That’s insane! Also, useful for a book I’m writing. Do you know/have the source of the study that produced this finding? If you do, shoot me an email. Thank you!
Yes, the source of study that produced this finding was me! If I live to be 80 years old, then 30 seconds every day for 80 years adds up to about 10 days (30 * 365 * 80 / 60 / 60 / 24).
Over the past few years I’ve become more and more aware that regular, unnecessary alerts are wasting a lot of my time. One day I did the calculation and was astounded. If I just disabled my ‘new email’ alerts, I’d save about 30 seconds every day, some days even more. That was back then. I used to have all kinds of alerts that would get my attention: Twitter Direct Messages (even Twitter mentions for a little while!), alerts from various servers that I monitor, calendar reminders, phone calls, etc. And they weren’t just visual alerts; I had things that actually made sounds to get my attention (oh the blasphemy!).
I’ve since turned off almost everything. Anything that goes to email only goes to email. If there’s a site I login to at least once a day, like Twitter, Facebook, or Google+, then all alerts stay on the site (all email alerts are disabled). I’ve had my phone set to vibrate for the past few years. It doesn’t make a single sound. New emails don’t make sounds or vibrations. The only things that can generate a visual alert on my phone are calendar reminders, SMS messages and phone calls (both of which I rarely receive), and my alarm. No apps on the phone are allowed to alert me.
I have no doubt disabling all these electronic alerts has saved me far more than 10 days of my life, not to mention all the attention that I’ve saved. Now I can focus and there are very few electronic things that will break that focus.
That’s insane! Also, useful for a book I’m writing. Do you know/have the source of the study that produced this finding? If you do, shoot me an email. Thank you!
Yes, the source of study that produced this finding was me! If I live to be 80 years old, then 30 seconds every day for 80 years adds up to about 10 days (30 * 365 * 80 / 60 / 60 / 24).
Over the past few years I’ve become more and more aware that regular, unnecessary alerts are wasting a lot of my time. One day I did the calculation and was astounded. If I just disabled my ‘new email’ alerts, I’d save about 30 seconds every day, some days even more. That was back then. I used to have all kinds of alerts that would get my attention: Twitter Direct Messages (even Twitter mentions for a little while!), alerts from various servers that I monitor, calendar reminders, phone calls, etc. And they weren’t just visual alerts; I had things that actually made sounds to get my attention (oh the blasphemy!).
I’ve since turned off almost everything. Anything that goes to email only goes to email. If there’s a site I login to at least once a day, like Twitter, Facebook, or Google+, then all alerts stay on the site (all email alerts are disabled). I’ve had my phone set to vibrate for the past few years. It doesn’t make a single sound. New emails don’t make sounds or vibrations. The only things that can generate a visual alert on my phone are calendar reminders, SMS messages and phone calls (both of which I rarely receive), and my alarm. No apps on the phone are allowed to alert me.
I have no doubt disabling all these electronic alerts has saved me far more than 10 days of my life, not to mention all the attention that I’ve saved. Now I can focus and there are very few electronic things that will break that focus.
hmmm, fascinating observation 🙂
I’m glad you enjoyed it. 🙂