| There is so much to be said here, depending on where you want to go with this. Maybe you don't need to go full tech-less and stone age yet. You seem especially triggered by focus issues. What's taking your focus away? Is it any specific website (I'm looking at you, <social network>). How can you make it less convenient to use that website? Maybe log out every time, or block the dns, or flat out cancel your account. Is it phone notifications, always pulling you away from the moment you're living? Disable or ignore them. It's pretty hard at first. The key for me was deciding when to direct my attention to my phone. I often put it in airplane mode and throw it in the backpack. Not having it in your pocket beeping all the time helps forget about it. I quit facebook (and all other social networks, actually) about two years ago. I've been happier ever since. No longer comparing my (not so) hard life to that of others posting vacation pictures. Admittedly, I have recently re-created an account for work purposes. I made sure to unfollow every friend, so nothing is popping up in my feed. Nothing to look at, so I'm not spending time on facebook. It's still useful for one-to-one or group communications, but exposing one's life on it should be considered an offense... Realistically, it's 2020. You can't get away from some tech, and probably shouldn't. Some parts of my sports actually do _require_ me to have a whatsapp account (damn you whatsapp for not respecting "do not disturb" mode!). Also if you work in tech, well, no need to elaborate here... Make it less convenient to waste time. Convenience is key. And turn off notifications/phones when you are busy on something else. Give your full attention to people you are talking to (and if they are on their phone, well it's their loss), other beings you are interacting with, the wind in the trees, or that movie you're watching. Whatever, but do one thing at a time. |
For me personally, HN is definitely a focus-stealer (I think I have at least 100 HN tabs open currently, that I really should just go and close). It's a tricky one, because I get a lot of value from it, but I guess that value is diminishing if I'm checking up on things every hour or so. I imagine those who've gone full cold-turkey on HN aren't here to comment, but I'll assume they've found benefit from that. Might have to start DNS blocking this one for a while and see what happens.
I did the friend unfollow trick on Facebook a few years back now, and definitely noticed the happiness benefits straight away, but still often catch myself clicking through random profiles when I do have to travel there.
To your point on convenience, I'm often frustrated by how easy it is to type 'yc' or 'fa' into the search bar in a moment of weakness, and then go down the rabbit-hole of distraction for hours. Obviously, a responsive search bar is an immensely useful feature for a web browser to have but this convenience does often make it easier to do something that is not in one's overall interest.