even writing a blog post, when – beep – hold on, lemme check this – oh, just an e-mail I don’t need to respond to – excuse the interruption. Wait, where was I?

Generally, this means just disabling distractions: When I am interrupted by a chiming e-mail alert, I get excited. But after getting distracted and forgetting good ideas because I got interrupted by an e-mail message, I turned those alerts off for good, along with their attendant red dots. Do I miss them? Sometimes, if I’m awaiting a particular e-mail: but my preference here is definitely for total silence.

Generally, I find that smartphones arrive from the factory tuned for maximum disruption. This may be incidental (though I suspect otherwise). But in general, if you want to have a quiet, companionable smartphone, you’ll need to do some tweaks yourself.

Enjoy the silence!