New Neuroscience Reveals 9 Rituals That Will Make You An Amazing Parent    Inbox    Eric Barker <ebarker@ucla.edu> Sun, Nov 18, 2018 at 6:43 AM To: human4usbillions@gmail.com  Print     New window

Reply | Reply to all | Forward | Print | Delete | Show original Welcome to the Barking Up The Wrong Tree weekly update for November 18th, 2018. New Neuroscience Reveals 9 Rituals That Will Make You An Amazing Parent *** Before we commence with the festivities, I wanted to thank everyone for helping my first book become a Wall Street Journal bestseller! To check it out, click here. *** Click here to read the post on the blog or keep scrolling to read in-email. When kids behave, things are easy. The problem is when you need to discipline them. Most parents know which methods they don't want to use to correct their children, but aren't as sure which methods theyshould use. So what is discipline? The word comes from the Latin "disciplina" -- which means "to teach." And, in the end, that's what we need more of. Every time a kid misbehaves it's an opportunity to teach them valuable skills like empathy, self-control, problem-solving, and dealing with emotions. Merely punishing kids might stop bad behavior in the short-term but without a lesson, all it teaches them is that whomever has more power gets to enforce their arbitrary rules. (Hint: this does not bode well for their future relationships.) Yes, you want them to stop painting the toilet purple but you also want them to learn to consider the feelings of others, and build other long-term skills that will help them lead successful, happy lives. And you want them to feel closer to you after a dispute, not further away. From No-Drama Discipline: The research is really clear on this point. Kids who achieve the best outcomes in life—emotionally, relationally, and even educationally—have parents who raise them with a high degree of connection and nurturing, while also communicating and maintaining clear limits and high expectations. Their parents remain consistent while still interacting with them in a way that communicates love, respect, and compassion. As a result, the kids are happier, do better in school, get into less trouble, and enjoy more meaningful relationships. So how the heck do you do all this? (No, a taser is not involved.) You want to "connect and redirect." This is the system recommended by Daniel Siegel, clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine, and Tara Payne Bryson, a pediatric and adolescent psychotherapist. They are the New York Times bestselling authors of No-Drama Discipline: The Whole-Brain Way to Calm the Chaos and Nurture Your Child's Developing Mind. Okay, let's get to it... 1) Connect If your kid is in mid-yell or mid-cry, they cannot hear what you are saying. Reread that. Get it tattooed on your body. How logical are you when you're overwhelmed by emotion? And you expect a kid to be any different? So immediately doling out punishments will rarely be processed and just escalate an already bad situation. You need to connect. Connection means showing that you’re on their side – while still maintaining boundaries. You need to tune into their feelings and show them that you understand. This helps move them from reactivity to receptivity. It allows the emotion to dissipate so they can start using their thinky brain instead of their emotional brain. Connection has 4 parts: Communicate Comfort They cry, you yell and things get worse, not better. Sound familiar? Because it's now a fight for power instead of a conversation. As NYPD hostage negotiators know, "behavior is contagious." If you want to be in a fight, by all means, give an angry look, raise your voice and wag your index finger. If you want this to be a somewhat sane interaction, act like it is one. Communicate comfort. Make them feel safe. Validate How do you react when someone dismisses your feelings and tells you "stop making a big deal out of this and just calm down"? Exactly. So don't expect a child to be any better at it. Validate their feelings -- though not all their actions. They need to feel understood in order to calm down. Until the big emotions are out of their way, logic is powerless. Listen Your child is really angry about something. You know what always works? A really long lecture. Going on a rant to someone screaming at the top of their lungs is incredibly effective in showing them the error of their ways and getting them to calm down. No child would ever respond by tuning you out. And make sure to repeat the same points over and over. People love this, especially surly teenagers... Um, no. They won't process a thing until they get to talk about how they feel and you show them you understand. So listen. Reflect When they tell you how they feel, repeat it back to them. You want to show, not tell. If you say, "I know how you feel" they'll reply, "No, you don't!" If you say, "It really upset you that I wouldn't let you build a nuclear reactor in the basement" they'll say, "Exactly." After you communicate comfort, validate feelings, listen and reflect, ask yourself one question: “Are they ready to hear, learn, and understand?” If not, repeat the steps. Whoops, actually there's a second question to ask yourself: "Am Iready?" Because if you're overly emotional this will not go well. They need to be calm -- but so do you. (To learn more about how you and your children can lead a successful life, check out my bestselling book here.) Okay, so you've connected. Now it's time to "redirect." That's an acronym because 8 more steps is a lot to remember, especially after junior decides to give the living room wall an unapproved mural. So let's start with "R"... 