Hey, good morning!

I wanted to share a little experiment with you that I’ve been doing for about two weeks now. Maybe not quite two weeks, it started out as a seven-day experiment. It went so well, I don’t think I’m ever gonna stop, and, I had to share it with you. Did you know that when you get interrupted during your day, maybe you’re sitting at your desk ,you’re working on projects, maybe you’re trying to do follow-up calls, creating content, putting together your marketing, whatever it is you’re doing in your day to day activities, when you get interrupted, studies have shown it takes 12 minutes to get back into whatever you are doing. Now, some studies show it takes 15 minutes. There’s other studies that I found it says seven or eight minutes, but the most consistent that I’ve seen and the most recent I’ve seen is 12 minutes. So, if you get a text message from a colleague, a friend, a family member, if you get a facebook notification or something on messenger, I know I use the app called boxer with my clients and colleagues, if a boxer message comes in, if a phone call comes in, and you get a phone call even if you don’t answer, and, you send it to voicemail all of those all those notifications that are happening cost you 12 minutes. One of the experiments, I’m one of the days I calculated that I was losing 2 hours a day. Simply because of these notifications getting my brain back into the gear, back into the project that I was working on, that’s a lot of time. When you’re working for yourself, and, we don’t have time to waste we got a lot to do. The world needs our work. We got to be focused. So, all these apps that keep us connected, while that connection is good, sometimes too much can prevent us from doing the work that needs to be done. and from being our best selves at work.

So, here’s the experiment. I challenge you to give this a try. This scared the crap out of me when I first said yes to doing this. Go seven days with no notifications. Go to your smartphone, like I use the iPhone. Go to settings, you’ll see notifications scroll through your apps for your text message, your phone call, your Facebook Messenger, Facebook mail boxer, slack, whatever you’re using, turn those notifications off! Turn them off now. You’ll still get the messages. They’ll be sitting there waiting for you. But now, you get to determine when you want to respond, and, review, and, read those messages. So, what I did, because I this was not something I was used to responding right away. “Oh, there’s a text let me see, let me respond. Oh! my team needs me! There’s a boxer, let me respond! I was reacting and responding immediately because I thought I was serving my team, my friends, my family, my colleagues, but I was taking time away from me. So I went into my calendar, and, twice a day mid-morning mid-afternoon, I put on my calendar: check all messages. In those dedicated slots, that’s when I went into my texts, my Facebook, my boxers, my voicemails; I reviewed them, my emails, I reviewed all of them, and, then I responded when I was in this space.
I’d be curious to see what your experiment reveals. What I have found is, my energy is freer. I’m not distracted by all those red, little notification dots on my phone, trying to get them cleared out because I’m afraid somebody’s missing something. So, that fear, and, that anxiety is gone. Which frees up my energy to put in creating content marketing, Facebook lives, facilitating with my clients.

The other thing I’m noticing is that I’m more present with the people that I’m with. My husband, for example, maybe we’re driving down the road or sitting in the living room, and, it’s so easy to see those notifications and get distracted. Now, I’m not present with him, now I can be present with the people that I’m with, and, not distracted or rushing to respond too quickly. So, I challenge you to a seven day, no notification challenge. A bunch of my colleagues and I have been doing this, and I got to tell you, I thought: “Oh gosh! I hope I make it to the end of the seven days!” But now that I have, I’m never giving this up. It’s a whole new way of working.

I can’t wait to hear your experience with this challenge as well. So post below! Do you already live without notifications? And remember, this is not just for your phone, but for your desktop, too. I, always from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. do not disturb. I don’t get those notifications flashing on my computer. I don’t get those notifications popping up on my phone. I’ve a choice when I go see it. I want to hear from you as you do this experiment. What do you notice? What are you experiencing? What are the results and the impact on your life personally and in your business? So, go do that if you dare. Come back here, but make sure schedule in your calendar at least 2 times where you are prompted and reminded: “Oh, yeah, I gotta go check my messages!” Because it’s a new habit you’re creating, have fun, savoring all of this time and energy, you’re about to get back and I can’t wait to see the impact on your business.