LSC #31: How to manage digital distractions 🔇🔇
Hola! Welcome to another edition of the #LSC, the 31st edition this time, there you go!
As you all should already know, expect to find here some content on productivity, personal growth, health hacks, and even some interesting recommendations, because well, why not?
So, let's dive in!
Today’s summary:
🌻 Get better at being optimistic
🔇 How to manage digital distractions
🔍 The Pudding: Data visualizations
📷 Online EXIF data viewer
🌻 Get better at being optimistic
You’ll never meet a successful pessimistic person. If you want to be remarkable, get better at being optimistic.
A quick reflection before starting today: If we are pessimistic about what we do, we will never succeed at it. The first step to achieving something is to believe that we can do it. As cheap as it sounds.
This also applies to being either a negative or a positive person. Something I’ve noticed about myself is that when I am positive about things, I tend to navigate through them much more easily. This doesn’t mean I’m going to nail it (hello handstand walk!), but at least I have a positive attitude about whatever I’m doing, which makes things more enjoyable.
Being positive or optimistic may not change the outcome of your actions, but it will surely help you put in the effort! Honestly, ask yourself if you’ve ever noticed a difference in your success when you approach tasks with a positive attitude. I bet the answer is a huge hell yeah!
🔇 How to manage digital distractions
Alright, now that we’re positive and optimistic, let’s revisit a topic we’ve been discussing for a while: how to manage digital distractions.
Since it’s a topic that reeeeeeeallly affects us all, I’ve put together a list with a bit of a microlearning approach. I love microlearning! While there’s no official definition, all microlearning-based training shares one key characteristic: brevity (what a surprise for a concept called microlearning, I know) and repetition. So let’s see if, by repeating these tips over and over again, we end up succeeding at reducing our digital distractions!
So, here we go:
As you know, digital distractions, especially social media, are messing with our attention and focus. But don’t worry, you can take small steps to manage them and boost your attention span and mental health.
10 Tips to reduce digital distractions (Tested!) (well, they’re tested on me, but that still counts)
⌛ Block social networks after a certain amount of use.
📲 Hide messaging services and social media apps in your phone to make them harder to reach (out of sight, out of mind!).
🔕 Turn off notifications on your devices to keep your focus safe.
🚫 Use app or web blockers to resist the temptation.
🗓️ Set up a digital routine with specific times for work, emails, and social media.
📴 Use 'do not disturb' mode or create a custom mode for certain activities to limit app access.
🌙 Keep your phone out of your bedroom to avoid using it before bed and first thing in the morning (this one is a low-effort, high-impact tip, believe me).
🧹 Organize your work area to minimize distractions by keeping it clean and tidy.
⏲️ Use the two-minute rule: if a digital task takes less than two minutes, do it right away to avoid procrastination.
⏰ Forget being available 24/7. If something is urgent, people will find a way to find you; everything else can wait.
I know we’ve talked about these topics already a few times, but it’s never a bad moment for a bit of reinforcement, especially these days with our limited and affected attention spans!
🔍 The Pudding: Data visualizations
And well, I know we’ve just discussed managing distractions, and this week’s content recommendation might be a big one, but hey, it’s not every week you find a website that presents research with tons of data points in a visually appealing way.
The Pudding is exctly this: a digital publication that explains ideas with visual essays.
Don’t think of it as just a bunch of graphs put together because it couldn’t be further from that. Each entry is a piece of art—a mix of journalism and data, displayed in a way that’s not only informative but also appealing to the eye.
My favorites: the one on Spotify’s music genres and the one on unsubscribe dark patterns.
Get cozy, you could be here a while!
📷 Online EXIF data viewer
And since we’ve just talked about data, here’s a little tool that looks simple and might seem stupid, but it’s actually quite useful and powerful: Online EXIF Data Viewer.
What does it do, you ask?
Well, it does a couple of things. First, it gives you all the metadata from any picture. (Quick note on metadata: it’s like a label for data. It provides information about other data, such as the author, the date, the file size, the format... It's like data about data!).
You might think this service isn’t super necessary since we can check the metadata by looking at the file information on our computers. But here’s the interesting part: it also shows hidden metadata from your photos, like where the picture was taken, if it has copyrights, and other details.
And the best part: it lets you delete the metadata from any picture so you can share it freely on the internet. It might sound a bit too much, but hey, you never know these days!
📊 Data Dive
And to finish, let’s take a little look at the LSC performance:
318 Subscribers → Last week we were 296
1 Unsubscribed → We lost only 1 subscriber this week
58% Open rate → The goal is to keep this, as you know, in the 60-70% range.
As a farewell gift, another crazy The Pudding page: a clock where the time is in a song title. This means that in every minute, the clock reproduces a song that includes that exact hour in the title. Ok, the songs can be a bit random, but still, as a project is amazing!
Before leaving though, there are a few things you can do to help me:
Share this newsletter with someone you think will like it.
Reply to this publication.
If you’re on Substack, like this publication, re-stack it, move it around… sky is the limit!
And now, for good: Keep an eye out for the next LifeScore Chronicles—something exciting is just around the corner. 🚀
Until next week, stay safe and healthy!