2) Reduce Words Again, listening beats lecturing. If you regularly bemoan your child's short attention span than you should know better than to launch into an hour-long keynote on proper behavior. If it is a big issue, ask questions and guide a conversation, but don't lecture. From No-Drama Discipline: We strongly suggest that when you redirect, you resist the urge to overtalk. Of course it’s important to address the issue and teach the lesson. But in doing so, keep it succinct. Regardless of the age of your children, long lectures aren’t likely to make them want to listen to you more. Instead, you’ll just be flooding them with more information and sensory input. As a result, they’ll often simply tune you out. (To learn how to raise emotionally intelligent kids, click here.) Alright, you're being brief and getting to the point. What's next? 3) Embrace Emotions All feelings are permitted; all behavior is not. Do not insist that their emotions be rational or make sense. (If the world was always rational and made sense, you wouldn't be having this fight and I'd be married to Olivia Wilde.) From No-Drama Discipline: ...it’s what we do as a result of our emotions that determines whether our behavior is OK or not OK. So our message to our children should be, “You can feel whatever you feel, but you can’t always do whatever you want to do.” (To learn how to make sure your kids have grit, click here.) You're being brief and accepting their feelings. Cool. Now how do you actually correct a child? 4) Describe, Don’t Preach Parents always wonder why their kids tune them out. The answer is simple: because they know what you're going to say and then you say it anyway. Chances are, they know what they did was wrong. So instead of lecturing, just call attention to whatever they did: "The couch is on fire."This is less likely to put them on the defensive or lead them to tune you out. From No-Drama Discipline: The natural tendency for many parents is to criticize and preach when our kids do something we don’t like. In most disciplinary situations, though, those responses simply aren’t necessary. Instead, we can simply describe what we’re seeing, and our kids will get what we’re saying just as clearly as they do when we yell and disparage and nitpick. And they’ll receive that message with much less defensiveness and drama. (To learn the science of being a better parent, click here.) You gave a description instead of a TED talk. Awesome. But the only way you're really going to get them to learn anything is if they're engaged... 5) Involve Your Child In The Discipline This needs to be a dialogue, not summary judgment. Ask questions. Get them to suggest how the situation should be handled and you'll organically shift into talking about right and wrong, and how other people are impacted by your child's behavior. This is how they learn empathy and problem-solving. From No-Drama Discipline: Once you’ve connected and your child is ready and receptive, you can simply initiate a dialogue that leads first toward insight (“I know you know the rule, so I’m wondering what was going on for you that led you to this”) and then toward empathy and integrative repair (“What do you think that was like for her, and how could you make things right?”). (To learn how to deal with out of control kids -- from hostage negotiators -- click here.) Now it's a conversation and they're learning something other than why you're a meanie. So how do you tell children "no" without a screaming match -- and teach them self-control at the same time? 6) Reframe A "No" Into A Conditional "Yes" "Yes, you can watch more TV -- after dinner." It's not a magic spell but it'll often meet with less resistance than a flat "No more TV." Obviously, some things are non-negotiable: "No, you cannot perform an appendectomy on the family dog." But often you can phrase things with this formula and help them learn about boundaries and self-control with a lot less drama. From No-Drama Discipline: An out-and-out no can be much harder to accept than a yes with conditions. No, especially if said in a harsh and dismissive tone, can automatically activate a reactive state in a child (or anyone). In the brain, reactivity can involve the impulse to fight, flee, freeze, or, in extreme cases, faint. In contrast, a supportive yes statement, even when not permitting a behavior, turns on the social engagement circuitry, making the brain receptive to what’s happening, making learning more likely, and promoting connections with others. (To learn 4 vital parenting tips, click here.) Now you know how to say no. So how else can we discipline children -- without making them hate us in the process? 7) Emphasize The Positive Say what you want, not what you don't want. “I need you to brush your teeth and find your backpack,” beats, “Stop messing around and get ready, you’re going to be late for school!” And make sure to praise them when they do things you like. If every time you open your mouth only criticism comes out, what feelings do you think they're instinctively going to associate with you? Yup. (To learn the 10 steps to making your kids smarter, click here.) So what's a good way to sidestep drama altogether -- and have a laugh in the process? 