[Applause]
this sculpture by sofa rider in the UK
CTF Sellersburg had to be moved because
people visit texting on their mobile
phones kept bumping their heads into it
does it happen to you to text phone
check your facebook timeline or maybe
catch a Pokemon while you're walking and
who does that
how many of these times did you actually
have to go in line
well we check our devices about 221
times per day according to tech mark or
about every 4.3 minutes of the time we
don't sleep what is going on well will
even the economy that is based on
destruction the more Internet pages you
browse through the more advertising an
Internet company can show you and so the
more money they make their success
metrics are based around how much time
you spend using their app or their well
your website not on how productive or
focused you are two years ago around the
same time of the year I decided to give
up my smartphone and replace it with a
very basic now internet phone at the
time I was working in a senior position
in digital marketing industry which
means that I was connected pretty much
24/7 I slept with my phone and I kept
checking it all the time and even felt
it vibrating in my pockets when I didn't
have any pockets given up my smartphone
was one of the best decisions that I
have ever made and today I want to share
with you my key learnings from the
journey of taking back control over my
time and my life but before we do that I
want to give you a little challenge
given that we check our devices about
every four point five minutes this means
that you will feel an urge to check your
device for three or four times during my
talk so I want to challenge you to
resist this urge and count how many
times you will succeed in doing that
so lesson number one you are more
addicted to your device than you think
but you're also much more resourceful
now why can't we go for five minutes
without our devices our USP psychologist
David Greenfield says as Internet is
like a slot machine you never know what
you're going to find inside and this
variability or the reward releases
dopamine the neural or man of pleasure
and anticipation of the reward
the problem with dopamine is that
excessive stimulation of your brain that
is caused by document creates addiction
this is exactly how drugs work the
thirst milk you feel excited but then
you have to go back and take a new dose
to feel her to have the same feeling so
devices use the same principles you
never know what you're going to expect
in your mailbox on social media right
one day you get a like and then the next
day 50 likes
um dopamine releases you feel great but
then the excitement fades pretty quickly
and you need to go back to your device
to feel good again technology is
purposefully designed the way to make
you use it over and over again we also
feel dependent on our gadgets because we
have outsourced to many important
functions to them has it happened to you
to go to Google Maps or any other kind
of online maps and look up your way even
though you kind of knew how to get there
this is exactly what I mean we easily
get into the habit of not trusting
ourselves well you know what I
discovered it's not actually very easy
to get lost in London there are maps all
around
and all I needed to do was to look up my
way once before leaving the house and
then I could always ask people in the
streets I realized that I have
outsourced to technology to many things
that were important to me that made me
human like my sense of orientation and
direction my memories of spaces and
certain events and it felt great to gain
them back all I wanted when I was given
up my smartphone was to have a little
bit more clarity in my brain and not to
feel so overwhelmed and what I
unexpectedly gained was the feeling that
I will find my way no matter what both
physically and metaphorically and of
course a great chat applied to make new
connections sorry I don't have a
smartphone could you please help lesson
number two if you want to change your
digital habits do not rely on you
willpower instead create structures
around you to support you in that our
brain is very lazy so when we repeat a
certain action over and over again
it starts organizing our brain cells
neurons into particular chains so that
it is easier to pass the information
through this chains this makes our
behavior automatic and unconscious and
this is exactly what notifications do
they prompt you to come back to your
device over and over and over again up
until your behavior becomes automatic
and unconscious
according to kiona report 87% of Android
users and 48% of iOS users opt in for
receiving after
vacations on their devices or in other
words all these people allow their
devices to decide how they will behave
once these chains are formed it takes
quite a long time and effort to undo
them and rely on the willpower it
doesn't help I certainly learned it
twice for the first time when it took me
five months from the decision of giving
out my smartphone to actually doing it
and for the second time when after about
a year of not owning any smartphone I
got one back which I thought I would
only use as a spare device in case my
lab doh breaks down and I need to talk
to clients over scarf and in no time
I found myself using it all the time the
neural path was still there now it felt
incredibly embarrassing because at the
time I was already conducting digital
detox trainings so I obviously was not
walking my talk but it also gave me
great insights into the real challenges
that people who do not want to give up
their devices altogether face so I
developed four principles that helped me
take back control over my time and my
life and I want to share this principles
with you these are time management space
management relationship management and
self-management these principles help
Riis tablished the boundaries that
technology removed between our work and
private lives or between our public and
private lives so let's talk about them
time management we need to give up on
the idea that we have to be connected or
accessible 24/7
now of course developers will try to
convince you that everything is very
important the truth is very few things
are remember what we said before it is
