7 Digital Habits For Better Productivity

This list does not include throwing your phone away!

Here are some (kind of) accurate facts:

Anyone who owns a phone, has one way or another, developed a habit of picking up their phone constantly.

Phones are very useful! What would we do without them?

Have you heard about how before you actually had to share a house phone with your entire household?

Or even go more back in time when you actually had to leave your house to use a payphone to call someone?

Now, our phones can instantly give us access to anything and everything.

And that’s both good, and can also be bad. Especially for our growth and happiness.

However, we can choose to control the way using our phone affects us. We can make sure that we have good digital habits with our phone, so that we can continue to be mindful of the actions we take.

Here are the list of digital habits to build:

1) Having Social Media “Only When’s

Social Media “Only When’s” are your preset conditions on when you can use social media. For example, my social media “only when’s” look like this:

1. While pairing it with another task for temptation bundling – e.g. watching TikToks while washing dishes to motivate myself to wash the dishes
2. Allocated 30 minutes of social media time
3. If I want to use social media outside these times, I have to stand up

So, as you can see, I didn’t mention the habit to get rid of it completely. Social media is a very useful tool to share, and an incredible platform to connect with friends and keep in touch. BUT like everything else, there needs to be a limit.

It’s like only having one dessert a day. Like a normal diet, instead of depriving yourself of the food that you really enjoy but is not really the most healthiest, you can still have some junk food every now and then. BUT there is the limit.

Like only 1 cookie a day. Or 1 small bag of chips a day.

Same thing with social media.

Now, you may be wondering how to have strong discipline to not go on it during times you shouldn’t.

There are two ways you can do this…

Delete the social media apps if you find it truly distracting.

OR, if you’re an iPhone user (I’m really sorry, I don’t know for Android😂), you can put time limited blocks on your phone which automatically blocks the apps once your time limit is up. If you feel like you will be tempted to add more time, you can delete the apps.

Look at this like trying not to eat junk food anymore. What’s the first thing you could do to stop temptation? Get rid of all the junk food in your house!

Now I hope you enjoyed this”mini social media” discussion, because guess what, the next two habits still evolve around social media!

2) No Social Media until ALL work is done

I used to be one to go on social media first thing in the morning.

It was only until an awesome speaker came into my school and gave a talk about mindfulness that opened my eyes with this very habit.

He mentioned that the first thing that you look at in the morning is what is fed into your mind. For example, if you read negative news first thing in the morning, that is what is fed into your mind. On the other hand, if you read positive material in the morning, that is what is fed into your mind.

And how does social media fall into place? Well, social media, whether we like it or not, does give prone to automatic comparison. What’s the first thing you see when you’re on your newsfeed? Posts of other people’s lives.

Even when we don’t intentionally say to ourselves that we are going to compare ourselves to others, our brain subconsciously does. And when we go on it first thing in the morning, the first thing we do in our day is compare ourselves to others.

Just like with the first habit mentioned, there’s a reason why social media time is to be limited. Because when you’re constantly checking and consuming social media multiple times a day, we’re basically spending a lot of time comparing ourselves to others… subconsciously.

Otherwise, it’s all self-explanatory. Social media can be a HUGE distraction. And yeah, setting a boundary on when you can use it, will of course take away one less distraction that can stop you from doing what you need to do

Of course, there’s the exception if your work is on social media and you need to create, so it’s all about making sure that you’re creating more content over consuming. Since I do post on social media for my blog, I do have to go on it before all work is finished. But I’m careful to not consume during that time.

3) Don’t Let Social Media Be the FIRST and LAST thing you do in your day

Yeah, this is all about social media it seems like. I promise the next one is not going to be a social media one. (Because let’s face it – social media is a HUGE part of our phones)

Like what I mentioned previously, going on social media several times a day is just comparing yourself to other people several times a day?

And how going on social media first thing in the morning, is having the first thing you do in your day is compare yourself to others?

So… imagine going to bed, and having the last thing you do is go on social media. And what does that do? Compare ourselves to others. Have the last thing we do in our day is compare ourselves to others.

Honestly, feel free to agree or disagree with me. But going to bed comparing yourself to other people is a bit toxic to your mind. And then of course, when you wake up, it will still be in your mind. (Have you ever heard how your morning starts the night before?)

The cycle is crazy. It’s like poisoning our mind with false beliefs about ourselves on how our lives are not as good as other people, when that’s completely untrue.

4) Focus Modes

Now, let’s talk about a habit for our actual phones.

