[00:00:00] Daniel: Um, hey there again, Spacemakers. I'm Daniel Sih, your host, and I'm joined by the ever wise Matt Bain. And we're the Spacemakers, helping you make space for a meaningful life by doing less, not more. This season, as you know, is about the fracturing of our attention and how to reclaim your focus. Here's a spoiler alert, it involves less time on TikTok.

[00:00:26] Daniel: Big thanks to our sponsor, St Luke's Health, the health insurance company that we use as a family. They are committed to supporting the mental, physical and emotional health and well being of our local community.

[00:00:40] Daniel: The Spacemakers with Daniel Sih and Matt Bain.

[00:00:44] Daniel: Hi everyone, this is Daniel from Spacemakers and I'm here with my co-host Matt Bain.

[00:00:49] Matt: Hi Dan, how you doing?

[00:00:51] Daniel: Hi everyone, and this episode is about how to dumb down your smartphone, or essentially, how do you reclaim your digital environment so that you can focus and concentrate on what really matters. [00:01:00] And I was thinking about a conversation I had when I was coaching a lady, and I think we were doing Clifton Strengths coaching and talking about her strengths.

[00:01:09] Daniel: And she ended up sharing something which was quite funny. I suppose real and difficult about her marriage. And at the moment she expressed that emotional comment, my phone vibrated in my pocket and she didn't hear it. It was on silent. But what was fascinating is, well, fascinating, bad. I was trying to pay attention to this lady and ask her open questions and she was pouring out her heart and talking about.

[00:01:32] Daniel: Uh, really important stuff. And at the same time in my head, I was seriously thinking, I wonder who's texted me. I wonder what that text is. I wish I could check my text. When can I look at my text without it being rude? I mean, how bad's that? Uh, at some point I think she wrote something down and as she did, I quickly kind of reached into my pocket and just quickly looked and see who it was when she didn't notice.

[00:01:53] Daniel: The sneaky grab. Yeah. What a good coach I am. And it was, and it was a screen time [00:02:00] notification from Apple saying, congratulations, you've spent less time on your screen this week. And I was like, Oh, wow. It's so distracted me from what I actually wanted. Like I do care about this lady and I wanted to be present.

[00:02:13] Daniel: Of course. But my digital environment altered the way in which I focused. So that's what we're going to talk about.

[00:02:19] Matt: Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And obviously it overcame your willpower.

[00:02:21] Daniel: It overcame my willpower and brought in all my sneaky strategies, how to, how to listen, but not really listen. Okay. So if you're listening for the first time, uh, this is a standalone episode, but it's also part of a journey.

[00:02:35] Daniel: The 10 episodes of season one are about recapturing our attention and we're actually taking you through a process. And the process is we want you to think about what your greater yes is. Because if you know who you are and what you value, you'll, you're more likely to shape your attention around those things.

[00:02:49] Daniel: We're near the end of the next stage of the process, which is about removing digital distractions and reshaping your environment. We talked about why everything is not always so awesome when you're part of an MS team last week. [00:03:00] Uh, and then next week, we're going to talk about filling the void and filling that space with other stuff.

[00:03:06] Daniel: Our practical activity last week was to just get rid of some notifications, turn them off on email, turn them off on teams, for example, you and I have done this for years. So this isn't necessarily something we did this week, but have you found it valuable in the past to turn off these notifications?

[00:03:20] Matt: Yeah, very difficult, but very more effective than relying on my, my individual willpower in the moment to resist it.

[00:03:27] Daniel: Yeah. Had I not felt that vibration, I wouldn't have had to then have the willpower not to check it.

[00:03:32] Matt: Yeah. And like, you'd like to be that superhero. You'd like to be like the one guy in the world who just like being able to grit it out because you're so staunch and you're so stoic.

[00:03:40] Matt: But in reality, you're going up against a whole lot of really well paid, highly educated, sophisticated engineers.

[00:03:46] Daniel: I want to know what that superhero's name would be, you know, like Mr. Focus, I don't know. Okay. Uh, so look, let's talk about the environment and how it shapes our attention and then we'll get really practical and we'll just look at how do you actually reduce the [00:04:00] distractions in your environment.

[00:04:00] Daniel: Yeah. Okay. I always think about this quote from the great Winston Churchill, and he said, we shape our buildings, thereafter they shape us. So this is the context. Okay. It was 1943 and the Nazis had bombed the heck out of London, uh, and vice versa. Uh, heaps of buildings were destroyed, including the commons chamber.

[00:04:17] Daniel: So that's the British parliament building. And so parliament were debating how do they rebuild. build one of the most important buildings for modern democracy, uh, and some were proposing that they change the structure and they design something that's, for example, a round or cylindrical structure. And Winston Churchill were, was arguing that we need to return and rebuild the exact same rectangular structure, because the structure itself shapes our two party preferred system.

[00:04:46] Daniel: So basically by having two parties facing off against each other in a rectangular structure, it shaped this idea of debate and dialogue between two powerful parties that had to actually do a tussle and tug of war to see who was in power. Uh, [00:05:00] now obviously there are some challenges with that system many years on.

[00:05:02] Daniel: However, his point was that the buildings and environments that we will indeed actually shape the way in which we perceive reality. And I think that's really true. You know, if you go into a building and there's large stairs and a, and an elevator that's to the side, well then you're more likely to use the stairs.

[00:05:19] Daniel: If you go into a big cathedral, you're more likely to think about the bigness of life and wonder than if you go to, let's say, I don't know, a modern kind of church that doesn't have the, the, the spires and the archways. Uh, so the, the, the environment that we experience shapes our perception of the world, but that is very much true for our day.

