Resplendent Reading Report: The Pinging

Seth said it.

The Pinging he calls it. As if it were a Stephen King! So much meaning in so few words. "Dang, that guy's brilliant," I think. "That's how you make words jump off the page."

Admiration for Seth's writing skill aside, he speaks to a challenge nearly all of us face today. We all know we can get distracted by our phones.

But he only goes so far as identifying the problem.

Here I'll offer a solution. How we can break the cycle and become the ones who are playing, rather than the ones being played? Three things that have worked for me, and I think could work for you too:

1. I keep my phone on vibrate as a rule.

That way I don't have to contend with "pings" or "chirps."

In the relationship between my device and me, this firmly establishes me as the one who chooses when and how to interact with my phone. Why is that necessary? I'm self aware enough to know that when my phone rings out audibly, I am going to be pulled toward it. And it will disrupt or outright break my attention to whatever I'm doing.

2. I "look, but don't touch" news notifications

I regard news notifications not as things to click into, but merely as as passive updates just for me. Thus, I get the best of both worlds in a way. By receiving and reading these notifications, I get a high-level feel of what's going on:

• I see what's going on in the world through news apps: each notification in my tray is a headline. It's like my own little makeshift RSS feed (albeit roughly engineered and not nearly as refined as a true RSS would be).

• I see what's going on in my little world, or in my social groups, through social apps: so-and-so posted a picture, and so on.

Granted: this one is a little harder to plainly operationalize than #1. And it has become second nature for me at this point.

But for someone seeking to build this habit, try this:

For just one day, follow a rule where you "look but don't touch" news notifications. Read 'em and swipe! No matter what. If it's a social or news app, you read it and you swipe it away!

NOTE: make an exception for any notifications essential to your functioning, such as something related to your job responsibilities, or an update from a very close family member who is actually meaningful to your long term life. The idea isn't to make you suffer or self-ostracize unnecessarily; it's just to build a healthier, more conscious connection to your mobile device.

It's to make your device work for you, and not the other way around.

3. I keep my phone out of my line of sight.

Some advice suggests keeping your phone out of your reach altogether. That seems a little overboard to me. I'm merely talking about not habitually leaving my phone face up on a surface where I can see it.

When my phone is out, and face-up, I can see every notification that pings on it. The vibration doesn't help me. And just like that, there goes my attention time and again.

So simply keep it out of sight! It's as easy as putting it on a shelf slightly lower than your viewing angle. Or keeping it in your pocket. Or on the windowsill right behind you. It doesn't matter and you can't do it wrong; the only important thing is that it's out of sight.

NOTE: This I do this because I do a lot of "deep thinking" in my work. (For a primer, check out some of Cal Newport's good work on it.) But this is not for everybody, and it's not even a hard-and-fast rule for me. In fact, when I am not in deep thinking mode, say taking care of a string of little things, I will leave my phone in sight; at these moments I'm more amenable to little random distractions that could be playfully amusing, or might involve a text thread from a friend group, or simply provide a welcome bit of serendipity / randomness to my day.

That said, this is a sacred law any time family is eating together at the table. And most of the time during work (85-90% of the time by my estimate).

Caveats to this advice

These rules aren't for everyone. They are meant primarily for deep workers like me who do a lot of writing or other creative activity that requires their complete focus for extended periods of time. I would not recommend this for a reporter for example.

Similarly, some people can be on their phones most of the day without issue. My friend Anthony is a great example: a maestro with his phone. He's on it all the time. He always needs a charge. And yet, he is healthy, happy, and productive. I don't know how he does it, but he does. So if you're like Anthony, you probably don't need this advice.

But if you're looking to change that pesky phone habit, hopefully this will help. Your phone will be out of sight. Your phone will be quiet. Your phone will take its rightful place as the servant that follows your orders, rather than the barbed tail that wags your exhausted dog.