3 Ways To Stay Balanced With Technology
Balance is an important foundation of a happy and fulfilling lifestyle and is one of the major goals of self-care. It allows for the ability to keep even the most challenging experiences in perspective, to maintain a positive outlook, and to feel deeply inspired and motivated. But, in a day filled with countless distractions, turbulence, and responsibilities due to our increased technological connectivity, finding balance can be harder than ever.
There are many ways to increase your sense of balance, but some may be easier than you might think. By removing small distractions, for example, you can increase your focus, inspiration, and productivity, resulting in more time dedicated to self-care.
In this post, we’ll highlight some ways in which you can mitigate the distracting effects of technology to find greater balance in your life.
Turn Off Email Notifications
While it initially may seem counterintuitive, turning off your email notifications may increase your productivity. Email notifications can disrupt your train of thought and workflow, ultimately causing you to feel frustrated and disjointed. This is never beneficial to a sense of balance.
Turning off email notifications is usually straightforward, and there guides on how to do so for most major email clients including Outlook, Gmail, and Apple Mail.
Decide to pick a few times throughout the day when you will check your email. It may take a bit to get used to, but in the end, you may find that this simple tip increases your focus and productivity, leading to a sense of accomplishment and more time to focus on other tasks.
Use a Pomodoro Timer
The Pomodoro technique has been shown to increase productivity and can be a beneficial tool in finding balance throughout the day. If you are unfamiliar with this method, the Pomodoro Technique utilizes a timer to break up tasks with twenty-five minutes of focus, and then a break of five minutes afterwards. This cycle continues, with the exception that the break becomes thirty minutes after every four cycles.
Pomodoro timers have the benefit of prioritizing both focus and balance, unlike other task timing methods. Visit this link to learn more about the Pomodoro technique.
Organize
Decluttering is all the rage these days, but this also applies to the digital realm. Being able to easily navigate images, documents, applications, and messages, will both save you time and decrease the amount of frustration associated with computer use.
Decide on a plan for how you will organize your computer to suit your needs. Think about what your biggest pain point is with your computer use, and brainstorm solutions on how to mitigate it. For files, create folder names that are easy to navigate and save your files in these locations. For websites, the bookmarks bar can be a great way to refer back to pages you frequently visit.
While these are only suggestions, we hope that by using these tips, you develop a greater sense of balance throughout your day, and thus a happier you.
