The Digital Time Trap by Chris Barrow

by Chris Barrow

How technology can be transformed from a curse to a blessing

The first book on time management I ever read was in 1980 (ouch!) when, some 15 years before the internet was switched on and mobile phones were the size and weight of house bricks, author Dr Alec Mackenzie suggested that we were all drowning in “stuff” in his classic The Time Trap.

His advice was simple, and a regurgitation of knowledge that has been around since the early 20th century:

• Make a list
• A, B, C the list
• Do the A’s first
• Boom!

To a 27-year old wannabe financial services salesman, the book was a revelation and began my lifelong exploration of personal effectiveness whose ports of call included Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits and First Things First, David Allen’s Getting Things Done and, more recently, Cal Newport’s Deep Work.

I’ve evolved from a page-a-day WH Smith diary through a variety of leather ring-binders and page inserts to, perhaps inevitably, a sequence of digital and synchronising applications that can be viewed on any device I may be carrying around.

Last year, I decided to retrace my steps in the exploratory journey by using Michael Hyatt’s Full Focus Planner, a printed book that arrives every 90 days in which I’ve committed to writing down my annual goals, 90-day targets, weekly aims and daily tasks and notes. Paper, pen and ink—who would have thought they would make a comeback?

The reasons behind this analog heresy led me to muse on the title of this short piece. (Ironically, you are probably reading this online.) The digital time trap to which I refer occupies a place we call ‘online,’ which is a place I’m finding it increasingly difficult to think in unless I learn how to control it properly.

We must learn to control digital or continue a descent into being controlled.

Like you, when I’m online, I’m living in a world of emails, messages, posts, comments, likes, links and, perhaps most insidiously of all, the dreaded notification.

Before you react: Yes, I know that I’m in control and that I can switch to ‘Off’ if I want to, but we’ve been cleverly manipulated into a permanent state of FOMO (fear of missing out) if we become digital recluses or abstainers.

My point is not that the internet or social media are evils in the world. It’s too easy to subscribe to the dinner party/BBQ/pub conversation that includes observations like:

• Myth #1: ‘Nobody looks at anybody else on public transport anymore’.
  Reality: In the 1970s, when I was getting the bus to work, just as many people were reading the newspaper.
• Myth #2: ‘Have you seen all the children in the local pizza restaurant, glued to their devices?’
  Reality: When my kids were small, (the 1980s and ’90s), they were playing with simple electronic toys and scribbling in colouring books. By the late ’90s they were sending text messages on flip phones under the table.
• Myth #3: ‘People are forgetting how to read anything that contains more than 400 characters’.
  Reality: Waterstones is booming, as are the sales of printed books across the world.

And so on. …

Actually, I think the internet and social media are wonderful. At age 65, I’m all over Facebook and Instagram, both personally and professionally; my LinkedIn profile is well maintained (and brings me a surprising number of business enquiries); I blog five days a week and write an email newsletter monthly, both of which are followed globally; I occasionally (as now) write guest articles for digital publications; and my clients complete a weekly progress report online (and I read and respond digitally to every one of them).

Within my support team, we collaborate online, using Mail to communicate, Dropbox for storage, Google Sheets for keeping count, WordPress to blog, Evernote for minuting meetings, PayPal and Stripe to collect fees, Todoist to manage projects and tasks, and Twist to privately message each other. We use FaceTime, Skype and Zoom for video calls.

The fact that I have access to an encyclopaedia of information in my pocket, that I can communicate with family, friends, team and clients worldwide and in real time is miraculous. Who could have imagined a day in my home office that included live video conversations with clients in Melbourne, Milan and Maidstone, all in the same morning?

Equally, the arrival of Netflix into my personal life has added to the relaxation and entertainment previously provided by iTunes, Sky and terrestrial TV.

The screen without the keyboard is a halfway house, but the arrival of Black Mirror: Bandersnatch on Netflix in January heralds a new world of interactive entertainment that may well change the landscape once more and demand very careful management by us all as adults and parents.

As to ‘shopping’, we ended up on first-name terms with the DPD delivery driver who brought countless packages to our door in the weeks before Christmas—food, drink, electronics, books, health supplements and clothing, all ordered online.

The secret of escaping the Digital Time Trap is not to become a Luddite and call for the end of Zuckerberg and his privacy violations, Bezos and his slave labour, and interactive streaming TV.

The secret is to learn how to filter.

There are various ways in which this filtration process can benefit us:

• Filtering out the ‘notifications’ that we do not want to receive. I’m great at delegation to my support team—I know how to do that. I explain my desired outcome, agree on the deadline and get out of the way.
• It is equally important that we switch off the digital notifications that we don’t actually need. In just the same way that Daniel Craig famously commented, ‘There’s always somebody with a bigger toy’, so there will always be something that you will miss out on. You cannot know everything, because there is too much happening, so you may as well just operate a strict need to know policy.
• A bigger problem than FOMO is ROSE—the risk of seeing everything.
• Filtering out the moments when we just don’t want to be online.

To illustrate, I’m not online:

• When I’m handwriting my daily journal (paper and pen again—I tried software and it just became another chore).
• When I’m completing my Full Focus Planner.
• When I’m reading literature (no Kindle or Audible for me; I want the tactile experience of holding a book in my hands).
• When I’m with another person and I want to give them my full attention.

It is learning how to filter our digital experience that helps us avoid the time trap.

Trust me: You will get your life back, provided you surround yourself with quality support. I suggest you take some time to think about this. (Do you have time to think?)

Technology can be a blessing if you learn to handle it responsibly, and a curse if you don’t.

A sobering thought is that the version of me who read The Time Trap in 1980 wouldn’t have understood most of what I’ve just written. I wonder what observations will be made by some other commentator another 39 years from now—and how?

That’s enough for now. I’m off to ride my bike—I’ll just set up my Garmin watch to record my heart rate and the journey, so that I can post the results on to Strava. After all, there is another digital condition: FOMWO, fear of missing a workout!