Don’t Be A Digital Crackhead

Let’s celebrate independence day this by disconnecting, for a moment, from the electronic gadgets and devices that consume so many of our lives.

I know it’s hard.  Hard for me.  Hard for you.  Hard for everyone. It’s hard because clever designers and marketers deliberately built these devices to be irresistible. The truth is that multi-tasking is a myth.  You can do more than one thing at once, but you can’t really focus on more than one thing at a time.

Also, time and energy spent with your gadgets saps strength, willpower and effort that can be channeled toward something more productive than liking a cat video on YouTube, for example.  Plus, it takes ramp up time to start a new task or restart a task that we started before and left unfinished (because of that adorable cat video we HAD to watch and share with our friends).

Each person’s cognitive daily fuel is limited, so every decision you make drains some of that precious fuel regardless of whether it’s an important decision or something trivial – like what you’re going to eat for lunch.  When you make a decision or resist temptation, it depletes your imited cognitive fuel tank.  The best way to unplug is to remove the temptation altogether.  So, turn your damn smart phone off.  Or, better yet, leave it at home

Don’t be a digital crackhead.  PUT THE PHONE DOWN!  Not only are you wasting time, you’re also wasting fuel.