[00:05:36] Daniel: digital environments, which is what we're going to talk about. Yes. So a number of years later, a contemporary of Marshall McLuhan, who I think we mentioned before, a guy called, uh, Father John Kolkin. Uh, he said this quote, he said, we shape our tools and then our tools shape us. Very, very similar to the Winston Churchill quote.

[00:05:54] Daniel: And what he was saying essentially is that we are a product of our environment and that the digital [00:06:00] tools or environments that we use and the ideas embedded in those environments, which we talked about, I think, in the second episode, and the medium of the messages that we use will shape how we perceive the world.

[00:06:12] Daniel: And therefore, In, in a practical sense, you and I and those who are trying to recapture their attention need to think carefully about how do we reduce the noise, the notifications, the distractions and the aspects of an environment that make us lose our focus. What do you reckon?

[00:06:33] Matt: That's a big question. Funny few words. Yeah. Yeah. What do I reckon? Uh, I reckon, uh, so I've got, um, you know, I've got different Winston Churchill quotes. Um, and, uh. Oh, what's your best one? Uh, best one? Uh, he was once disgusted by a dessert that one of his, um, so I threw it back in their face and said, this pudding has no theme.

[00:06:51] Matt: This pudding has no theme. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fantastic.

[00:06:53] Daniel: And with like pudding over her face, did she write that quote down and make money from it and copyright it?

[00:06:59] Matt: I can't speak to that level [00:07:00] of detail. But I do have an example, not quite as highbrow as the Churchillian example, about how our digital environment.

[00:07:05] Matt: Can shape our interactions, and most importantly, direct our attention. I was in Melbourne recently and went to ACMI, which I believe is like a, it's a museum of culture. And they had this exhibition on The Movie Image, it was called. And one of the artifacts was this great display of television screens. So each decade in Australian history got one screen.

[00:07:27] Matt: Like one screen isn't one television. So like lifestyle starting, what, 1950s, 50s. Yeah. Yeah. 50s all the way through to 2020. Okay. And so each decade was represented by this gutted TV screen. So the insides was taken out and inside each decade's screen or television was a representation of a living room at the time, right?

[00:07:48] Matt: So like the 50 years had this really small TV in the corner fireplace, a bunch of couches arranged away from the TV and kind of like, you know, facing each other. So the TV screen was again, it was, [00:08:00] it wasn't primary, it wasn't front front-centre. It was literally in a corner and it was quite small. And you go through each of these different decades and screens and you get to 2020.

[00:08:10] Matt: And now the TV is massive. It's now front and centre. It's like literally hanging on the wall. It's the centrepiece, if you like, of the living room and all the furniture where people sit is set up and oriented towards the TV screen. Because so,

[00:08:26] Daniel: because the living room environment is shaped where the television is the front and centre rather than the dinner table, for example, yes, or therefore that shapes the interactions and the imagination and the habits of those in the room.

[00:08:37] Daniel: Yeah. A bit like the castle. If I can bring an old quote in, you know, that we, dad and mum made a rule that they always turn the television down at dinner. Yeah, that's right.

[00:08:46] Matt: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Look at you Churchill to Castle.

[00:08:47] Daniel: I know. And let's keep changing uh, the script again. The thing that's fascinating about that analogy because clearly that it represents in some type of physical manifestation [00:09:00] that technology has shaped our imagination, our habits, and our family culture, which is really true.

[00:09:04] Daniel: But I remember doing a consult with a large, very, very expensive boarding school in Melbourne. And what's fascinating is they spent millions on this incredible kind of common room area to give their boarders the state-of-the-art kind of experiences. And, uh, and part of that Basically, I walked in and it's like a movie theatre.

[00:09:25] Daniel: Like there's this enormous screen and beautiful comfy chairs and you know, great layout, incredible design. And I was thinking, oh mate, if I was a boarder, like how cool would this be? And I literally said, this is the best boarding school common room. And you know what the principal said? What? They said, no one uses it.

[00:09:44] Daniel: I said, what do you mean no one uses it? He said, no, they all sit around on their individual screens and no one watches together. Yeah. So it's a complete waste of money. And that changed in the last 15 years. So what's interesting is while the big screen dominated our [00:10:00] lounge rooms in let's say, what, 1990s, maybe 20s, uh, now the screens are getting smaller and actually we're not watching together.

[00:10:07] Daniel: So we're actually. Individuals in our own individual living rooms without any community around us, which is a different idea again.

[00:10:15] Matt: It is, it is. So that would be my my attention is being captured or directed towards an individual experience as opposed to a collective shared communal experience.

[00:10:25] Daniel: That's right.

[00:10:25] Daniel: And my community, it not only is, no longer our neighbourhood, our rotary clubs, our sports clubs, our scout halls, and it's not my neighbours and my neighbourhood, and it's not even my nuclear family or those who I actually live life with. My community is now a global community of influencers who shoot me 30 second reels or, you know, shorts, and, and I feel like they are my true family and therefore I have an individual screen, which is a completely different experience of community in life.

[00:10:52] Daniel: But again, we didn't wake up and say, hey, what's the best way to do community? I know what it is. Let's sit on individual screens surrounded by each [00:11:00] other and actually message each other on social media. No, it's, it's that we adopted technologies which have ideas and then they ever, they, they shaped us. So if I go back to that original Winston Churchill quote, just so I can use the term Churchillian, which I've never heard of.

[00:11:13] Daniel: I thought that was a pretty cool term. Churchillian. Churchillian. You know any? No. Huh. Churchillian. Churchillian. Got it. I believe. Churchillian. All right. Cool. Yeah. The boarding school that I didn't go to pronounced it like that. Yeah. There you are. Yeah. There you are. All right. Uh, we shape our buildings thereafter they shape us.

