HOCUS POCUS FOCUS
I have a confession to make. In the past 1 year, I went too far with a friend that it started hurting my personal, family & professional life. It all started as a friendly - help each other relationship. I did not realised how this friendly relation became serious or rather an issue that I had to deal with. This friend was "Mobile". I would be constantly on phone. My productivity and contribution in the team was at all time low. I realised that this was not me 9-12 months back and wondered how I got so misaligned. I analysed my behaviour and found the below three symptoms.
- ADDICTION:
Waking up in the morning and first thing checked is mobile phone. Before I slept, I will check my phone and put it next to my bed.
When one is alcoholic, he/she moves with the glass from living room to kitchen to bedroom. I was doing this with my phone. When the last bottle is half empty, you become a bit restless about re-filling the supplies. When the battery of phone is at 10%, you start looking for power plugs and charging cable frantically. You cant even imagine how No internet connection impacted me.
- DISTRACTION:
I was constantly distracted and what I call the FITWYG Syndrome.
FITWYG -> facebook instagram twitter whatsapp youtube google. I would have checked my whatsapp alerts, tweets & instagram in 5 mins. I will be checking my email and watching videos parallely.In a meeting or sitting on my desk or having lunch or while talking to my family. I will constantly keep my fingers moving over my phone clicking something. The result, I will be missing on what was discussed or agreed upon. In team meetings, colleagues will discuss our roadmap and I would be checking what donald trump was saying about north korea.
- Lack of patience aka INSTANTGRATIFICATION
We get pizza in 20 mins , noodles in 5 minutes. In 140 character a complete message, News flashes through out the day.We order today and wear a new dres the next day. I did not had time for nonsense. I wanted to understand a whole email at work which was 400 words or so in 2 mins. And if I was not, I will quit reading it excusing that I will read it later and then never open it again.
And funny part is the first instinct on realising this was is there an app I can install to de-additc/rehab on my phone.
So what did I do: I countered each of these three problems.
1. ADDICTIONS: are habits and habits come from behaviour and behaviour comes from thought process. To break addiction, start small. I made a decision to check my phone for messages and email once in an hour only. Sometimes it worked sometimes it didn't. But no big deal. I tried and now in a day I check my phone about 20 times a day. Still a lot but far lower than 100+ times before.
2. DISTRACTION: I decided to remove the source from my zone of vision. I started keeping my phone on my table instead of carrying it everywhere I went. Now I make a concious decision to not take my phone in the next meeting. Since there is no phone, my source of distraction is removed from the environment. I still keep my phone near my bed as it is my alarm clock but I do not check it first thing in morning now.
3. PATIENCE: I tried to steady my brain. I paid attention to my breathing. Started with 1 min focus on how I was breathing .. whether it was deep or shallow, from left or right nostril, how long was the inhale and how long was exhale. In few days, I was able to regulate my emotions that were playing underneath. Emotions: Energy in motion(Dr. Alan Watkins): if you moderate your breath, you moderate your energy and hence your emotions.
Mind is like a universe. It stores everything in it. All our memories are there and all our answers as well. Our school days, friends, parties, get together, wedding, family,parents, demise.. to what happened on a whatsapp groups, facebook photos and posts, blogs, holiday updates from friends etc etc etc. Focus is the telescope you need to direct your attention towards a particular aspect of brain. You can only focus on one part at a given moment in time. You can only observe moon or jupiter or a blackhole. Similarly our brain can only focus on whatsapp or work or study or family or talking or email at a given moment in time. Frequent re-focussing of telescope will only result in blurry images. A noble saint once said "Life is a manifestation of where you direct your focus/energy".
I am still on social media as we live in times when technology is solving problems in all spheres of our lives. It has shortened communication lines and eliminated the need leaving our living room to get anything. Technology is good but like all other things it is good when consumed in correct quantity. Technology should be used in complement humans and not as a supplement. We should dictate when we want help of technology and not be enslaved by it.
