Living on the edge... of the white noise

I’m reading an article on my computer. It’s interesting. I don't really want to be interrupted. I get a message notification on my screen. “Oh, it’s just my mum, trying to find out if Charlotte has gone to school today… I’ll answer it later. “ Whilst I close the notification, in the back of my mind, that message will be playing on repeat, along with other voices. I wanted to let her know she went, and that everything is ok. I could do that at that moment, but if she’s online, that message is going to become a chat. And that will drill into my time.

Google is my environment. I tend to have - on a normal day - fifteen to twenty tabs open: My email inboxes, my Drive, a couple of documents and a few articles opened via an email or research related to a topic of interest. Do I actually read them all? Uuh… No. The reality of it all is that I end up muddling it all. Total FOMO. And how does surrendering to it benefit me?

I need to relearn to manage my virtual interactions. It's all too easy to get my personal and professional areas mixed up. This clearly requires mental reprogramming. It’s all about managing ad-hoc priorities, rather than planning. It requires discipline in the full abstraction from unnecessary tasks to the main task at hand.

This is where reading a physical book, newspaper or magazine comes in handy. If I really want to keep up with worldly news, then this would probably be the best way, as long as I keep all devices on silent mode.

If I’m not reading the news but instead I'm working on something on my device, or PC, mostly (because my vision is no longer good enough to write for long periods of time without squinting). Then I have to make sure I only keep open tabs that I need to complete the main task, which is hard to do, considering I like to do quick searches as I write, voiding searches for a recipe for a meal that is missing from my weekly meal plan, or trying to get a better understanding of the topic I’m writing about.

I need to let go of the multitasking mentality, it interferes with my productivity, particularly if I’m trying to be creative and when I’m setting a specific time. Because the daily tasks usually require more immediate action, I end up completing these instead... It’s a work in progress…