[00:11:29] Daniel: Uh, and I think that's really important. So really what we're saying is don't be forward into thinking. that your environment doesn't matter, that it doesn't matter if you have notifications, that it doesn't matter what apps you use or how you shape your tools. Every tool that you use creates a digital environment and willpower alone is not enough to recapture your focus if you're using an anti-focus device.

[00:11:49] Daniel: Is that fair to say?

[00:11:50] Matt: Yeah, uh, so, so I like the, I like the nuance of the fact that we're not just products of our environment because that's too simplistic. So again, we, to some degree, we produce our environment and [00:12:00] then our environment in turn produces us. I think the kind of, the key, perhaps the key big change that, uh, Churchill hadn't experienced so much is that I now shape my environment by giving my consent, if you like, and choosing to consume particular digital technology that I haven't shaped.

[00:12:18] Matt: People, again, far smarter than me with a whole lot of resources at their disposal compared to me have engineered something that I then consent to purchase and use. And so I don't have direct control over the products anymore. So their potency, if you like, and their unintended consequences go beyond just my discretion.

[00:12:37] Daniel: And probably the deliberate nature is a bit different as well. Like you might go to an old cathedral and yes, I'm sure people are designing it for the austerity of God. But they probably weren't using, you know, like, billions of dollars of psychological research to try to work out how do I intentionally shape this particular worldview.

[00:12:52] Daniel: Yes. So in that sense, it's just we've matured in terms of our attention engineering. Yeah. Therefore, we need to be even more aware of the power of our [00:13:00] environment and make some practical steps, uh, individually, but also collectively to help regain our focus.

[00:13:05] Matt: And the cathedral wasn't designed for profit.

[00:13:08] Daniel: Hopefully not. Hey, the one big caveat, and we have mentioned this before, is that what we're not saying is that it is your responsibility as an individual to fix the fact that we are now in a digitally saturated culture. Yeah, that's right. Uh, I agree with, I agree with Johan Hari. Whose critique is that unless the business model of big tech changes and unless many other factors including the food we eat and the way in which kids, you know, exercise, all that kind of, unless we actually look at the broader sociological factors, which requires both policy and broad social cultural change, uh, we're still going to find ourselves struggling with attention.

[00:13:42] Daniel: I think that's true. At the same time where you and I sit in this podcast is, well, that's not enough. Because for everyday people, we can't change the policies of big tech. I can't change the US Congress and, you know, the age verification limits. I don't have a lot of autonomy over how I can change my government's policy there.

[00:13:59] Daniel: [00:14:00] So as a result of that, we don't want to sit in hopelessness. We actually think it's very, very possible to make some autonomous, self-directed, responsible choices that can help us shape our environment and at least curate Our ability to concentrate more than we can now.

[00:14:13] Matt: Yeah, that's right. Want to be realistic. Don't want to be naive.

[00:14:16] Daniel: Yeah. But don't feel bad about it and don't beat yourself up if you're not always focusing. I have notifications off and I have a lot of, uh, control mechanisms to help me not be addicted. And yet when I'm coaching someone, I'll still be distracted by that notification that says congratulations.

[00:14:31] Daniel: You're not using your screen so much. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:40] Daniel: Okay, man. Well, let's get practical because that's what we want this episode to be about. It's about how do you actually start to make some environmental changes to reduce the distraction. Last week, Tim and I talked a lot about the workplace, about MS Teams, about notification culture, uh, and the activity was to turn off notifications from email and, and reduce MS Teams notifications and use do not [00:15:00] disturb.

[00:15:00] Daniel: So let's not focus on the work environment. Let's actually talk about removing distractions in our home environment. And then we might talk about something very specific, like how do you dumb down your smartphone a bit more?

[00:15:11] Matt: Home environment, yours is like mine, is like full of digital devices.

[00:15:16] Daniel: Uh, Labradors, as you talked about last week.

[00:15:18] Matt: Not digital Labradors. No, no, no, no, no. Uh, so, uh, yes. And, obviously, um, we spend so much time at home, and we're also there with other people at home, people who presumably, like, we love and care about, so we want to interact in a good manner, healthy manner with them as well. Yeah. So, it'd be naive to think that, uh, for one reason or another, like you can kind of master your digital distractions over here in a work context and then come home and not worry about it.

[00:15:41] Daniel: Yeah. Uh, my example is for some reason, and this is after I've written like Spacemaker, which is a book about how do you think about digital tech and the impact of it on your life? Uh, for some reason we got a television and we put it in our bedroom. And, uh, I think what happened is we broke our old TV.

[00:15:59] Daniel: We've never [00:16:00] really had a TV front and centre and we thought, well, if we're going to get a nice TV, let's put it in a bedroom and then the kids can have the bad one. And so we put a TV in our bedroom and I was thinking I'll just be disciplined and I won't use it too much. And after about a year, my wife and I had heaps of arguments because it's like, well, we don't do anything other than watch TV anymore.

[00:16:19] Daniel: In the end, we made a joint decision that actually the TV has got to go. And so we got rid of the TV and I reckon we. reduced our Netflix consumption by about half, probably two thirds, simply by taking the device away from our bedroom. And now I read more, or if we watch TV, it's upstairs in a somewhat cold room in winter, and it's communal, and the kids are around, so we're just much less likely to do it.

[00:16:42] Daniel: That was one simple change, but it dramatically shifted my digital consumption, which I wanted. Okay. Just an example of the home environment changing. Yes. What about you?

[00:16:50] Matt: Yes. For the home environment? Um, we started, we started like for a while. And again, this is something that I want to kind of keep on pursuing because yeah, [00:17:00] just going back a step, I should preface this by saying, at least in my experience, all these proposed changes I think are good, but they still involve, I think they still, there's still some costs there, right?

[00:17:08] Matt: Some just like some degree of you know, cause you are trying to swap out one habit for another. And so, so just with that uh, proviso. So if I'm, I'm, I'm in our particular home environment, what we're trying to decrease is the prevalence or everyone being on their own particular digital device, their own head, their own particular individual screen.

