10 smartphone habits that are getting in the way of your success

10 smartphone habits that are getting in the way of your success 10 smartphone habits that are getting in the way of your success Being on your phone at work, once the sign of a bad employee, is now the norm.Text messages are “making deep inroads” in workplaces across America, says  Wall Street Journal reporter Te-Ping Chen. Yet messaging your boss can lead to accidental texts like “Love you” or “pumpkinbear.”“While email helps silo work communications, the text inbox is a more blended affair, where notes from friends and family jostle with communiqués from bosses and co-workers,” Chen writes.Follow Ladders on Flipboard!Follow Ladders’ magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and more!Besides awkward text exchanges, there are other miscues many employees can make as smartphones become more commonplace at work. For instance, overusing your phone or constantly getting bombarded with notifications can lead to decreased productivity.“Productivity is often at its apex during a flow state,” when a person is fully immersed in an activity, NYC-based psychotherapist  Jordana Jacobs  told Business Insider.According to Jacobs, while phones are great for the technology they provide, they also feed into our natural distracted state. Cell phones take us out of the flow state, “which is so fundamental to productivity,” she said. “Essentially, we are consistently interrupting our own thought process,” she said. To put it simply, our phones “take us away from ‘the now,'” she added.It’s probably not plausible for you to get rid of your phone at work completely, but you can still take steps to keep it from getting in the way of your goals.The first step to being more productive is identifying all the ways our phones keep us from staying focused. Jacobs and  Jonathan Alpert, psychotherapist and author of “Be Fearless: Change Your Life in 28 Days,” broke down the phone habits that are ruining our productivity:This article was originally written by Audrey Noble.Mindlessly checking emails on your phone can easily take you out of the flow state that productivity requiresAccording to Jacobs, smartphones take us out of being in the present. When we’re constantly checking those work and personal emails, she said it puts us in the mindset of, “I’m doing this rather than just being where I am now.”Constantly taking out your smartphone to take a photo can keep you from being in the momentOne of the perks of today’s smartphones is that they double as high-quality cameras.While it’s great to want to take a picture here and there to have a keepsake of a particular moment, Jacobs said that playing paparazzi in our own lives is another way of taking us from living in the now.Checking social media on a smartphone makes us obsessed with what everyone else is doing at the expense of the actual task in front of usSocial media can feed our obsession with other people’s lives, but Jacobs said it’s also a platform for us to brag to our followers about what we are doing or have done.Texting others can k eep you from conversing with the people around youJacobs said that texting and messaging other people can have you more focused on what those people are currently doing, causing a distraction from anything productive that you should be achieving.Having your phone out all the time keeps you from taking a moment to be alone and reflect on what you need to get doneJacobs said she believes that we have lost the capacity to be alone.“We now think of the phone as our primary attachment figure; all of the people we know and love live in the phone, that’s how we talk to them,” she said. “We never actually have space by ourselves to contemplate, reflect, or gain insight into the self, in the way we used to be able to.”Knowing and growing ourselves can be the most productive work we do, and our phones often get in the way of this.Productivity apps can help you stay focused and complete your tasks, but they can also hurt your effortsWhile Alpert does think that there are some product ivity apps that can be helpful, he said he believes that relying solely on them or downloading the wrong one can actually do the opposite. According to him, the best way to stay productive is to have the right mindset.“How someone thinks can significantly impact their behaviors, drive, and ultimately their output,” he said. “People should feel encouraged that developing a go-getter mindset is possible.”Getting caught up with notifications on your screen can be distractingAlpert said many people do, and these notifications - whether it’s a text message or news alert - can distract you from finishing whatever work you have started. He suggested shutting off social media notifications completely. “These merely serve as a distraction and probably don’t contain anything urgent,” he said.Opening one app can lead to opening another, then another, then another…With apps, the internet, and other features of smartphones, you can easily find yourself going down a deep rabbi t hole of distraction.“Rarely do people go online or on their phones and stick to the intended reason for checking their phones,” he said. “If they’re checking the weather, that might then lead to checking email, messages, or reading a news story - all this serves as a gross distraction and impacts productivity.”The blue light emitted by your phone screen may affect your sleep quality.According to Alpert, the  blue light  that is emitted from devices can affect our sleep patterns.“Blue light is thought to enter the brain through the eyes and impact the pineal gland. This gland plays a role in melatonin production, the hormone that helps regulate sleep and wake cycles,” he said. “So devices used close to bed could impact someone’s ability to get proper rest.”This will have a profound effect on mood, energy levels, and ability to focus and complete tasks, he said.Since we can look up anything instantly, we may be losing our ability to wonderThis one may not be exp ressly related to productivity, but it is still concerning.Jacobs said we have lost our ability to wonder because we can pretty much look up whatever we need to - the answers to every burning question we may have are always right at our fingertips. “I think this truncates the creativity process and stunts our imaginations,” she said.This article first appeared on Business Insider.  You might also enjoy… New neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happy Strangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds 10 lessons from Benjamin Franklin’s daily schedule that will double your productivity The worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs 10 habits of mentally strong people