Why notification taught us to ignore the problem

10 applications for 10 issues

There are many user-friendly application that can be used for planning affairs. And each of them has its drawbacks.

For example, Trello. Great service from the boards and cards. You can create a board for different task status "Delivered", "In the process", "Ready" - and move the card to these boards as you complete.

But this method of planning has a major drawback: you do not understand what problem needs to be solved in the first place, and what can be postponed. As a result, you have a bunch of cards and you do not know what to do with them. With the same success you could just paste stickers with the tasks in the office board, not knowing where to start, it can wait, and what needs to be done immediately.

There are other well-known applications, which will help you to organize life:

• Evernote It can turn into a list of tasks, and can simply be a program for quick notes, an instrument for writing anything or cookbook.
• Slack It can be used as a bot, which converts text in the memo. Just add the text
  instagram viewer
  /remindAnd after the point, that to whom and when you want to be reminded.
• WorkFlowy - Scalable document, which is great for taking notes and project structuring. In addition, it is an excellent system for monitoring tasks.

Many choose several tools for different tasks. For example, I always use Evernote for quick notes or important links, put the problem in Trello, and Google Tasks, add things to google Keep. While some clear distribution where some objectives, important links and notes, I do not.

But even if you're staying at any one instrument, you are still using a lot of applications: some send you a push-notification, in other you view incoming emails, some even sync with your calendar and etc.

And spending time ordering of these systems, you are killing your productivity.

A lot of unimportant tasks develop the habit of ignoring them

At the other end of the room strumming smartphone: notice it. Are you on a laptop check whether some long-awaited email does not appear? Not. Then we have to see Twitter: can someone layknul? Again, no.

Perhaps this is some small task like "Run the washing machine" or "Send resume to a new company" - in general, something that seemed Need yesterday. Therefore, you do not even check that it (you do not want to get up and go to the phone), and again concentrate on what they were doing before the call.

We tend to notice only what we want to see. You do not want to know what time to get up, to distract from the important task and run the washing machine. But here's the paradox: you are willing to be interrupted, if enough notice repost on Twitter.

notification Psychology

In the article "notification Psychology"Jimena Vengochea (Ximena Vengochea) and Eyal Nir (Nir Eyal) call notification" Pavlov's bell of the XXI century. " On the one hand, the notice - it is a wonderful thing, because it helps to immediately find out about something important. On the other - they are confusing.

Notifications are killing our ability to concentrate on work.

A study conducted at the University of Florida found that the notification (even if you do not react to them), distract you as well as phone calls.

In the time of the experiment, one group of students to play a simple game, and the second group - in the same game, but occasionally distracted by sound notifications. Despite the fact that students from the second group did not take into the hands of smart phones, the test showed that the notification sound and vibration distract them as much as phone calls.

It seems quite normal to ask not to call you during business hours. But against all notifications follow a softer policy.

How to solve the problem

Why do not you solve the problem notification, allowing to distract yourself? Because you are too lazy to somehow deal with it, but the problem itself does not seem so serious to spend on her strength.

It's like the usual pop-up window on some website. Instead of up and forget about it, you accustom each time to close it. And it becomes a normal action: went to the site, closed the window, read on.

To solve the problem, you need to prioritize and leave in his to-do list just two goals, and for the other to remove the reminders. In an application that allows you to create to-do lists and distribute them through the levels, create lists of "Today" and "Then" and put a reminder that only the most urgent and important task.

Look at the list of your notifications. Do you really need to know what's new on AliExpress or who added photos to Instagram? You still can not throw it all look in the middle of the working day? So maybe turn off notifications and to devote time to their applications only when you have it?

The most obvious solution - to exclude notification of his life. Williams Owen (Owen Williams) after research its relations with applications decided not to use Twitter mobile client and check the web version only. It is an excellent choice: you will open a window in a browser only when you have a free moment, and not in the middle of the process.

You would think that the regular notification bring into your life something pleasant or interesting. While for the most part it is spam with a few splashes of likes, retweets or messages that you were waiting for. So is it worth to sacrifice for the sake of their productivity?

What is your relationship with notifications?