Today I am taking Focus up a notch: For 100% of day—morning, afternoon, evening, and night—I am allowing zero Messages and WhatsApp notifications to come through from anyone other than my immediate family, people with whom I have appointments in the next two days and, during the workday, my workmates. I am coupling this with a morning clearing and an evening clearing, rendering how I handle my instant messages more like how I handle my email. This experiment will last either forever or until I observe it’s unloving.
So folks will still get text replies from me twice a day. If that’s not fast enough and they need my attention more urgently, let them place a good, old-fashioned phone call. It’ll be like time travel back to 1993 (minus the coiled cords and dial tones)!