[00:17:24] Matt: I think like you and I have talked before now, you know, um, there are people, it's not uncommon, I think, for even like, um, a couple of partners to be watching TV at once. Or a show at once, but each, like on their respective phones, so they're watching so in tandem. So we're trying to like decrease just the ease and the accessibility of people jumping on their respective devices.

[00:17:43] Matt: So one thing that I wanna rededicate myself to is this idea of having a designated space. Mm-Hmm. Usually in the hallway right near the front door where people can deposit their phones.

[00:17:52] Daniel: Oh, okay. Yeah. So an actual place where you put it down when you're in the house. Yes. Yeah. We don't do that. But I've definitely heard of lots of families or, or [00:18:00] people that do it, even not families.

[00:18:01] Daniel: I've got, I've got a friend who's a consultant and he basically finds these on his phone way too much if he doesn't put in measures. He actually bought one of these, it's like a plastic container with like a timed lock. I think it's for like, yeah, for people who want to eat chocolate but not eat too much.

[00:18:15] Daniel: Yes. And he literally puts it in there and turns the lock and he can't take his phone out for an hour or two. Yes. Uh, and he does that in order to break the cycle of being online all the time when he's at work. But he wants to have some downtime. Yeah. So, so essentially we're putting in, uh, barriers in place in order to reduce the likelihood that we will do the habitual behaviors we don't want.

[00:18:35] Matt: Exactly. Speed humps. Yes. Because. From what I understand, like more and more people are suggesting that it's not just like the quality, the potential quality of the information that is now at your easy reach. It's also the fact that particularly in a work environment, we are so just the speed of information and the availability of novel information, both those things that have been so turned up that we get habituated to be out to just to accessing.

[00:18:58] Matt: Yeah, novel [00:19:00] information, varied information as a way of life almost. This translates into you can be, you can complain about the number of emails that you're trying to, that you need to process at work, but then you get home and you will have your own free will and volition, pull out your phone and just start scrolling anything.

[00:19:15] Matt: It doesn't really matter.

[00:19:16] Daniel: Although you say your own free will and volition, we keep going back to that free will in kind of apostrophes, knowing that actually you're following a code that's been engineered to make you. Yes. Want your free will to check your email. Yeah.

[00:19:29] Matt: So to some degree, you'd be conditioned.

[00:19:30] Matt: Your free will has been conditioned. Like, yeah. In that regard.

[00:19:32] Daniel: So on the one hand it is free will,

[00:19:34] Matt: But I just want to put that. Yeah. So, so that means if that's true, then it's not just enough to say, well, I'm going to, you know, say like ditch half my streaming services. It's more than I know. Just the actual medium itself.

[00:19:44] Matt: If that's available, then I'm going to be inclined just to access it and try it when I get bored. Yeah.

[00:19:50] Daniel: What's interesting, I mean, with the television and we're, keep going back to the television in the lounge room. So right throughout my kids, you know, young childhood, let's say their primary school years, uh, and, and earlier we [00:20:00] didn't have a television in the lounge room.

[00:20:01] Daniel: I was very deliberate about that. I knew that I didn't want the TV to dominate our family life. And the only way we could watch TV was either pulling out a laptop or physically carrying this old television, putting it into the centre and we watch movies together. And that worked for years. But then what I noticed post lock down is all the kids ended up with their own devices.

[00:20:19] Daniel: Uh, we started to basically sit in the lounge room. There's three or four of us around, and we're all doing our own thing on our own devices, and I started to think, actually, paradoxically the, the best way I can get my family to start to get together, commune together is to put a big TV in the middle of the room.

[00:20:35] Daniel: So I did that again to create an environment where my kids and family would watch TV together more than separately. Now it's worked to a point. Yes. We definitely do family movies together and sometimes I see the kids watching it together, which is great. So it's worked by giving a bit of a nudge, but I love the irony that actually, uh, to start with having no TV was the right solution and then putting a big TV in the middle of the room was [00:21:00] actually my way of creating community again at a teenage age where the kids are on their own devices.

[00:21:05] Daniel: And a few people have judged me for that. They've said, hey, look at you. Now you've kind of backslidden, I suppose, you've sold out, you've sold out and you've got a TV in the middle of the room. But actually my intention is completely the opposite. I've always been pro community and I've always been about shaping our environment.

[00:21:21] Daniel: But in this stage of life, that's the best thing to do. Yes. And when kids leave home, well, maybe we'll get rid of it all together.

[00:21:26] Matt: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Maybe. Maybe. Like, on that, again, just sticking with TV for now, um, we haven't done this ourselves as yet. It's something that I wouldn't mind, again, maybe trying out down the line, but you hear about people almost curating, intentionally curating, their TV shows.

[00:21:40] Matt: Usage and consumption and trying to turn it into one of those almost like high, more high level leisure activities that we've discussed before in the sense that I'm, I'm not going to just like have all my streaming services on and we'll watch and we'll just like channel serve until we find something that catches our attention, blah, blah, blah, and then binge it.

[00:21:55] Matt: It's more, I'm going to have a quota of time during the week that we allow [00:22:00] TV or movies and then because that's going to be limited and capped. We're going to be really intentional and mindful about what it is that we decide to consume and watch.

[00:22:09] Daniel: What's a bit like that? I mean I write in my kids book Raising Tech Healthy Humans, which is about setting up kids with better habits. Yeah, I write about the token system where you give a certain amount of tokens Which is a certain amount of screen time and then they self regulate.

[00:22:21] Daniel: It's similar, but you're just saying it for yourself. Yeah Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I hope I didn't rip off your idea there. Yeah. Thanks very much. If you can reference me, that'd be awesome. Hey, the, uh, the other idea, which, which is one of the things that has worked for us is simply to charge our phones outside of our bed.

