Out of Chaos an organizing newsletter
A Good Receptionist
Your phone should “act like a good receptionist,” says Dr. Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, author of The Distraction Addiction. I couldn’t agree more. I spent several years being a good, if temporary, receptionist. The best receptionists are gatekeepers. They keep distractions away, hold calls, and get rid of uninvited sales pitches. They are bouncers, frequently in lipstick and heels, but bouncers all the same.
Pang’s point is that we can take advantage of our phones’ many features to protect us from interruptions, rather than open us up to distraction. I spend a lot of time telling people not to be controlled by their phones, and I stand by that. But instead of just trying to put down your phone, see how you can optimize its features to make it help you.
One of Pang’s suggestions is to give different rings to different categories of people in your life. I’ve been doing this for a while: I have one tone for my husband, my children and their schools. Those are the only people whose emergencies I am really responsible for; everyone else can wait until I finish what I am doing. (Despite how you sometimes feel, there is no such thing as an organizing emergency.)
Pang also recommends turning off all nonvital notifications. I get overwhelmed just seeing the scrolling feed on some of my friends’ phones. “Oh, that’s all junk, I delete most of it,” they say. So why have it at all? If you turn off notifications, you can still access the stuff, but you won’t have that constant pull from, as the industry tellingly calls them, “push” notifications. Email is a great example: Turning off push notifications for email stops the incessant ding or buzz that alerts you every time new messages arrive. Your email is there for you when you make time to check your inbox.
Ever since I read that leaving my phone out diminishes the quality of the conversation, even when it doesn’t ring, I’ve been working on keeping my phone in my bag. I love conversation, it’s one of my favorite things in life—why would I want to dilute it in any way?
Don’t be a slave to your phone: Instead, put it to work for you like the tool that it is. It might not be quite as attractive as the receptionists in Mad Men, but it can still help you prioritize and protect you from distraction.