Five Techniques to Attain Web Browsing Zen
“We are not paying enough attention to notice that we are not paying attention.” Henepola Gunaratana, Theravada Buddhist Monk
Hop the programmer has hit a roadblock in the app he’s been coding. He switches to his browser window to search for the solution. One of the tabs open behind reveals that there is unread email. He was expecting a few important ones, so he cannot resist checking. It turns out to be a forwarded article on staying focused. He feels it will be worth the time and reads it. As he finishes, he is prompted to take a two minute survey by the site which featured the post. ‘Congrats,’ says a pop up when he finishes. For spending his precious time, he wins a 20% discount coupon in an online shopping store. There are headphones, Bluetooth ear pods, fitness trackers, and smart watches. The options go on from page to page. Before he knows it, half an hour is past. When he snaps out of it, shocked and guilty, Hop the programmer has no idea how he went from coding in great flow to shopping in great flow.
This should be an experience that many of us can relate to. By itself, the mind is prone to wander. The new avenues made available to it by the internet, only makes keeping it in one place all the more harder. However, doing this is important. “To produce at your peak level you need to work for extended periods with full concentration on a single task free from distraction,” argues Georgetown University professor Cal Newport in his book, Deep Work. For most people, completely getting rid of social media or our electronic devices can seem too drastic and impractical. So is it possible to live amidst these and still do focused work? Is there a middle way between compulsive indulgence and complete abstinence?
The answer to these is a definite yes. For here are five techniques that point you in this direction.
1. Browse on one tab
Research shows that computer users at work change windows to check email or other programs nearly 37 times an hour. People are keeping tens, even hundreds of tabs open at once, making them impossible to keep track of. The ability to open new tabs so quickly can also become a way to escape what you are working on. You may leave with the belief that you will come back soon, but often that’s not how things really turn out.
The first practice encourages you to cut down on this habit. Challenge yourself to browse with only one tab open. You don’t have to look at this like a rule you must always follow, but set apart time to go into this mode, particularly when you are working.
Here are some ideas to make a headway with this. Let’s begin with email. Set apart some time each day when you want to check your mail. Give it your undivided attention, and when you’re done, make sure to close the tab before you move on to something else.
What if you are reading an article and find a linked post? If you need to read the information in the link before going further, open the link in the same tab, read it, and click the back button. Or, read all the way to the end and come back to this link. Learn to keep mental bookmarks. Habits like this will help you be more engaged.
What about the sites you visit on a regular basis? Bookmark them. Folders on your bookmarks bar can help you store links in an organized way. It is much easier to find information this way than from amidst two dozen tabs.
Once you get used to this approach, you will find two or three tabs is all you really need even with no challenge. Both you and your computer are better off with all that was eliminated.
2. Email one person
Most of our one-on-one written communication today happens by exchanging short lines of instant messages. Few complete ideas worth discussing can be fit onto a single line. It takes at least a paragraph to get your point across. When a handwritten letter was the only way to communicate, we had to gather all our thoughts in a neat package and send them off all at once.
Today, even when we type something elaborate, we often send it to a bunch of people to make the most out of it. But such mails can never get as personal as the ones written exclusively to a single person.
So here is your second challenge. Pick a friend, relative or colleague you message often. For the next few days, don’t buzz them unless urgent, but make notes on everything you want to share. The song you got hooked to, the restaurant you just discovered, the new explanation you have for their disappearing pairs of socks — put them all there.
Once you have a sizable list, go through it and see which entries look still relevant. Think about these a little and see how you can fill them out and make them personal. For example, instead of forwarding the link to a song with a terse, ‘hey, check this out,’ also write a little about why it appealed to you, or about that moment the two of you had which this song reminds you of. Now that is a complete thought.
Weave your complete, personalized thoughts together into a single email and send it to that one person whom it was meant for. Now they have something to truly cherish. Well-written letters of the past were such a string of fascinating thoughts. They were preserved and passed on, sometimes even beyond the lifetime of their authors. They became intriguing windows into the worlds of their writers for future generations. When was the last time you went back to a chat transcript?