[00:22:34] Daniel: Yeah. Okay. So I find that, uh, I found that my wife and I would, would be, I won't give too much detail away. It's a non explicit podcast, but, uh, you know, we'd be in bed and I'd be scrolling my phone for email and my wife would be playing some type of candy crush or game on her phone. And, and here we are, like, she's the love of my life.

[00:22:50] Daniel: Yeah. Yeah. We've got a busy life. We work, we've got kids, we're running from here to there, and those kind of precious 10 minutes before or after we go to sleep, for example, [00:23:00] we're here playing with our phones and having a relationship with Siri rather than each other. You should get a TV. Yeah, you should get a TV.

[00:23:05] Daniel: But it's dumb, right? Yeah. And I just think, oh, what a, what a waste of, you know, actually there was a funny study I read, an Italian study, apparently, and I can only say Italians, but, uh, when Italian couples have televisions in the room, they have sex with less than couples that don't. So, hey. Yeah. If you want to have more sex, get rid of the TV.

[00:23:22] Daniel: But the, the point is, uh, it was random, but the, the point is if you can charge your phone outside of your bedroom and actually do it, if you've got a family, you know, have a charging dock and have everyone do it, when it just breaks that habit of finishing and starting the day with a device, which I found massively valuable to have a bit of space to wake up and to think and to, reflect on my own thoughts and to maybe think about the day is such a different idea than opening up my app and finding out what's happening in Gaza.

[00:23:50] Daniel: Yeah. You know? And similarly, to finish the day by maybe reading a physical book or you know, having a conversation with my wife or just, I don't know, just [00:24:00] quieting my mind before I go to bed is, is very different than flicking through social media. Sure. It's a game changer. I found that truly valuable. Uh, and so yeah, it's not easy though.

[00:24:09] Daniel: Uh, and you will have to think about how do you wake yourself up. That's the biggest barrier people give me. Is that the biggest barrier? Honestly, I think. Without a doubt, that's the biggest barrier. Well, but at least people say they don't know how to wake up if they get rid of their phone. And it is a problem if you rely on your phone to wake you up, but obviously you can have garments and fit bits that vibrate, which still work.

[00:24:26] Daniel: Yeah. I use a Google nest I used to have. And an old iPhone that had no apps, that had no data. It was just an old iPhone, which I would have thrown away. And I use that as my alarm clock and that worked really well. 2, 000 alarm clock that does nothing but wake me up. So it is possible, but you need a strategy.

[00:24:43] Matt: Yeah. Okay. That's yeah. It's just the, um, the usual kind of pushback. that I get whenever this comes up in conversations. Well, like, what about if my great aunt Edna needs to contact me at 3am in the morning because she's fallen over after getting out of bed and, you know, God forbid, I can't answer the phone and go and go to her rescue.

[00:24:59] Matt: So it's about [00:25:00] people being able to contact you. I'm sure there's like get arounds and work arounds. They're probably one of your books, I think, maybe.

[00:25:08] Daniel: Actually, I know there's a get around because our species has survived evolution without the

[00:25:10] Daniel: iPhone. So, somehow our genes got passed on. You don't know my great aunt, do you?

[00:25:16] Daniel: But ultimately, it comes down to, and this is my big argument in my book, that we can talk about these life hacks. I mean, ultimately, the idea of charging your phone outside of your bedroom or moving your television in a slightly different place that's less visible, none of these are hard things to do practically.

[00:25:32] Daniel: Uh, the harder thing is the paradigm or mindsets or beliefs that go with it. Uh, and I think that's really the barrier. So we need to shift our technological paradigm, uh, and like the third of my books, Spacemaker, is about, okay, let's really shift our paradigm because without shifting our beliefs and our paradigm, we can't actually do the simple practice changes that improve our environment.

[00:25:51] Daniel: Yes. Uh, Cal Newport says basically the same thing in Digital Minimalism, using more intelligent words. That's good.

[00:25:59] Matt: [00:26:00] Maybe for me that, that, that entire change of attitude or, um, approach is perhaps summed up by the very simple practice, like still kind of difficult. You see a simple, but often challenging and difficult.

[00:26:11] Matt: And this has been backed up by, I think, study after study. When I'm interacting with someone human to human in real time, just the very act of having my phone out of sight, means so much and go such a long way.

[00:26:25] Daniel: Oh, yeah, look I can get all research geeky here. I'll do one one quick research study on that. I love it that um if, if people put their phone down on the table and the control group was to swap the phone for a notepad. Yeah, and then they had interactions with each other uh when, when observers assess the quality of their conversations, they were less emotionally kind of coherent, they talked about less deep things, they felt less relationally connected simply by having a phone turned off face down in front of them.

[00:26:50] Daniel: It was like there was a third party there. Uh, there was another study, actually I told you I'd geek out, but there was another study where, um, workers had to do a complex [00:27:00] cognitive task online. It's a set test. So you could examine how much people are concentrating. Uh, and the control was for one of the groups, there was a phone face down.

[00:27:09] Daniel: never touched and the notifications were on silent, the other group had no phone inside. And, uh, there was a statistical difference in people's ability to focus and achieve complex cognitive tasks when the phone was away compared to when it was in front of them. And the researchers said their proposal or their suggestion is it's a bit like having a toddler nagging you.

[00:27:29] Daniel: Now you might have a toddler in the room and you're trying to do a complex task, even if they're not making noise and even if they're not kind of tugging at your clothes, you're always diverting a tiny bit of your attention to work out, is my toddler gonna fall down the stairs. And the same type of thing is happening.

