Optimize Your Life’s “interface” to Do More
When you use a smartphone or website, you are using a user interface. It was designed to help you do what you want to do: check your posts, read articles, find information, get work done. The procedures we work with in our daily life are also interface-like. We just don’t think about it often.
This post was originally published on the Zen Habits site .
And, as with poorly designed websites, a poor interface for your life can be frustrating, annoying, frictional, and confusing. Good news: you are the interface designer in your life! You can redesign the interface.
Let’s think about a few examples:
Pop-ups of Life : When you are working, are there a dozen things that try to get your attention? Email, phone messages, social media, blogs, news, other favorite websites … while you’re trying to complete an important task? It’s like subscribe pop-ups that get in the way of your reading. You can change it so that you only have a task in front of you, without pop-ups and distractions.
Simplify your steps : If you want to exercise regularly, how many steps do you need to take before you can do the first exercise? Many people need to pack their gym clothes in a bag, turn off their computer, go to the gym, check into the gym, change clothes, find an empty seat in the gym, and then do a workout. This is similar to how you wanted to send an email message, but you had to click seven different pages to get to the send message screen. Instead, consider simplifying it so you can get started right away – get down to the floor and do some push-ups and planks, place a pull-up bar near your bathroom so you can do something every time you walk through. go outside during a break from work and walk briskly for 10 minutes several times a day. You can look at other things in your life that take too many steps to reach your goal and remove them so you just follow the path of least resistance.
Annoying Ads or Sales Proposals : How often have you visited a site with annoying ads or received a sales pitch? You just want to read or do something without any presentation. The same is true in your day-to-day life: you don’t want people to walk into your office and tell you about their sales, nor do you want to hear or see advertisements on your radio, television, or magazines. Think about “blocking ads” in your life, finding ways to avoid sales meetings, people who solicit, meetings where someone is trying to promote you. These are the little things you can do to drown out the ad buzz in your life: pay to stream ad-free music and videos, stop buying magazines (or just read articles using reading services later that remove ads), and unsubscribe from ads. disguised as newsletters in your inbox. Remove people from friends who are trying to involve you in MLM and the like.
Make your important goals easy to find : One frustration with websites is when the most important thing is buried on a hard-to-reach page and not easy to find. With a good user interface, the most important goals – front and center, are obvious and simple. But in our lives, we do the least important things that are easiest to find and do (TV, Facebook, distraction, junk food), while the most important things are hidden behind layers of distraction (your most important project, exercise, healthy eating, spending time with loved ones). What if we put these important things in front of others?
Remove Facebook and other distractions, and let your important project be the only thing visible when you open your computer. Cut out unhealthy foods and make healthy food choices when you get hungry. Put the TV in the closet and use the dumbbells instead. To spend time with loved ones, place the activity you want to do with them right outside the front door when you get home – put the book you want to read with your children, or roller skates you want to use with them, right inside the door. Or the teacups you want to use with your wife when you have tea together.
Nice design . When an app or website looks beautiful, it’s not just gloss and glamor. This is to create a mood, experience, a sense of delight or peace. Anything you do with a good app or website should be fun, not awkward or frustrated. The same can be said for your life: Remove distractions and clutter, and find ways to bring peace and joy into your life.
Obviously these are just a few examples, a few abstract ideas. The actual implementation depends on your goals, the experience you want to create for yourself. But it’s good to think about it.
In truth, we can never control everything in our life experience, and we shouldn’t try to do that. But spending some time thinking about a smarter, simpler, and more beautiful interface for your life is to rethink the unconscious and live more consciously.
New interface design for your life | Zen habits
Zen Habits is a search for simplicity in the daily chaos of our life. It’s about clearing up the clutter so we can focus on what’s important, create something amazing, find happiness. Image courtesy of VIGE.CO ( Shutterstock ).