Five tips to help you manage your tech and time better.

There’s little doubting it: the ubiquity of tech at the modern man’s disposal makes for a gluttony of possibilities. Start a side business! Read anything, anywhere! Share your (smartest) thoughts with the world!

But, as ever, with opportunity comes a down side, and it’s become clearer what exactly that down side is. More and more, we are faced with the risk of being chained to our phones, not distinguishing between matters of work or leisure. More and more, we toe the line of becoming Pavlovian slaves to the pleasant chime of each notification.

Wellness expert Dr Kristy Goodwin has spent most of her career teaching parents how to manage their children’s digital lifestyles. But – perhaps you can see where this is going – she couldn’t help but recognise that, more often than not, parents were grappling with the same issues.

“Abstinence isn’t the solution,” says Dr Goodwin, much to MR PORTER’s relief. “But there are ways to tame technology.”

“If you want to control your technology, don’t have it close by – it’s the simple ‘out of sight, out of mind’ principle,” says Dr Goodwin. The familiar refrain of, “But my phone is my alarm!” is often recited at the thought of kicking one’s smartphone out of the bedroom. Gladly, there’s a solution that’s as stylish as it is functional; one that generations of men opted to use: an alarm clock.

There’s another way to consider space in your digital lifestyle: the space on the device itself. Think icon-heavy desktops and app-stuffed homescreens.

“Take popular apps that you use – say, Facebook or Snapchat is your weakness – and remove the icon from the homescreen of your smartphone,” says Dr Goodwin. “If you have to scroll through a few pages on your device, you’re much less likely to use it. It works really well for digital decluttering.”

Another regular thief of mood and productivity? The drip-drip-drip of arriving email. The solution here may appear a little brash at first – but quickly makes a case for itself. “A lot of people feel like they have to respond instantly to emails. When we do that, we’re constantly digitally distracted. There’s a huge amount of research in what that costs in terms of productivity, and what it costs in terms of mental wellness.” Dr Goodwin’s suggestion? Build ‘check-in’ times into your daily calendar – perhaps 9.00am, 12.00am and 3.00pm – to help keep your mind on more pressing matters.

Sure, experts have long been shouting from the rooftops about the effect that a device’s blue light can have on us as we wind down to sleep. But Dr Goodwin points out that the barrage on one’s slumber doesn’t necessarily end there. “What’s really interesting at the moment is that the research says that, if you’ve got a device in your room that’s receiving notifications, the quality of your sleep is impeded,” she says. With sleep, quality can often trump quantity – especially when sleep cycles are interrupted by a screen that’s lighting up. “Even if you’re meeting your quota of sleep, you’ll still wake up exhausted – and even your memory-consolidation can be impacted.” Sometimes, an absolute solution works best – such as airplane mode.

Apps that help one break free from tech-addiction? Counterintuitive, but utterly effective. “If you’re trying to wean yourself off your device, there are apps such as QualityTime that track how often you check your device,” says Dr Goodwin. Other digital allies include Inbox, Google’s new take on email, which quietly files low-priority emails to one side, and allows urgent conversations to get your attention first.

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