On iPhones, you are able to create various “Focus Modes” depending on what you’re currently doing. For example, on my phone, I have the following focus modes:

• General Do Not Disturb
• Sleep Mode
• Work Mode
• Study Mode
• Me-Time Mode

Although the main function of these focus modes is to silence notifications (so I’m not distracted!), they are also a little brain thing too!

What I mean by “brain thing”, is that whenever I switch to a certain mode, by brain automatically begins to focus on it. For example, when I switch to the “Study Mode” on my phone, my brain starts to focus on study.

And a great part of having Focus Modes is that you can customize it differently for each one, depending on what you use, and don’t want to use.

Ultimately, Focus Modes are a great way to not get super distracted by the notifications that would pop up constantly throughout the day. Let’s face it – notifications are extremely distracting.

5) Creating Boundaries

These boundaries refer to the times you go on social media, and when you contact people.

Ultimately, it’s up to you to decide what your boundaries are in terms of when you’ll detach from your phone for the day, and not answer anymore messages or calls.

For instance, if you have work calls, you may set boundaries to not take calls and messages after work hours. With your personal calls and messages, you may not have a limit for it.

Or maybe, for your mental health, you may decide to create personal boundaries on when you’ll stop answering calls and messages. Maybe there are only certain people you would talk to during certain hours of the day. They are all up to you.

For me, obviously, if there is an emergency, either a full-blown emergency, or maybe when I’m in uni and I have a group project where sometimes needs to get done… there are so many things that can be called an emergency. I also would message close friends and family members who I know don’t mind me messaging them later at night.

Of course, the time is flexible based on your circumstances, and you really have the say on when you can stop messaging people. Everyone is different especially if you have a high demand job that needs to answer calls 24/7.

6) Podcast List

Now, let’s go back to consuming content.

What’s another thing you use your phone for that is NOT social media and contacting people?

I’ve literally Googled this and the next action that people use for their phones after those two is listening to music.

It’s important to remember that consuming content comes from everything we read, watch, and also what we listen to.

Now, how many hours of a week do you think you commute? (Whether through driving, walking, or public transport?)

If you’re not in lockdown like how I am right now when I’m writing this, it must be a lot of hours.

And what do you listen to during those commutes?

Is it the same music you repeat over and over again?

Don’t get me wrong, I love listening to music. I love singing on the top of my lungs in the car. BUT the exact reason why I became so mindful of the music that I keep listening to, is because of what would eventually subconsciously get into your mind.

Don’t believe me?

How many songs have you got stuck in your head? And how many times was that intentional?

So maybe, if there is something that we want to keep repeating in our head, why don’t we put in our mind something that would be beneficial to our lives.

That’s why there’s a podcast list.

There are a whole range of podcasts that you can listen to. From educational, inspirational, and motivational podcasts.

Make it a habit to not listen to any music until you finished your podcast list. Take small steps. Start with one podcast a day, then listen to music.

Then move onto two podcasts, then music. And so on.

You’ll find that just like getting a song stuck in your head, you actually get beneficial information stuck in your head. Even if you listen to a cooking podcast, you can subconsciously learn it in your mind.

Just remember to listen to podcasts that aligns with your values and your morals, because again, anything you listen to will get stuck in your head. (the last thing you want to get stuck in your head is something that contradicts your values!)

7) Do Other Activities that Has Nothing to Do with your PHONE

Last but not least, we step away from the phone completely.

Find other hobbies and activities where you don’t have to touch your phone.

Do you really want your life to evolve around your phone?

There is so much out there. So many things that can help us grow our skills and develop new passions that our phones obviously cannot give us.

Yes, our phones are good for getting out of awkward social situations, but our phones are also a huge distraction from:

Our Work

Our Family

Our Time with Friends

Our Time to Experience what the world actually has to offer

Our Time with Ourselves and Our Life.

So I dare you to start right now. Pick a random activity that can keep you away from your phone. If you already have an activity that you love doing, by all means put your full focus in it every time you do it.

CONTROL your DIGITAL LIFE, Don’t Let it CONTROL YOU

So while it’s hard to grow and be happy when we’re constantly being controlled by the digital world, we can make the choice to turn the control over to ourselves.

We can choose to grow and be happy. We can take small steps to take control of our digital life, and develop good digital habits that would actually help us achieve that.

Because when you think about it, it’s a bit hard to grow and be happy when you’re always comparing yourself to others, not consuming the right content, not having a clear headspace, and most importantly evolving our life around our phones.

That’s why habits are key to ensure that we don’t let those things overtake us. Of course, stay kind to yourself when you’re developing these habits. Take small steps if you need to. Small steps are better than taking no steps at all.

-Lauren 😊

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