As the world keep advancing digitally, one of the things I will say I have really noticed is the fact that the digital world has really changes the way we behave and even how we live generally. But despite the fact that there is a whole lot of benefits that the digital convenience brings, I will actually say sometimes it comes with its own annoyances also that sometimes tamper with my own peace of mind.
Among many of them that I will like to share with you today and which I will say is the biggest pet peeve for me is the constant notifications that I always receives. Trust me it can really be annoying for me. Most of the time, those constant notifications hage successfully served as a distraction for me that sometimes even disrupted my concentration or what I might have been doing at that particular moment.
Let me even start with the aspect of the notification issues. Even though I will say notifications have been a source of communication several times. This can comes in sometimes as text message or even an update from social media application or even to do something about it actually. At first I can remember years ago that I love it but nowadays probably due to the high level of apps on my phone right now or even due to the digital platforms that are already on my phone, this has really increased the volume of notifications.
Let me give you a scenario, sometimes I can be in the midst of getting a task done and my mind is fully put to that task only to be distracted by a notification from my phone. Sometimes the notification can really be apps, social media platforms or even a reminder I might have set for the day. Attending to that notification, I will see another one pop up again and before trying to attend to all those notifications, I get distracted at the end of the day. Sometimes I discovered that I will not be able to even finish the task I am doing at the end of the day.
Apart from that and I will believe that it is not only me but trust me, the nature of those constant notifications sometimes distract me psychologically that I have come to discover that attention is diverted. Even though some people actually are good at multitasking but I discovered I have not yet gather strength in that aspect and most time it even affects my productivity. Sometimes I will try to multitask in a bid to respond to these notifications but it is not really working most of the time even though psychologically having effects on me.
Apart from the psychological effects that it also caused, I have also come to discover that it most of the time intrudes my privacy. I think one of the things that I have always been affecting me is the fact that it really affecting my personal space and one of the things I did not joke with is personal space. Some personal space like reading a book or even sometimes taking a walk or even sometimes even just trying to meditate on something that I need to iron out in my head, those notifications from some of those apps will just pop up and just intrude my personal space in just a few minutes.
Now after seeing that those strategies are really affecting me greatly and even giving me negative impacts on even my wellbeing, I have been able to get a whole lot of strategies so as I can overcome the effects. One of the things that I have been able to apply is to take control of my notification majorly the settings. I have come to discover that there are some applications that will allow me to be able to customise the notifications as I am able to select those alerts to attend to and those to ignore with immediate effects.
Not only that, since most of the time I always plan my day schedule, one of the strategies that I have been able to apply is the aspect of setting specific times and period during the day to be able to attend to those notifications actually. What do I mean by that, there are some hours during the day that I have set. Most of the time, I pick the night to respond to those emails and I used the day to respond to those applications notifications which I will achieve also. Most of the time, I always put my phone to "Do Not Disturb" mode and that is mostly when I am about to work on my task.
As I try to reflect over the years, I begin to discover that all those periods that I have not yet learned how to manage those notifications, it has really distracted me so much and limit the productivity I will have achieved. But right now, I can say there have been several and different things that I will say have transformed in my life that which I am grateful to God I applied those strategies I discussed about earlier.
One of the most significant thing is the fact that it has really increases my productivity for the day and that is due to the fact that I am been able to attend to those tasks I have for the day without distractions as it were before. Even though sometimes I might still be tempted to respond to those notifications, I will say I have been able to effectively discipline the urge to be distracted and this has resulted into me been able to escape the trap of notifications either coming from emails, social media platforms or even some apps.
As I conclude, I will like to establish once again that while those notifications are actually something very good and which has transformed our lives in the society and in the digital world, I will say it has a significant annoyance that i believe needs to be looked into. So many people are suffering from diminished productivity because they are not able to control the urge and the distractions that come with those notifications daily.