We all know we’d do well to disable the push features, alerts, and notifications on our mobile devices, desktop, and laptop computers that distract us. But this is a hard step for many people.

Good news: You don’t have to turn off your phone altogether. But we are far more focused (and therefore productive, successful, and often even happy) when we turn off distracting dings and vibrations when we are working or focusing on something besides incoming emails and texts.

Why? When we interrupt ourselves to check what just came in, we lose time, focus, and productivity (we are going to talk about multi-tasking in the coming classes). Most people do not have the mental fortitude it takes to ignore an incoming texts or emails–and even if we do have the self-discipline, research shows that just resisting impairs cognition measurably.

Putting down your smartphone allows you to truly connect with the people who are in your presence, even if it is a checker at the grocery store that you don’t know. Click To Tweet

For now, start giving yourself the gift of being fully present with your attention wherever you are, feeling whatever you are feeling, even if that feeling is boredom (at first). Putting down your smartphone allows you to truly connect with the people who are in your presence, even if it is a checker at the grocery store that you don’t know. This will ultimately make you more productive, intelligent, and happy. I promise.

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This post is taken from The Science of Finding Flow, an online course I created as a companion to my book The Sweet Spot: How to Accomplish More by Doing Less.