8) Creatively Approach The Situation Be playful. If there's toy on the floor where it shouldn't be, try a dramatic pratfall instead of a stern glare. Instead of arguing about getting into the car, become a scary monster and chase them into it. With some creativity you can get your point across in a way that reduces defensiveness. From No-Drama Discipline: When we exercise response flexibility, we use our prefrontal cortex, which is central to our upstairs brain and the skills of executive functions. Engaging this part of our brain during a disciplinary moment makes it far more likely that we’ll also be able to conjure up empathy, attuned communication, and even the ability to calm our own reactivity. (To learn the 10 steps to raising happy kids, click here.) So we know a lot of ways to defuse conflict -- but how do we teach them some valuable life skills and reduce the intensity of the next meltdown? 9) Teach Mindsight Tools Siegel and Bryson basically mean teaching your kids mindfulness. You want to focus on making sure they learn to not just merely experiencetheir emotions, but also observe their emotions. Teaching your child to ask, "What is my brain doing right now?" allows them to step back from the chaos going on in their head and study it, versus being consumed by it. You don't want a child that is overwhelmed by feelings or denies their feelings. You want your kid tonotice their feelings -- and do something about them. This teaches them they don't have to be stuck in a negative mood. They don't have to be a victim to external events or their whirlwind emotions. With practice they can cope with feelings and take charge of their behavior. From No-Drama Discipline: Brain studies reveal that we actually have two different circuits—an experiencing circuit and an observing circuit. They are different, but each is important, and integrating them means building both and then linking them. We want our kids to not only feel their feelings and sense their sensations, but also to be able to notice how their body feels, to be able to witness their own emotions. (To learn the 20 simple secrets of happy families, click here.) Okay, we've learned a lot. Let's round it all up and discover what to do when you screw the above up... Sum Up Here's how neuroscience can help you be an amazing parent: Connect: Communicate comfort, validate feelings, listen and reflect. Reduce Words: Seriously, when have lectures ever worked? Embrace Emotions: All feelings are permitted; all behaviors are not. Describe, Don't Preach: "All daddy's shoes are in the refrigerator." Involve Your Child In The Discipline: "What's a way to express your anger that doesn't involve anyone getting 27 stitches?" Reframe A "No" Into A Conditional "Yes": "Yes, you can watch 'Toy Story' for the 400th time -- after mommy finishes this wonderful blog post she's reading." Emphasize The Positive: Instead of “No whining,” try, “I like it when you talk in your normal voice. Can you say that again?” Creatively Approach The Situation: "I'll bet I can eat my vegetables faster than you can." Teach Mindsight Tools: Teach them to notice their emotions. You can't improve how you deal with something if you're not aware of it. You're not always going to be perfect. (I really hope this did not come as a surprise.) But even your mistakes as a parent can be valuable if you handle them right. From No-Drama Discipline: Then they get to see you model how to apologize and make things right. They experience that when there is conflict and argument, there can be repair, and things become good again. This helps them feel safe and not so afraid in future relationships; they learn to trust, and even expect, that calm and connection will follow conflict. Plus, they learn that their actions affect other people’s emotions and behavior. Finally, they see that you’re not perfect, so they won’t expect themselves to be, either. In my email newsletter next week I'll be including a PDF cheat sheet of many techniques that Siegel and Bryson recommend. To make sure you don't miss it, join here. So it all comes down to "connect and redirect." And when you screw up, don't worry. Apologize, make a joke, try again. You want your kids to know that everyone makes mistakes and that anger doesn't last forever. Children need to know that arguments happen -- but that doesn't mean people stop loving you. Please share this on Facebook or Pocket. Thank you! Email Extras Findings from around the internet... + Want to know how to be a more patient person? Click here. + Want to know the five ways smart people sabotage their success? Click here. + Want to know what great listeners actually do? Click here. + Miss last week's post? Here you go: How To Stop Wasting Time On The Internet. + Want to know the problems that come from *too much* self-control? Click here. + You made it to the end of the email. I feel we have connected -- no need for a redirect. And I thank you. Alrighty, Crackerjack Time... People sometimes think I'm crazy for writing all this stuff on the internet. In fact, one guy makes a very compelling argument that nearly *everything* you read on the internet is written by crazy people. Check it out here. Thanks for reading! Eric PS: If a friend forwarded this to you, you can sign up to get the weekly email yourself here.

