Are you sacrificing your good digital habits for the pressures of productivity in the workplace? Is a demanding job asking for more online time than you are comfortable giving? Here are 6 tips and tricks for keeping your screen time to a minimum.
1. Take your lunch break
This might seem like a very simple and obvious suggestion, but about 67% of employees tend to eat their lunch in front of their computer. This may be due to pressures to meet deadlines, to give a good impression to employers, to catch up on personal admin or simply to consume entertainment during down time. Instead of eating on from of your computer or while staring at your phone, try going out to eat instead. Invite a colleague you don’t speak to often and get to know them better. Try go for a walk or play board games in the staff room.
2. Take regular breaks
It is impossible to remain focussed and productive for long stretches amount of time. Our minds get distracted regularly and we waste small amounts of time, be it googling random bits of information, checking our social media or playing a round of Candy Crush. Instead of allowing our minds to regularly lose focus, set aside time to stand up and walk away from our screens for a short period of time. Our suggestion is to set alarms, after 45 minutes of work, get up and take a break for 15 minutes.
3. Don’t multi-screen
Try and streamline all of your tasks to one devise rather than using multiple. You tend to be running several apps/programmes on each devise anyway, and having multiple devices compounds the amount of tasks you have given yourself.
4. Don’t multi-task
This point is different from the last. Although we are constantly needing to keep checking our emails while we are performing other tasks for our jobs, it is said that 92% of employees tend to also stream other online content at the same time, particularly music, podcasts and youtube. This, in addition to the task at hand over-stimulates your brain, causing fatigue, exhaustion and loss of focus.
5. Use a physical day-planner and notebook
This will keep you allow you to have something other than a screen to look at. Not to mention practice your handwriting.
6. Remember to talk to your colleagues
Seems like something you do all the time right? Wrong! Studies have shown that 73% of our interactions with our colleagues are now via email. Try and make an effort to speak to your colleagues face to face.
*This article is for information purposes only, whether or not it resembles the advice of a physician or medical practitioner. Any advice or suggestions offered does not claim to be an alternative to professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment and should not be depended on as scientific medical guidance. The views expressed in this article are the views of DigiCleanse, and do not necessarily represent the views of the author/s.