Tech Overload Is Real: Here’s How Leaders Fight Back With 5 steps

As forward-moving high achievers and leaders, many of us are preoccupied with tech and how it can help us in business and life. It's both fascinating and overwhelming, friend and enemy. How often do we step back and think about our relationship to it?

Let's be real, folks. We live in a world where our smartphones are practically surgically attached. Not only are there new disruptive AI tools coming out every day, we bombarded with information, notifications, and demands 24/7. It's exhausting! Do you love it? Hate it? Are you somewhere in between?

The Unspoken Truth about Tech

As a coach, I see a lot of people struggle with the same silent saboteur: technology. It's the companion that's always there, always demanding attention, and always threatening to derail even the most well-laid plans and the most brilliant leaders.

Just yesterday, I listened to another successful high achiever looking tense and frazzle tell me she was at a breaking point. She described the never-ending stream of client and team bids and messages, answering calls at night and in the car, expectations of immediate responses. Her breath shortened as she spoke. The bags under her eyes said it all. She couldn't see an end. She blamed her clients.

It's not her clients.

We all need to rethink our relationship to tech. I know she's not alone. The average person checks their phone 58 times a day. That's every 16.5 minutes and a staggering 2.1 hours lost to distraction daily.

And the consequences are real. A study called "Brain Health Consequences of Digital Use" lists potential harmful effects of extensive screen time and technology use as including:

  • heightened attention-deficit symptoms

  • impaired emotional and social intelligence, technology addiction, social isolation

  • impaired brain development

  • disrupted sleep

To be fair, the study also describes a few benefits of certain computer programs and video games, which may improve memory, multitasking skills, fluid intelligence, mood and behavior.

The question is, how can we transform overwhelm into a source of something positive? How can we keep calm in the face of all this tech? What can we do so without going completely bonkers? To separate enough from our smartphones to see the bigger picture?

First, let's get clearer about the challenges.

Today’s Greatest Tech Challenges

With all the improved productivity and exciting advances, what I see in my practice is technology breaking down limits of time and space, changing our expectations and behaviors. An endless flow of information and disembodied interactions multiplies the complexity of our daily life. New technologies show up everyday, changing how we interface with the world. Here's what the leaders I coach describe as challenges:

  • The pace of change. We don't need statistics to feel an uptake in the pace of change, the need to learn new tools, do more online, understand new technologies. To put things into perspective, it took 2.4 million years to control fire and use it for cooking, only 66 to go from the first flight to humans on the moon, and a mere 10 months to double the number of organizations using gen AI regularly. Anyone feeling winded?

  • Our phones. How long can you go without your phone?Nomophobia, the fear of being without your phone, affects 66% (!) of users. We are in a deep, destructive habit relationship with the tool. If we see it, we’ll look at it, impacting our ability to be with people and present in the moment.

  • Multi-tasking and interruptions. Constant distraction is eroding our energy and productivity. On average, we spend only 11 minutes on a task before getting distracted. It takes 23 minutes and 15 seconds to fully recover focus after a distraction. And multi-tasking negatively impacts cognition in tasks that require sustained goal-directed attention.

  • The multiplication of communication channels. With message apps, email, social media, and gen AI assistants, how can we keep up? An average person checks email 36 times an hour, losing 10 IQ points in the process. The real problem, however, lies in the endless flow of notifications and calls to action constantly dividing our attention, reducing our capacity to concentrate on a single task and augmenting our stress levels.

The Leadership Edge: Reclaim Your Focus, Reclaim Your Power in 5 Steps

Most of us didn't work so hard to be where we are by letting distractions and information overload call the shots. We got there being laser-focused and ruthlessly efficient.

What would happen if we brought that same energy to our tech habits? I reckon we'd feel more refreshed and energized; move through the day with intention, tackling priorities; and end the day feeling accomplished and at peace, not wired and worried.

Here are the ABC's of getting back in control:

  1. Audit Your Inputs. Get real about your device use and where your attention is going. Are you consciously choosing, or are you on autopilot, reacting to every ping and notification

  2. Breathe. Seriously, before you dive into the digital abyss (and after you emerge), take a few deep breaths with an extended exhale to calm the nervous system. It works wonders.

  3. Choose. You're in charge here. Choose the tools and technologies that support your goals, not the ones that hijack your attention. Question everything. Why am I using this app? Is it truly adding value, or is it just another distraction? Simplify, streamline, and eliminate ruthlessly.

  4. Digital Boundaries. Create tech-free moments in your day and device-free spaces. Implement a "digital sunset" – no devices after a certain hour. Trust me, the world won't end. And you will feel the benefits.

  5. Educate yourself. Tech is not magic. It may take a bit of an effort, but a little education reduces stress significantly. Becoming interested in progress and new tech allows us keep a positive perspective on technology.

It’s astonishing how quick we are to trust technology, thinking implicitly that our tech is infallible. We trust tech to manage our daily lives and our needs. Remember, though, that in a relationship to a machine, only the human has a choice, the capacity to take action.

From Frazzled to Focused: Transformations

This week, yet another client, who manages a large team, described her latest and most significant success: turning off her notifications and scheduling specific times to manage them. It changed her day-to-day stress levels and productivity. Another, a brilliant leader, constantly on edge, implemented a "digital sunset" rule, and within weeks, he was a different person—more focused, more present, and dare I say, happier. Both, being in leadership positions, began implementing cultural changes in their organizations to enable others to make similar moves.

Technology is a tool and we have the power to choose how we engage with it. We can make choices that empower us, set up a culture that empowers others.

Ways to Stay Sane Using Tech

Here's my short list:

  • Remember the most important function on any device is the off button.

  • Never, ever start your day on somebody else’s agenda—push using tech and communication until later so you can be creative before reactive.

  • Turn off notifications. Disable anything that signals you to pay attention to it without your choosing. No exceptions. When it comes to focus, no news is good news. Test it for a week. If your life falls apart, enable notifications as needed.

  • Reduce cognitive load. Clean browsers, close tabs, close windows, reduce clutter, simplify and then monotask. And turn off the news.

  • Simplify and organize communication systems. Consolidate all inbox apps—messages, email, social media—into a single repository. Then put it out of sight and make it hard to access. 

  • Batch all digital communication for processing, finding the minimum possible time to spend on it (it is way lower than you think). What are the minimum times per day/week you can check your email? What are the minimum times per day you can check the messages on your phone? How can you maximize the effectiveness and quality of your communication to reduce time spent replying?

These are choices you can test and adapt to your environment. Some may be challenging. Think about them in terms of habits. You are changing bad habits and building good habits. Start small and build from there.

Take Action towards Balanced Tech Use

Anne TragerPotentializing Productivity