Removing digital distractions 2010

Over the years I have built up an digital environment that demands my attention – both online and offline. Today, I have started to remove the clutter from this digital life in order to add more clarity and give me breathing space.

Mac/iPhone

Focussing on important apps

  • Backdrop is a tool I’ve mentioned before. The aim is simple; it blacks out your screen allowing you to pick only the essential applications to focus on.
  • WriteRoom is a decent text editor that uses the same black-out effect as Backdrop, allowing you to concentrate purely on writing.

Removing notifications

  • Growl notifications seemed like a good idea once-upon-a-time. More often than not, they serve only as an annoyance and break my concentration.
  • I’ve disabled iPhone push notifications for Mail as e-mail is never important enough that I need to read it straight away

Online

The key question that I kept coming back to as I sifted through this mess is

How does this support my life as it is now?

Unsubscribing from e-mail alerts

I’ve unsubscribed from the following e-mail alerts:

  • Facebook notifications (57 different notification types in all!)
  • Twitter user follows
  • Google alerts
  • Dozens of music and tech mailing lists

Knowing that my level of e-mail will now drop, I’m less inclined to check it as often.

Unsubscribing from blog RSS feeds

I had 82 feeds in my feed reader, and I realised that I read new items from them very rarely. I’ve now unsubscribed from all but 3;

I’m sure these actions will be helpful in the long run, I am hoping this is a step towards a less overwhelming environment.

Glen Scott

I’m a freelance software developer with 18 years’ professional experience in web development. I specialise in creating tailor-made, web-based systems that can help your business run like clockwork. I am the Managing Director of Yellow Square Development.

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