your attention
that is a real scarcity in the
information age it is a little bit like
with food you can have all the food you
may want to have in your fridge but this
does not mean that you need to eat at
all all the time so my top tip is to
disable all notifications on your
devices use delayed email function to
avoid being distracted by emails and use
blocking apps to make sure that you're
accessing certain websites only at a
certain time and not being distracted by
them on other times this way you are in
charge of when you're getting
information as opposed to being dictated
by technology and to give an example
Eric Schmidt who is executive chairman
of alphabet the Google's company
switches off both of his smart phones on
most evenings during a dinner time and
believe me he's much busier than most of
us also do not multitask online so do
not switch between different tabs or
between different devices a Stanford
experiment proves that the more we
multitask the worse we become at it we
unlearn our brain to do that well you
will still likely get distracted but you
can plan for it so incorporate five
minutes of destruction time every now
and then in your work routine but only
after you're done with a chunk of work
and as a reward only again this way
you are taking back control over your
time space management is all about where
you want to have connected car nation
and where you want to have silence have
you ever thought why the most expensive
areas in the city are usually the
quietest ones why is it that in airport
business lounges there is hardly any
sound or music or advertising why is
silence valued so high well this is
because it's only in silence that our
brain gets an opportunity to process
information that we have been feeding
into it we cannot take good conscious
decisions or be creative if we are
overwhelmed and we are always
overwhelmed when we go online because
our brain is not good at multitasking so
do not bring the devices into the areas
where you process information where you
have rest this includes your bedroom
your bathroom and your dining table also
if you keep your phone next to your bed
this puts your brain into the state of
alarm as research by Harvard Medical
School and of course you will feel
tempted to check it the first and they
think in the morning now it's like
keeping a chocolate brownie next to your
bed of course you will eat it so get an
alarm clock your device is just a tool
it is not part of you you don't carry
around your sore or your hammer you
don't take them to the bedroom
hopefully it's any tool your devices
need their own places for example I try
not to carry around my devices and also
remove them out of sight when I'm not
using them this way I feel less tempted
to check them relationship management
when I was still working for an
advertising agency we had a client who
kept sending us hundreds and hundreds
emails daily to make sure that we are on
the track with delivering the project in
fact it were his emails that kept us
away from doing the work because all we
were doing was just reading and
answering that so we have built a
dashboard that allowed us to show to the
client the progress we're making in real
time without an involvement it took us
about an hour to do so and in a week's
time the email rate dropped so
considerably that we were finally able
to get the work done we still don't have
a digital etiquette as to how people can
best contact you so you can get an
equally important message via whatsapp
Skype email you name it the moral is you
need to heavily manage people's
expectations as to how they can contact
you for example before I meet somebody I
ask them to send me a text message if
anything changes because I don't have
internet on my phone
and it works really well what do you do
however if you work for a company that
expects you to be connected and on top
of everything for 24/7 well first thing
first sub contributing to this mess by
sea scene everyone if you want to
receive your emails send your emails
second you might want to mention a few
studies to your colleagues or bosses for
example a study by Harvard Business
School
that said that consultants knowledge
workers who had predictable time off
throughout the week perform much better
and were much more productive than those
who didn't
or you can quote an example of a few
companies for example one of the UK's
leading multinationals recently
introduced a two hour per week email ban
for all senior management in the
interest of productivity or a current
German car manufacturer does not allow
sending or receiving emails 30 minutes
after the employees shift has ended it
this doesn't help then you can try move
into different country like France
Brazil where they have now the circle
drives to disconnect laws where that
among other things regulate whether the
person has the right not to read
work-related emails after the working
hours self-management is the last
cornerstone of changing your digital
behavior and the most tricky part
because it does not help it doesn't work
if you prohibit yourself from going
online because your brain still needs an
excitement of dopamine so instead you
need to be thinking about where will you
take this dopamine from what will you do
with all this free time that all of a
sudden you will have available and this
is where I want to share with you my
last key learning and why I think I've
failed for so long to give on my
smartphone I just did not want to deal
with my own problems when you don't have
anything that distracts you then you
will have to start dealing with the
stuff you have been running away from we
often go online not because we need to
but because we have some internal
trigger to do that maybe we want to feel
important maybe we are depressed in fact
I started by mr. University of science
technology says exactly that that people
who spent a lot of time online tend to
be depressed so the next time you feel
an urge to check your device ask
yourself what is really triggering me to
do that there is something I'm trying to
avoid feeling or thinking about once you
get alive and a natural source of
dopamine you won't need anything to
distract yourself from yourselves thank
you