Overwhelmed by notifications

Everyday I receive so many notifications on my handphone. The world has so many interesting things that we need to manage in order not to be overwhelmed. News, calendar, e-mail, whatsapp, and social media compete with each other for attention. My struggle is that I don’t decide fast enough on what to care and what to ignore.

So combined with perfectionism that lead to procrastination, I have so many unopened notifications. I keep dreaming of the free time when I could open the notifications one by one to sort which one is important. But as we all know, that time will not come. And even if we have free time, by that time, the unopened notifications are too many that we cannot handle them.

As like food and other things, we need to know when to scrap. And like food, we also need to know what we can take in. No matter how nice the food is, we are only able to take certain amount beyond which it is detrimental for our health. In other word, we need to ignore certain attractions and remember our limits. By this, we can take the things within our reach and ignore or scrap the rest.

For example, now I try to see my e-mail and delete the things that seem not important. Also, if I have unopened mails for too long not being opened, I just then skip it or take the time just to open it at a glance. This is because unopening a notification is also distracting in the sense that we build up an assumption of the contents of which may be very different once it is opened.

Again, this has to work in hand with the effort in managing the procrastination. One of the thing that makes me afraid of opening notifications is the obligations that followed after opening such as the need to follow up. So I need to be courageous and also be firm on what are the things to follow up and what to let go. Even sometimes when the notifications are too many and seem not that important, it is ok to use the clear button to clear all notifications instead of opening one by one.

And as yesterday’s learning, to avoid being overwhelmed, one needs to prioritize. It is good that I start to rank the priority today and start from the first one. At the same time, I need to improve as the 2nd and 7th task today is not touched while I tried to address a new problem. But it’s ok, today is first day trying and the more important thing is to progress instead of comparing to others or our ideal-self which may not be ourselves.