We couldn’t go twenty minutes without a distraction — whether it was a text message, calendar reminder, email, or app push notification. We were getting dozens of unimportant — but URGENT! — emails a day. And don’t get me started on how far behind we were on RSS feeds.

I thought technology was supposed to change the world and make us a thousand times more productive. But all I could think of is how much it was distracting me. And I get distracted easily.

I was about to explode from information overload.

It was time. Time to unplug and take a vacation from all of our notifications.

There is just too much going on to expect to be aware of everything and not go crazy. Knowledge is power; but too much knowledge is exhausting.

And there we were, overwhelmed by thousands of distractions. And we realized we had done it to ourselves.

Wife and I were experiencing suffocation by information. I’m getting a little asthmatic at the thought of how bad it was!

We took some drastic measures to defeat our distress:

• We unsubscribed from email lists, one after another. (Our spam was automatically filtered, but this took care of our “legitimate” spam.)
• We unsubscribed from paper mailing lists.
• We opted out of unwanted general mailings and credit card offers.
• We opted out of unwanted phone calls general mailings and credit card offers.
• We stopped checking unread RSS feeds.
• We took a hacksaw to our inboxes and archived everything that did not absolutely need our response. We ignored what could be ignored with innocuous consequences. (Sorry, not gonna watch that random youtube video.)
• We pruned our calendars and disabled reminders for any event that doesn’t require immediate action.
• We disabled dozens of update notifications on our smart phones. About the only things that notify us now are phone calls, text messages, and calendar reminders — which are very manageable.

And I couldn’t imagine going back! It’s so freeing not to be crippled by constant updates!

Now, our methods aren’t nearly perfect, as we still find ourselves on mailing lists and being called by telemarketers. But man, it’s so much better than the alternative.

Not convinced you need to take such drastic measures? Let’s try from another angle.

What activity would you LOVE to do but won’t ever do if you don’t clear out enough space for it? What if all of the free time you needed for your dream project was directly related to how much time you spend on Quadrant I activities?

What things are draining all of your energy so you are too weak to pursue your biggest goals?

What if you had the power to create margin and not be so unnecessarily busy just by putting up better boundaries against distractions?

If you’re happy with how many notifications you get each week, then don’t worry about it. But if you wonder how much you could achieve without them, you should consider it…

PS – Here’s an interesting article for fun — but don’t get distracted by it!