Yes, they can be trusted?

This is a great web site for climate news!

http://news.trust.org/climate/

http://news.trust.org/climate/

Hi gentle people:

 Most of you today have small pocket computers you carry around for use as telephones. That concept is shifting however as we spend more time using the computer applications located on our so-called smart phones.

 I am seriously beginning to dislike the "passed your data limit" beep warning!
In the halcyon days when I was Thirty, we had no data limits. Our computers were the size of small suit cases and we used pirated copies of Windows 95. Everything worked like magic! Some of us with limited funds created our own computers from parts brought in from China. We used old Television sets as our computer screens and Pacman was the rage until Mario stepped into the box and then Doom and Quake scared the shit out of us!

  We had fun and we had control of the telephone lines as well as control of our computers. We could play CD music and later, DVD movies. Personally, I enjoyed using the world wide web and I found myself accessing computers from almost every location on Earth that allowed access. That, unfortunately, has changed in (2018) and our little pocket computers are intrusive and not under our individual control. The corporate world we once banned from dumping advertising into our emails, (in those days we called it spam) now charge us ridiculous usage fees for renting little pocket computers they create and they are using as data spies! Their goal is to find as much information about you as possible. They call it data mining and I call it an intrusion on our human rights and f reedom!
 Gone is the Bell Twenty Dollar a month average cost for a house telephone. Now, if you want to walk around with a communication device slash computer, it averages into the hundreds of Dollars and you are not getting anything better than what we had Thirty years ago
Have a great day and go read a book!
N.J. Raglione..

The ideas are still valid today!

MONDAY, 26 DECEMBER 2016

IN MY OPINION!

Religious and government hypocrisy is intolerable!

They open their doors during Christian or Jewish or Muslim Holidays for paid ceremonies but then lock out the poor during the cold winter months. If they are afraid of vandals, why not hire a security guard or two while offering suffering people a place to find shelter at night?

 If you claim to believe in God and you do not allow the poor shelter during the winter nights, you and your religion and your church building are worth zero to society! I agree you are not hotels but if you claim to be non-profit and charitable, prove it!

Most church basements are large enough to provide emergency shelters for the homeless during the cold winter nights, however, far too many religious building doors remain locked after the holidays and hundreds of homeless people are forced to freeze on the streets! What kind of religion is that? What kind of society do we live in?

Religious buildings are not the only examples of social avarice. A great many federal and provincial and city buildings also stand heated and empty at night. Old empty government buildings could easily be transformed into shelters for the homeless and even brand new office buildings could provide space for homeless people during the cold days and nights of winter.  A few small rooms with showers and portable beds are not difficult to create within large office buildings and each building would have a set quota so that no one building would be inundated. Providing such spaces would be tax deductible and itinerants would be asked to clean up after themselves to help keep the rooms clean for the next person.

 With skyscrapers in many cities standing half lit and empty at night, what would be the harm in creating a government sponsored social policy where quotas could be created and each building allowed a few itinerants a place to warm up and sleep at night? If companies allready pay for electricity simply to keep the building warm, why not keep a few desperate humans warm also? No matter what your religion or philosophy or political concept, if you allow the poor to freeze on the streets while your buildings remain heated and empty and locked on cold winter nights; you and your religion and your company social policies are void of any value whatsoever to any decent society!

Happy Holidays!
Joseph Raglione
Ex/Dir.

I waste my time on the internet.

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How To Stop Wasting Time On The Internet    Inbox