[00:27:45] Daniel: You know, you're always wondering, will this phone demand something of me? Therefore, you can't concentrate as much on the task. All of that has significant implications in terms of how we shape our work environments. But again, it's saying the same type of thing if we're saying that we need to be thoughtful about when and how we use our devices.

[00:27:58] Matt: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because if, [00:28:00] if you and I talking and I see your phone. Right there. Then that is signalling to me on some level, what regards of you being open and dividing some of your attention to the possibility of that phone ring. It's also signalling to me that Dan isn't wholly and solely here.

[00:28:13] Matt: Instead, part of him is open and attentive this possibility. He's like allowed this door to open right here of us being distracted. So I know.

[00:28:23] Daniel: And it's also signaling to me that you know what I'm actually thinking. That's, that's weird. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not really paying attention to you. All right. Um, so let's get practical and talk about how do we, uh, turn our smartphone into a dumb phone.

[00:28:36] Daniel: Because clearly there are many other environmental things you can do, but you can use your own creativity. And look at your own home environment. But on a practical note, how do we actually make the devices a little bit less distracting?

[00:28:55] Daniel: Okay, so Matt, we have a phone. We love it. It's, you know, our best [00:29:00] friend. It's our neighbour. It's our, it's our child. We'd panic if we lost our phone. I don't know, you know, think of a relationship. But we're dependent, you know, we find ourselves reaching for it too much. Uh, and we want to actually reduce the distraction.

[00:29:16] Matt: Yeah. All of our phones so that we can get the benefit of it.

[00:29:18] Daniel: That's right, because it's not all bad. No, it's not. We use it because it's great, but we're on it way too much at the cost of maybe space for relationships or thought or, uh, just other activities that don't revolve around the glowing rectangle.

[00:29:31] Daniel: That's right. Maybe even high quality leisure activities. High quality leisure activities. Okay. So what are the principles? What are some principles for dumbing down your smartphone?

[00:29:39] Matt: Yes. So I like, uh, as a starter, I like the idea of time limiting the amount of access that you have, and the kind of apps that you have access to.

[00:29:49] Matt: So, uh, so the classic is putting in on some kind of sleep or do not disturb mode overnight. Yeah. Okay.

[00:29:55] Daniel: Yeah. Or for example I found I was on, let's say the news too much and especially [00:30:00] reading about Trump and all the kind of stuff that happens. I just, yeah,

[00:30:02] Daniel: it's the new celebrity show. Uh, and so I ended up realizing this is just making me angry.

[00:30:07] Daniel: So I put my phone on a five minute limit for any CNN or ABC app. Yeah. Is that kind of what you mean?

[00:30:11] Matt: That's exactly what I mean.

[00:30:12] Daniel: Yeah. So I can scan it, but I get five minutes a day. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that's one. Okay. So put limits. I reckon mine would be reduce or eliminate the distraction in the first place.

[00:30:23] Daniel: So, um, in that case, in this situation, I like checking the news cause I want to see if there's anything major that happens. I can do that in five minutes a day. Yeah. So I don't want to remove the app, but actually where possible, rather than limits, it's better to get rid of it altogether. So if you can get rid of social media, if you can get rid of, you know, just extra apps, I think less is more.

[00:30:42] Daniel: I want to look at your screen, uh, and see maybe 30 apps or 40 apps, not 300 apps. You know, the fewer the better, which is a general productivity principle.

[00:30:53] Matt: Uh, the third one, an oldie but a goodie, is turn off as many notifications as possible. Yep.

[00:30:58] Daniel: So we don't rely [00:31:00] on a notification based workflow, which we talk about, uh, realize that, you know, Notifications really do grab your attention, that the whole purpose of a notification is to shift your attention from whatever you're doing and draw it towards the app or the device.

[00:31:15] Daniel: That's the entire purpose of a notification. It's almost like they're there to notify you about something. Who would have thought, right? Who would have thought? And, uh, and so as a result of that, it's super important to be very thoughtful about what you get alerted to, I only get alerts for calendar appointments.

[00:31:31] Daniel: And even then I hardly let that happen. And I get notifications or I get text messages. But I don't get whatsapp messages. I don't get email messages. I literally get text, phone and maybe an occasional calendar. So that means that when my phone. Um, uh,

[00:31:48] Matt: Yeah, that's good. That's a good point. So you've minimized what you get notifications for to the point where if it does ping or whatever or vibrate, you know, it's going to be like one of three things and they're all important.

[00:31:58] Daniel: Yeah. So in that case, I mean, so, [00:32:00] so not only is there a benefit that you're not so distracted, but you actually pay attention to what you want to focus on, which is the purpose of a notification as opposed to what I'm seeing in the medical field, talk about alert fatigue where doctors and nurses, uh, neglecting life changing notifications because there are so many buzzes and beeps in their life that they're just ignoring the ones that matter.

[00:32:18] Daniel: So that's the opposite. Yes. Yeah, that's good. They're the three principles. So practically, uh, give me your three top tips to, um, make your phone less addictive.

[00:32:26] Matt: So one for me, and this, this is going to sound pretty trite maybe, but I, I found it has made a difference is, when I remember to turn grayscale on.

[00:32:34] Matt: So a quick little hack, maybe we can put in the show notes or something like that, where you can, uh, easily render, um, your full, bright, vivacious coloured screen in a black and white. So it's just like, so in terms of like classic bottom up attention grabbing, vivid, bright colors, great way to grab your attention.

[00:32:52] Matt: If it's black and white, it just, it's less pretty to look at. So I'm less inclined to look at it.

[00:32:56] Daniel: I've done that for years. And it's a bit of a pain with multiple calendars. I found a way [00:33:00] of kind of flipping it off if I need to, but then I tend to flip it off too much. Yeah. So what's your, what's your next one?

