Welcome welcome, this is the fifth piece in a series about revamping our relationship with our phones and The Pull. The priors: Making It Your Own With Your Phone, Your Intent v. Your Phone's Intent, Intermittent Fasting, Digital Edition, and Self Inquiry and Smart Phone Diagnostics.​

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The trajectory continues...

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Defining Distractions in Digital Life: Consumer To Creator

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This began as an EDC post. No, not Electric Daisy Carnival for you partygoers. EDC as in every day carry.

However, as is often the case, something more potent came up and took over.

Did I get distracted?

What's a distraction?

However people speak English they say it like di-straction. A "straction" is some strange entity that gets bifurcated and we now have two of them.

Nobody seems to say it, or I don't seem to hear it, like what is truly is: dis-traction. Removal of traction.

The noun form of distraction is tricky. Careful with this word!

You are a distraction.

Social media is a distraction.

Smart phones are a distraction.

Distractions are forever. Something is or isn't a distraction. The noun form makes labeling a challenge. The verb form eases it. Distracting is in the here and now. Still, the noun form has utility. More on this later.

If I'm heads down in work and you call me, that's a distraction. When we have a scheduled meeting at 3pm and you call me, its not. If I'm in a hammock enjoying the breeze and you call me, what's that? Something in the middle?

In the Landline Phone Era...

You call me. I'm outside, can't hear the indoor phone. Life goes on. No distraction.

In the Smart Phone Era...

You call me. iPhone lies beside me in the hammock.

A decision emerges. To answer or not to answer?

Is this is a distraction?

Philosophical inquiry and micro-panic ensues...

Hammock-as-hamlet? Smartphone-as-hamlet? Hamlet, To be or not to be? DesCartes- I think, therefore I am. Me- With iPhone I can't think, therefore I am not? When I use my phone I don't exist? I have chosen soulless death by transhumanist hive mind?!?!?

There's some truth in there, painful to admit. Some say everyone on the internet is becoming the same person- trending towards unity, not the way the yogis talk about it. The dark side of the polarity.

Forget this 'answer or not answer' decision.

I made a decision already, one I and many overlook!

I decided to put the iPhone in my pocket, and bring it with me into the hammock.

Such a decision happens unconsciously.

Phone in pocket is routine.

SIDE NOTE- this is a shitty vignette. For years, if my phone was in my pocket, it'd be in airplane mode to block the EMFs. If I were in a hammock it would be on the ground nearby. But, most everyone has encountered the answer-or-ignore paradigm in a serene setting, interrupted by a smart phone.

Routine and EDC go hand in hand. After all, every day implies routine. Further pondering emerged when considering email and EDC.

Email is not a company. Email is a medium.

Is email a distraction?

Dis-traction requires removal of traction. Traction is focused effort oriented in a particular direction.

Traction comes before dis-traction. Traction involves uniqueness and self-authoring.

Labeling email as a distraction is victim language. Whether or not email is a distraction is not up to email. It is up to me.

In the past, I checked email as a form of self-soothing. Just like a digital cigarette in Frits's cartoon above .

Email wasn't distracting me.

I was distracting myself.

From some unpleasant feeling. Sensation. Emotion. Some story I told myself.

Email functioned as the self-soothing tool.

In this context, email functions as a "medium based" distraction.

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Distraction Types

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1. Rule based-a catch-all, below lists rule types. allowing calls from certain contacts and not others. Or, allowing calls from certain people at certain times, and not others. Some times these may be dis-tracting. Other times, tracting.
2. Time based- Every day carry works as a "use this per unit time" method. The single day functions as the time interval.
3. Medium based- A channel that turns on and off. Channels may or may not serve as distractions. Whether or not they do depends on you, and relational intent. See previous, Your Intent v. Your Phone's Intent for a deeper dive.
4. Place based- some places make traction challenging. Pick wisely.
5. People based- certain people do, too.

Remember, nobody at the phone store tells you these things. You are both a user and you get used.

But, good news! Distraction types and traction types juxtapose well.

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Traction Types

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Want to be productive? Schedule your time-- time based

Avoid distractions at work? Only work calls come on your work phone-- medium based

Want to work from home on Fridays? People produce more when on-site regularly (in theory)-- place based

Manager needs your time? Certain people in the org chart can interrupt you anytime-- people based

Check in with yourself about these traction types.

Repeated checkins continue for yours truly.

Unsurprisingly, the inquiry continues. In case you missed the last in the series, it may be worth a look- Self Inquiry and Smart Phone Diagnostics.​

Keep going with the inquiry.

Be gentle. Be patient.

Going from iPhone to dumb phone as EDC overnight out of the blue feels extreme.

Considering I've lived largely TV-free for a decade as of this year, it seems more gentle.

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If people knew better, they would do better, so be gentle.-Dude whose name I forgot at men's circle long ago.

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Peace,

Drew

PS- If you're near Orlando and looking to get off your phone, join us for a wisdom circle.

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