Eric Barker <ebarker@ucla.edu> Mon, Nov 5, 2018 at 4:26 AM To: human4usbillions@gmail.com Reply | Reply to all | Forward | Print | Delete | Show original Welcome to the Barking Up The Wrong Tree weekly update for November 5th, 2018. How To Stop Wasting Time On The Internet *** Before we commence with the festivities, I wanted to thank everyone for helping my first book become a Wall Street Journal bestseller! To check it out, click here. *** Click here to read the post on the blog or keep scrolling to read in-email. We all waste a lot of time on the internet these days. And due to mobile devices, we do iteverywhere, not just at home. (In fact, right now there is enormous pressure on moi to make sure you feel reading this is productive and not just more time-wasting on the internet. Yeesh.) So how do we address... Oh, dear me, I almost forgot to include the obligatory scary statistics that are essential when talking about how technology is ruining our lives. Alrighty, better check that box... Holly Shakya of UCSD and Nicholas Christakis of Yale did a study of over 5200 people titled, "Association of Facebook Use With Compromised Well-Being: A Longitudinal Study." And, boy, that title is quite the time-saver as far as my job is concerned, lemme tell ya: Our results show that overall, the use of Facebook was negatively associated with well-being. By the way, that research wasn’t published in the “Fancy Pants Journal of Happiness” or the “The Review of Ivory Tower Digital Studies” Nah. It was approved and published by "The American Journal of Epidemiology." Yes, that's the study of disease. Email, texting, Netflix, Xbox, 64 flavors of social media... The screens have declared victory. We've got an iPhone in one hand and we're waving a white flag with the other. And for those who grew up in a screen-dominated world, it's even worse. Teens spend an average of nine hours a day consuming media. And their rates of depression and suicide have skyrocketed. I'd love to tell you those things are totally unconnected but SDSU psychology professor Jean Twenge says, “Much of this deterioration can be traced to their phones.” What do we do? Cal Newport wants to start a revolution. He calls it "Digital Minimalism." Put the baseball bat down; we're not going neo-luddite and smashing the machines. We want to control how we use tech -- so it doesn't control us. From Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World: Digital minimalism definitively does not reject the innovations of the internet age, but instead rejects the way so many people engage with these tools. And Cal's the right guy to guide us out of this mess. Not only is he a bestselling author -- but did I mention he's also a professor of computer science at Georgetown? He's the furthest things from a technophobe and knows a lot more about our digital world than you or I do. His upcoming book is Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. Let’s get to it... The Digital Minimalism Manifesto Screen time has become the default. And that's a problem. Waiting in line? Look at your phone. Sitting on the toilet? Look at your phone. Friend said three words that weren't fascinating? Look at your phone. You don't pick up a hammer unless there's a nail around. It has a specific purpose. But we don't see our digital tools like that. Cal says we need to. From Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World: A philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time in a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else. Our devices provide plenty of benefits. But we're often really bad about balancing that with the costs in an optimal way. Social media can make us happy, but face-to-face time makes us happier and one usually comes at the expense of the other. But social media is more convenient. So we don't make the best choice; we make the easy choice. These technologies took hold pretty suddenly. Most of us haven't taken the time to decide what place they have in our lives so they don't take take over our lives. That’s addiction. We want to be more deliberate and intentional about our technology use. No nail? Don't pick up the hammer. But you reflexively pick up your phone the second the movie of your life feels like it’s scoring less than 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. From Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World: Digital minimalists see new technologies as tools to be used to support things they deeply value – not as sources of value themselves. They don’t accept the idea that offering some small benefit is justification for allowing an attention-gobbling service into their lives, and are instead interested in applying new technology in highly selective and intentional ways that yield big wins. Just as important: they’re comfortable missing out on everything else. We don't need to toss our phones but we do need to perform some cost-benefit analysis and decide what works and what doesn't. Henry David Thoreau put it best over 150 years ago. From Walden: The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run. In the moment, we think our overuse of tech comes at no cost. But then we wonder where Sunday went. Why we always feel like there's not enough time. And why we haven't seen certain friends face-to-face in six months. (To learn more about the science of a successful life, check out my bestselling book here.) So how do we start making changes? We're going to rehab, pal. No, you're not checking into a facility -- but I hope you like the taste of cold turkey... The 30-Day "Digital Declutter" You’re going to take a 30-day break from optional technologies. (Yes, really. This has been done before by a large number of people and surprisingly few of them died from it.) During the 30 days you’re going to rediscover the things that bring you joy which don’t involve a screen. The things that made you a human instead of a well-trained click monkey. After the month ends you’re going to re-introduce only those technologies that have a net-positive effect on your life. And you’ll do it in an intentional way with a specified use plan that maximizes your life, not your time online. From Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World: Much like decluttering your house, this lifestyle experiment provides a reset for your digital life by clearing away distracting tools and compulsive habits that may have accumulated haphazardly over time and replacing them with a much more intentional set of behaviors, optimized, in proper minimalist fashion, to support your values instead of subverting them. And this isn’t some theoretical idea. Cal actually ran this experiment with his mailing list before writing the book. When he first launched "OPERATION: DIGITAL DECLUTTER" he expected 40-50 people to participate. He was wrong... 