I have a confession to make. In the past 1 year, I went too far with a friend that it started hurting my personal, family & professional life. It all started as a friendly - help each other relationship. I did not realised how this friendly relation became serious or rather an issue that I had to deal with. This friend was "Mobile". I would be constantly on phone. My productivity and contribution in the team was at all time low. I realised that this was not me 9-12 months back and wondered how I got so misaligned. I analysed my behaviour and found the below three symptoms.
- ADDICTION:
Waking up in the morning and first thing checked is mobile phone. Before I slept, I will check my phone and put it next to my bed.
When one is alcoholic, he/she moves with the glass from living room to kitchen to bedroom. I was doing this with my phone. When the last bottle is half empty, you become a bit restless about re-filling the supplies. When the battery of phone is at 10%, you start looking for power plugs and charging cable frantically. You cant even imagine how No internet connection impacted me.
- DISTRACTION:
I was constantly distracted and what I call the FITWYG Syndrome.
FITWYG -> facebook instagram twitter whatsapp youtube google. I would have checked my whatsapp alerts, tweets & instagram in 5 mins. I will be checking my email and watching videos parallely.In a meeting or sitting on my desk or having lunch or while talking to my family. I will constantly keep my fingers moving over my phone clicking something. The result, I will be missing on what was discussed or agreed upon. In team meetings, colleagues will discuss our roadmap and I would be checking what donald trump was saying about north korea.
- Lack of patience aka INSTANTGRATIFICATION
We get pizza in 20 mins , noodles in 5 minutes. In 140 character a complete message, News flashes through out the day.We order today and wear a new dres the next day. I did not had time for nonsense. I wanted to understand a whole email at work which was 400 words or so in 2 mins. And if I was not, I will quit reading it excusing that I will read it later and then never open it again.
And funny part is the first instinct on realising this was is there an app I can install to de-additc/rehab on my phone.
So what did I do: I countered each of these three problems.
1. ADDICTIONS: are habits and habits come from behaviour and behaviour comes from thought process. To break addiction, start small. I made a decision to check my phone for messages and email once in an hour only. Sometimes it worked sometimes it didn't. But no big deal. I tried and now in a day I check my phone about 20 times a day. Still a lot but far lower than 100+ times before.
2. DISTRACTION: I decided to remove the source from my zone of vision. I started keeping my phone on my table instead of carrying it everywhere I went. Now I make a concious decision to not take my phone in the next meeting. Since there is no phone, my source of distraction is removed from the environment. I still keep my phone near my bed as it is my alarm clock but I do not check it first thing in morning now.
3. PATIENCE: I tried to steady my brain. I paid attention to my breathing. Started with 1 min focus on how I was breathing .. whether it was deep or shallow, from left or right nostril, how long was the inhale and how long was exhale. In few days, I was able to regulate my emotions that were playing underneath. Emotions: Energy in motion(Dr. Alan Watkins): if you moderate your breath, you moderate your energy and hence your emotions.
Mind is like a universe. It stores everything in it. All our memories are there and all our answers as well. Our school days, friends, parties, get together, wedding, family,parents, demise.. to what happened on a whatsapp groups, facebook photos and posts, blogs, holiday updates from friends etc etc etc. Focus is the telescope you need to direct your attention towards a particular aspect of brain. You can only focus on one part at a given moment in time. You can only observe moon or jupiter or a blackhole. Similarly our brain can only focus on whatsapp or work or study or family or talking or email at a given moment in time. Frequent re-focussing of telescope will only result in blurry images. A noble saint once said "Life is a manifestation of where you direct your focus/energy".
I am still on social media as we live in times when technology is solving problems in all spheres of our lives. It has shortened communication lines and eliminated the need leaving our living room to get anything. Technology is good but like all other things it is good when consumed in correct quantity. Technology should be used in complement humans and not as a supplement. We should dictate when we want help of technology and not be enslaved by it.