3. Sell one if you buy one
Websites can be addictive, and if your fix turns out to be an online store, it only compounds the problem. It is now harder than ever to resist impulsive purchases of stuff we don’t need. And mess causes stress: psychologists say a chaotic environment can burden our senses, making us feel anxious, helpless, overwhelmed, and guilty. We need open spaces to think creatively and work productively.
Besides the psychological toll, there is a cost involved in keeping stuff as well. The fraction of your rent that the space something unused occupies may look trivial for a given month. But over years, this can grow to a significant amount.
For every non-perishable item you buy (such as a book or a chair), sell one. It sounds harder than it is. To begin with, you have to identify what you can sell. Look around your house for things you haven’t used for three months or more. Lots of options will start cropping up, unread books, items in your wardrobe you haven’t worn in months, the guitar you haven’t played since you graduated.
Each time you want to order something online, put one of these things up for sale. If the amount is not significant, you could even donate it to someone who needs it for free. Making posts in online communities is a great way to find such people. Only after your junk has gone out the door should you make a new purchase.
The global used goods market is estimated at $650 billion, and with the internet making it easier for sellers to meet buyers, it is only expected to grow. Though Craigslist is a popular platform for this, there are many new options emerging. Oodle, Close5, and Gumtree are a few of these.
4. Minimize notifications
Our phones buzz and ding every while and our computer screens throw desktop notifications our way. Few of these distractions are important enough to warrant dropping off whatever we’re doing.
But knowing is only half the battle. These alerts intiate a dopamine loop, a condition that chemically rewards us more and more. It creates compulsion, where we cannot stop ourselves from acting on our urges.
Your aim here is to reduce interruptions to the bare minimum. Here are some tips to help you with this.
In nearly all mobile devices there is a settings screen that lists all apps that send notifications. This is a great place to start. You can permanently shut off notifications for all but the most important apps. It should not be difficult to spot many worthy candidates.
Find the apps whose notifications you have not interacted with lately. This is analogous to selling stuff you haven’t used in a while. The same idea applies to newsletters you’ve subscribed to and any groups you are a part of. If you haven’t engaged for some time, go ahead and pull the plug.
Many apps have an option to only send notifications at certain times. Set notifications to be sent as weekly or daily digests so you can deal with them all at once.
Many phones have a ‘do not disturb’ mode where you will only be interrupted for high priority events that you specify, like important callers or alarms. Putting your phone in this mode when you want to do focused work is a great way to stay uninterrupted but accessible if something critical comes up.
5. Take twenty mindful breaths
This tip is a mini workout routine that can train the mind to stay focused. Find a place that is not too noisy and sit comfortably. You can close your eyes if you like. Observe your breath going in and come out at its own pace. If you can do this for one full cycle of inhalation and exhalation, count ‘one.’ Go on like this till you reach twenty.
This may sound easy enough, but for many who set about to do it, something interesting happens. Without them realizing, the mind wanders off elsewhere, and the counting becomes automatic or even stops. If it happens to you, don’t fret. On the contrary, rejoice that you have caught the distracted mind and give yourself a pat on the back. Then start over the counting exercise from one. If twenty is too hard to hit initially, reduce your goal to ten or even five.
Notice the change, however big or small, that occurs when you finish counting. As you get back to work, do it with the same sense of purpose — is your mind focused, or does it stray? The ability to stay focused while retaining your sense of purpose is called mindfulness. And it can help greatly in keeping the sailing smooth through the ocean of online information.
When we immerse ourselves in an activity so deeply that we forget our own sense of self and the doer merges into the deed, a state of flow is reached. In this state, our performance is way above normal and yet at the end of it, we do not feel drained or spent, but only enriched. This is the state of Zen. Artists and athletes speak of this. But there is no reason, a person browsing the net to accomplish a significant task, for not attempting to get there as well.