1600 did. So you are not alone. What’s the first step? Defining what "optional technology" means to you so you're clear on what is no longer kosher for the month. From Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World: ...consider the technology optional unless its temporary removal would harm or significantly disrupt the daily operation of your professional or personal life. In other words, default to “verboten” unless there's a really good reason. Nobody’s saying you have to ditch your work email, your microwave, or your electric toothbrush. But Facebook, Instagram and video games are out. Delete all not-mission-critical apps from your phone. Sure, some technologies are largely optional but have “critical use cases.” Personal email, texting, etc. These need “operating procedures.” Set time limits or create filters so only messages from important people get through. And everything else digitally tempting that cannot be outright banned gets rules. Maybe you do watch Netflix, but only socially, never alone for the 30 days. Maybe you listen to podcasts, but only on your commute. If you find yourself debating how to handle something, ask a smart friend to make the judgment call. (To learn how to stop checking your phone, click here.) Okay, all your digital drugs have been flushed down the toilet and you’re going to stay clean for 30 days... But now what the heck do you do with your time? Detox + High Quality Leisure 30 days. Mark it on the calendar. Believe it or not, there was a time before smartphones and the internet, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. And people were happy. Probably happier than you are now. The goal of the next 30 days is not merely to suffer. You want to reset. To break bad habits, realize what is important, and rediscover all those things you enjoy that never scream LOW BATTERY. Don't just treat this as merely a detox. Much like dieting, if you eat healthy for 30 days but then go back to your old ways, you'll just gain the weight back. You need to fill the digital void with some new, more rewarding activities. Screens aside, what do you enjoy? What do you miss? What have you been meaning to do? Reading books. Starting a hobby. Exercising. Learning to cook. Hiking. Seeing friends. Playing sports. Being the parent at the playground who is actually looking at their kids instead of their phone. What have people mentioned to you in the past few years that you replied to with, "That would be great but I don't have the time"? Well, like it or not, you've got more time now, Bubba. Cal recommends setting a goal for the month. Maybe pick the songs you're going to learn on the guitar and have a party at the end of the 30 days where you will play them for friends. That gives you a plan and a deadline... And the threat of embarrassment if you don't follow through. (To learn 5 secrets from neuroscience that will increase your attention span, click here.) Okay, the 30 days are over. You're leaving rehab. But how do you make the transition without returning to your bad habits? Well, we're gonna get some help from the most unlikely of places... Managing Technology (Courtesy Of The Amish) "But the Amish don’t use technology." Wrong. The Amish use tractors but not cars. Many have electricity but it’s not connected to the municipal grid. And while personal phones are prohibited, many towns have a community phone booth. What’s the deal? How do they draw the line? It comes down to values. From Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World: The Amish, it turns out, do something that’s both shockingly radical and simple in our age of impulsive and complicated consumerism: they start with the things they value most, then work backward to ask whether a given new technology performs more harm than good with repect to these values. Tractors help them feed their family. Approved. Cars mean people drive to other towns instead of spending time with friends in the community. Banned. You just did 30 days hard time. So what tech really makes life better? What has far more upside than downside? What was more time-saver than time-waster? You have a blank slate. What should be welcome back in your neo-Amish lifestyle? Cal offers 3 rules: From Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World: To allow an optional technology back into your life at the end of the digital declutter, it must: 1) Serve something you deeply value (offering some benefit is not enough) 2) Be the best use technology to serve this value (if it’s not, replace it with something better) 3) Have a role in your life that is constrained with a standard operating procedure that specifies when and how you use it. Yes, you're still gonna do some aimless web-surfing and Netflix bingeing from time to time. We're not going to be unrealistic here. But how do you manage that going forward? The calendar and the clock are your friends. From Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World: Schedule in advance the time you spend on low-quality leisure. That is, work out the specific time periods during which you’ll indulge in web surfing, social media checking, and entertainment streaming. When you get to these periods, anything goes. If you want to binge-watch Netflix while