[00:33:05] Matt: Next one. And this one is probably going to be a bit more kind of, um, shall we say along the, um, Amish end of the spectrum. Oh, excellent. We need some Amish habits. I was thinking that could be our next podcast series. The Amish way. Full Amish. Uh, I have, uh, I've. I've, uh, eliminated all of my email accounts on my phone by one.

[00:33:22] Matt: And the reason why I can't get rid of this last one, uh, as yet is because, uh, for some reason or another, now I can only access the inbox via my phone. I can't do it via my laptop. But it's not your primary account. It's not my primary account.

[00:33:34] Daniel: Okay. So, so all the others are now just laptop bound. Ah, interesting.

[00:33:36] Daniel: Yeah. Look, that is a big one. I have tried that in the past, but I really do need email for work. But by taking it off, I realized the benefit and also recognized how much I do need it.

[00:33:44] Matt: Yeah. Uh, I need email for work as well.

[00:33:45] Daniel: Well, what I've gotten instead, and I'm probably diving in, I don't know if it's my top three habits. I installed an app called one sec, which I find quite useful and incredibly annoying. Basically I attached it to email and whenever I open up my Gmail, the [00:34:00] screen. It kind of changes colour and it says breathe and it's not one sec, it takes about 10 seconds where you have to take a big breath in, you have to breathe out and then it says, do you really want to check?

[00:34:09] Daniel: And it tells you how many times you've checked your app this, this day. And then you press, yes, I want to check my Gmail. So what it does is it's just putting a guardrail or a barrier. So I'm hopefully checking my email because I need to and breathing in and breathing out to reflect on why am I doing this?

[00:34:24] Daniel: Yeah. I dunno if I'll do it forever. Yeah. But it's a good hack rather than getting rid of the app all together because I do need it.

[00:34:30] Matt: Yeah. Good point. So I, man, obviously like that, that's working for you. Hmm. I've just learned to, uh, ignore the impersonal digital voices that try and charge me about stuff. Now, I need someone in the, in the flesh to actually tell me off.

[00:34:41] Matt: Yeah. Uh, so I don't think that I, that'll work for me. So I found like that's been, that's been a big deal.

[00:34:46] Daniel: Okay. So putting your phone on grayscale and getting rid of email from your phone. Yeah, that's a big one. Uh, what's your third hack?

[00:34:51] Matt: The third, and again, this may be too much of a stretch for some people, I'm not that social media savvy, but for [00:35:00] a while, I can't remember what the reason was, but I got the Facebook app on my phone and that was almost the undoing of me.

[00:35:05] Matt: It almost ended me. So, um, I've gotten rid of that. I've still got the messenger application, which is good, but I've gotten rid of Facebook on my phone and I've got no other social media platforms. Right. I'm tired. Bye.

[00:35:17] Daniel: Uh, well that was my number one. My number one is get rid of socials. Yeah. Now I know like, I know social media like TikTok and Instagram really are almost exclusively phone based.

[00:35:26] Daniel: So that really does change things. Uh, but I just don't have the self will to use social media on my phone. So I have Facebook, I use LinkedIn a lot. Uh, but even I had LinkedIn on my phone once because I thought something LinkedIn, come on. And, uh, I put it on my phone and I found out I ended up checking it like 20, 30 times a day.

[00:35:43] Daniel: I'm like, this is absurd. So, I got rid of LinkedIn. I mean, if I can't handle LinkedIn's addictiveness, I'll never be able to manage TikTok, right? So, yeah, for me, I've, I've done the same thing. So, that's my number one. Get rid of social media, if at all possible. The second one, if you can't, well then put really strict limits on it.

[00:35:59] Daniel: So, find the most [00:36:00] addictive apps. For me, I mentioned, let's say, you know, the news. But if I had social media, I would absolutely be doing it for that where I use screen time limits or use some of the inbuilt functionalities of iPhone or Android, for example, to actually say, okay, this app gets five minutes a day, or I'll give myself 15 minutes a day on, I don't know, social media, but I won't give myself more and I'll actually cut off and I'll have to put in a password after that.

[00:36:25] Daniel: Now, unfortunately, as an adult, you probably know your password. You know, I'm sorry, yeah. But, you know, at least you're putting in some type of guardrail to at least make it a little more intentional. There's speed humps. There's some speed humps. And if you really get desperate, we'll get a, get a friend or a partner to actually, put in the password.

[00:36:42] Daniel: That's a bit more hardcore. I think James Clear said he used to do that with social media. Uh, and therefore you actually can't, you're treating yourself more like one of your kids. You actually can't access the device after a certain amount of time. But clearly you would want to do it for something like social media as opposed to email if [00:37:00] it's a work based tool and you need to be able to access it.

[00:37:02] Daniel: Uh, so that's my second one. Look, my third one's probably what you mentioned as well. Just turn off notifications. And, you know, it's a behaviour one, but where possible, put your phone away and actually don't have it available.

[00:37:13] Matt: Yeah. So, one thing that I've been experimenting with recently, and I wanted to kind of run past you on this.

[00:37:19] Matt: It's not so much, uh, phone based, but it's laptop based for me, right? Because I spend a lot of time for work on my laptop. And more and more, I find myself, and this is almost a confession, right, because I know this isn't good by any standards, so it needs to change, but more and more, uh, when it comes to reviewing and reading long documents, which makes up a large part of my job, and also just like typing stuff up in Word, right, I find myself printing up hard copies and going through them.

[00:37:45] Matt: Double sided, of course, every time, double sided, and if it is single sided, then I fold them over and then chop them up for, you know, scrap paper for notes and stuff. But I found that if I try to resort to that, even with all the cool highlighting tools and editing tools that are digitally based, I still find myself [00:38:00] getting way too easily distracted and pulled off whilst I'm on my laptop.

