Day 2 : Documents
It’s day 2 of my digital declutter and today we’re going to talk about documents.
Philosoph-uments
Documents are generally an informational format that I prefer to consume on a laptop (or tablet) computer as opposed to a mobile phone.
That said, when someone shares a new doc, makes an important update, or drops a comment on a doc I wrote (!) there is that slot machine-like dopamine rush the would sometimes compel me to start browsing a doc on my phone.
As part of my 30-day declutter process, I disabled the Google Drive app (since it can’t be uninstalled) and removed all the associated G Suite productivity apps (Docs, Sheets, etc.) as well as other document apps like Dropbox Paper.
This way I’m forced to wait until I’m on my laptop and in focus mode before diving into a doc. Why? I find the benefits to be threefold:
1. Deep Work
The term “deep work” was coined by Cal Newport in his 2016 bestselling book Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World although the concept of has been around much longer.
In the book the author defines Deep Work as:
“Professional activity performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push your cognitive capabilities to their limit. These efforts create new value, improve your skill, and are hard to replicate.” — Cal Newport, Deep Work
When working on any sort of creative and/or logical endeavor — I find reviewing a technical design document, for example, to be both — I think is it’s vitally important to be in a state of focus to achieve peak performance. This includes developing and effectively communicating original ideas, thinking through corner cases and potential pitfalls, and so on.
2. Batch Processing
The second advantage that comes from engaging with informational or technical documents while in a state of steady focus rather than “on the go” is batch processing.
I find this especially important when dealing with successive small bits of information — questions, comments, edits, feedback, etc.
Batching up this type of input and mentally processing it all at once has the advantage of not needing to context switch when moving from one to the next as they all relate to the subject matter at hand. This helps us more easily discern patterns and trends which can in turn develop a more comprehensive and higher fidelity mental model of the idea, argument, or system.
3. Proactive vs. Reactive
Lastly, I find that intentionally setting aside dedicated time to read, write, or respond to a document puts me in a more proactive state of mind as opposed to a reactive state of mind which is more likely to produce a knee-jerk response (read: NOT creative or logical)
Recent studies in neuroscience seem to back up this anecdotal evidence. For example, this 2018 study on the relationship between hyper-reactive cognitive processing and poor white matter organization led by Alexander Olsen, head of the Clinical Neuroscience Laboratory at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
“The brain is constantly working to create meaning out of the flood of information that comes at us every waking minute of our day ... the reactive system kicks in when something happens that is not expected. Then you need to adapt your behavior and react to the new information. You have to throw away your old plan and come up with a new plan.” — Alexander Olsen
For me this all adds up to make a compelling argument for limiting our exposure to tasks that require creativity or critical thinking to situations where we are brains are primed to do our best work.
The revenge of the PDF
Little did I know how soon this decluttering decision was going to come back to haunt me.
Yesterday when I was out and about I found myself needing to check the ferry schedule between Manhattan and Sandy Hook.
Conceding that this was a situation where I really did need to resort to my trusty Chrome mobile browser, I searched for then navigated to a website with a link to the schedule which upon clicking downloaded a PDF file with the schedule…
However, once the download was complete, I clicked on the file and low and behold it would not open. Apparently disabling the Google Drive app renders Android devices unable to open a PDF document!
Womp womp.
So before re-enabling the Google Drive app I thought maybe I would quickly scan the Play Store to see if a more lightweight PDF viewer app was available.
Then to my delight I found the Google PDF Viewer app by none other than Google LLC. The best part is — it doesn’t even have an app icon so my it keeps my launcher menu clutter free.
As far as I can tell, the Google PDF Viewer app is functionally identical to the Google Drive app when viewing a PDF document on an Android device, minus the “Add to drive” integration which makes it likely that this is the same module just decoupled and distributed separately from the rest of the suite.
Hooray for apps that do one thing and do it well. 🎉
Conclusion
So there you have it — my lesson learned and handy-dandy digital declutter tip for the day. Check back tomorrow for more interesting insights and preachy pontifications ready to share.