live-streaming yourself browsing Twitter: go for it. But outside these periods, stay offline. (To get Cal's tips on how to stop being lazy and get more done, click here.) Sounds good but the phone is always there tempting you. It buzzes and rings and calls to you, literally. How do we handle it? “Do Not Disturb” Is The New Default Your smartphone has a "do not disturb" setting. Just leave it on by default. Or you can schedule when it will automatically turn on and off. And, yes, you can designate certain numbers and texts that always get through. Play with the settings until you find a balance that works for you. And you want to respond to texts in batches. Designated periods of time where you respond to everything rather than an incessant back and forth that pretty much eliminates your ability to concentrate. And if you're really feeling bold, try leaving your phone in the glove compartment of your car when you drive somewhere. You can go get it if you really need it, but you'll be much more likely to pay attention to the friends you're with or to turn to that book you were smart enough to bring. And what about other devices? We discussed how the general purpose nature of digital tools can be problematic. So to restrain your impulses Cal recommends turning your general purpose devices into single purpose devices. The Netflix app and social media are only on your iPad. There's nothing but work stuff on the desktop. Texting notifications only show up on your phone. This allows you to put certain devices away and focus on one thing at a time. (To learn Cal's tips on the best way to manage your time, click here.) Okay, you've graduated rehab and joined the Neo-Amish. Let's round it all up and answer the big question people always ask: "If I'm spending dramatically less time texting, emailing and using social media, isn't that going to hurt my relationships?" Sum Up This is how to stop wasting time on the internet: The 30-Day Digital Declutter: Designate optional technology, build rules around the non-optional, and then go cold turkey for a month. Detox and high quality leisure: Rediscover what you used to enjoy. Engage in the activities you "never have time for." Fill the digital void. Managing technology (courtesy of the Amish): Think about what's important to you and only re-introduce tech that best addresses those things. Weigh benefits and costs. "Do not disturb" is the new default: No notifications unless they will stop you from getting fired or prevent a child from drowning. Texting in batches. Make devices single purpose. So if you make these changes, won't that mean fewer connections with people? Will you be cutting yourself off from the world -- all too much like The Amish do? No doubt you'll reduce the amount of low quality interactions you have. But if you just make a few tweaks, you can trade shallow connections for deep conversations and improve your important relationships. Cal recommends having "office hours" much like a college professor might. Designate set times on set days during which you’re always available to talk. Cal learned this from a friend who established 5:30PM on weekdays as his office hours. It's no accident that's when he's stuck in traffic commuting. This not only spares him from constant texting and emailing, it actually deepens his important relationships. From Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World: The logistical simplicity of this system enables this executive to easily shift time-consuming, low-quality connections into higher-quality conversation. If you write him with a somewhat complicated question, he can reply, “I’d love to get into that. Call me at 5:30 any day you want.” But that still leaves the problem of less time on social media and friends who might get upset that you're not "liking" all the pictures of their new baby. Again, we want to trade frequent shallow connection for less frequent but more meaningful conversation. From Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World: One person I mentioned this strategy to, for example, expressed concern that if she didn’t leave a comment on a friend’s latest baby picture, it would be noted as a callous omission. If the friendship is important, however, let the concern about this reaction motivate you to invest the time required to set up a real conversation. Actually visiting the new mom will return significantly more value to both of you than adding a short “aww!” to a perfunctory scroll of comments… You can be the one person in their life who actuallytalks to them on a regular basis, forming a deeper, more nuanced relationship than any number of exclamation points and bitmapped emjois can provide. Visit. Pick up the phone. Send a hand-written card. Those are the things that touch us. Don't be the digital ghost. Be the real friend who reaches out. "Liking" is something we should do with people, not with buttons. Please share this on Facebook or Pocket. Thank you! Email Extras Findings from around the internet... + Want to know the secrets of a great morning ritual? Click here. + Want to know why you will marry the wrong person? Click here. + Want to know when work actually gets done? Click here. + Miss last week's post? Here you go: How To Easily Build Good Habits: 4 Secrets From Research. + Want to learn the 8 ways to improve your relationship -- courtesy of international relations? Clickhere. + You made it to the end of the email. I'm glad I wasn't part of your digital declutter. And I thank you. Alrighty, Crackerjack Time... I've been doing another documentary binge and here's a movie I cannot recommend highly enough. "The Bleeding Edge" made me say "wow" out loud multiple times. It's all about the seriously-screwed-up medical device industry. The film (available on Netflix) has had such an impact that Bayer has ceased selling one of their birth control devices in the wake of the controversy. Check out the trailer here. Thanks for reading! Eric PS: If a friend forwarded this to you, you can sign up to get the weekly email yourself here.