[00:38:03] Matt: So I'm wondering if more and more there is like a call for those, I think that they're called like, uh, single, single task tools, like the remarkable. It's so it's digital, right? But it's kind of like a Kindle. Oh, yes. That you can write on with a stencil as well. And it's just for documentation. It's just for documents and reading and editing documents.

[00:38:21] Matt: But that's all it can do. So it's not plugged into the internet, for example. It's not plugged into email. So it's a single task, really. Yeah. And I'm thinking like more and more. I like, I like the virtue of those single task, single purpose tools. Yeah.

[00:38:34] Daniel: So what you're saying is because, I mean, again, we talk about the ideas embedded in medium.

[00:38:37] Daniel: We go back to the medium is the message that we talked about at the start because the fundamental idea of the tools we use, including laptops, is multitasking, that you are doing multiple tasks running in the background at the same time. Therefore, they draw us into multitasking, which ruins our attention, which causes us to work less.

[00:38:55] Daniel: We can't get into the flow. So therefore you're saying, we need to have [00:39:00] digital tools that are single task based and don't bring in the multitasking functionalities for us for high value, deep work activity.

[00:39:07] Matt: That's it. That's it. So no possibility of getting distracted.

[00:39:09] Daniel: Yeah. That makes sense. That makes sense.

[00:39:11] Daniel: I mean, it feels complicated, but I think if it's for something core, like writing, if you're a writer or reading, if you know, you need to do a lot of policy documents and reading for your job. Well, that makes sense to, to go to the extent where you actually shape your digital tools to work. Give you a single tasking experience, rather than even give you the access to multitasking options.

[00:39:32] Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Like for me, it's perfect because it sounds like it's a combination of all the benefits of digital tools, as in, so you can have one tablet that's carrying around all these documents. Yeah. Whilst at the same time, it's, it's turning down the possible downsides and distractions.

[00:39:46] Daniel: Okay, cool. The overarching conversation has been about the need to shape our digital environments.

[00:39:52] Daniel: And essentially what are you going to do about it? So they're the three things. Delete the worst apps, set limits on those more offending apps, and use [00:40:00] notifications. Why don't we have a moment of space just to reflect on what you need to do next. We'll give you 30 seconds and actually in 30 seconds you can probably even make it start.

[00:40:10] Daniel: But um, have a pause and start to reclaim your digital sanity.[00:41:00]

[00:41:02] Matt: So, uh, yeah. So welcome back. After your 30 seconds of contemplation and thinking and reflecting. And deleting everything from your phone. And deleting - except for the Spacemakers app. No, which doesn't exist yet. Currently in development. Um, look, one thing that crossed my mind, Dan, uh, which, and I feel that I've kind of underplayed this over the course of this, um, this episode.

[00:41:19] Matt: But, um, these kind of exercises are like, so, adhering to any of those three suggestions that we just made in the short term, like immediately in the acute, it's going to feel like it could, it could feel pretty intimidating. And you may be worried about all the opportunity costs and blah, blah, blah, blah, and how you're going to get by without it.

[00:41:35] Matt: But I can't help but, uh, recall what you said about that decision fatigue. So with the massive notifications comes a real possibility of decision fatigue, having all these things that kind of present themselves. What do I do? How do I respond? And following our suggestion of turning off those notifications, you'll be saving yourself from that pain.

[00:41:52] Matt: So, I think immediately you'll feel some space. It feels great. It feels great. And secondly, like most people I talk to myself, including if you spent like 5, 10, 30 [00:42:00] minutes on particularly social media, like no one feels great after that, no one feels good after that. Again, your time is gone. It'll be 30, 30 minutes that you will never get back in life.

[00:42:08] Matt: And it's, never feels, never feels the equivalent of how you feel after a high quality leisure activity. Yeah.

[00:42:14] Daniel: Look, and I agree. So essentially, we're giving you tips to reclaim your attention. Yeah. And while it will feel weird in the short term, or maybe painful. Yeah, but very short term. It's short term, I agree with that.

[00:42:23] Daniel: And I've coached so many people. We've done this with so many different people. If I follow 'em up a week later, like the 99.9% of people will say, I just feel so much better. Yeah. I didn't realize how much I was distracted. I don't miss the notifications. Yeah. Gee, I'm glad I've made this space. Yeah. They need to fill the void next, which we're gonna talk about.

[00:42:41] Daniel: Mm-Hmm. next week and the week after. Yes. So you need to fill that gap with something. Otherwise you'll just fill it with distraction eventually. Yeah.

[00:42:47] Matt: I know. Next week we've got some great ideas. As to how to go about that.

[00:42:51] Daniel: So we're going to talk about how do you retrain your focus reps? How do you fill the void?

[00:42:56] Daniel: And we've also got one of our great sponsors from Bulk Nutrients. We've [00:43:00] got Jess Crowley. She's going to talk about how she has regained some of her attention through some of the habits that we've been practicing, and she's going to talk about how she's done that with her team, which is going to be good.

[00:43:08] Daniel: Yeah. Looking forward to that. So there's your challenge. We're throwing it down. Change your environment, minimize distractions at home, reclaim your attention by dumbing down your smartphone so it's less addictive. And until next week, we encourage you to make space. Make space everyone.

[00:43:25] Daniel: The Space Makers with Daniel Sih and Matt Bain.

[00:43:29] Daniel: Big thanks to our sponsor, St Luke's Health. Our partner from my home state of Tasmania. They're not just ensuring health, they're inspiring us to become the healthiest island on the planet.

[00:43:42] Daniel: Are you looking for a speaker at your next big event? Daniel Sih is a best-selling author, TEDx speaker, and productivity consultant.

[00:43:50] Daniel: To download his speaker kit and start a conversation, visit spacemakers.com.au. Until next time, make [00:44:00] space.