Speaker 1: Helping leaders motivate their people to a higher level of
Speaker 1: performance through strong human relations, team building and GOLA GV.
Speaker 1: This is the seven Minute Leadership Podcast with your host
Speaker 1: Paul Fello Aledo.
Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to the Seven Minute Leadership Podcast.
Speaker 2: It's episode four eighty four. Today, I want to talk
Speaker 2: about something every leader and every professional is drowning in
Speaker 2: right now. That's the digital nudge, the constant ding, ping
Speaker 2: and buzz of notifications. And here's the number that should
Speaker 2: make you stop in your tracks. Microsoft measured an average
Speaker 2: of two hundred and seventy five pings a day on
Speaker 2: their PCs. That's one digital nudge every two minutes. Imagine
Speaker 2: trying to perform at your best when you're interrupted every
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty seconds. Let's connect that to another
Speaker 2: study from twenty twenty three. It revealed that forty four
Speaker 2: percent of employees worldwide felt a lot of stress yesterday,
Speaker 2: not just once, but for four consecutive years in a row.
Speaker 2: Think about that, almost half of the workforce, year after year,
Speaker 2: feels a constant weight of stress. And here's the connection.
Speaker 2: Digital nudges are not just annoyances, they're stress multipliers. Every
Speaker 2: time your phone pings or your inbox lights up, your
Speaker 2: brain shifts. It has to detach from the task at hand, refocus,
Speaker 2: and then try to find its place again. That cognitive
Speaker 2: switch costs time, but more importantly, it drains energy. It's
Speaker 2: like driving your car with the brakes lightly pressed down
Speaker 2: all day. Eventually, your performance suffers, your patience drops, and
Speaker 2: your leadership presence weakens. Leaders are often told to be responsive, accessible,
Speaker 2: and connected, but let me flip that for you, Responsiveness
Speaker 2: is not the same thing as effectiveness. If you're spending
Speaker 2: your day reacting to every ding, then you're leading on
Speaker 2: someone else's schedule.
Speaker 1: Not your own.
Speaker 2: Leaders who fall into that trap stop being intentional. They
Speaker 2: stop working on vision, strategy, and culture, and instead become
Speaker 2: traffic controllers of constant noise. Ignoring digital nudges is not
Speaker 2: being rude or disconnected. It's about protecting the only resource
Speaker 2: you can't get back, your attention. The truth is leaders
Speaker 2: set the tone. If you're always jumping at every vibration,
Speaker 2: your team will believe that's the standard, and what happens,
Speaker 2: burnout starts to spread like wildfire. But here's the good news.
Speaker 2: Study show you can cut fatigue with very simple actions.
Speaker 2: So let me give you a few practical moves that
Speaker 2: you can start making today. Number one, batch your responses
Speaker 2: instead of answering every message as it comes in. Set
Speaker 2: two or three times a day when you respond to email,
Speaker 2: teams or slack. You control the schedule, not the notification.
Speaker 2: Number two silence non essentials. Your phone and computer allow
Speaker 2: you to choose what comes through. Turn off social media alerts,
Speaker 2: filter work messages so only the critical ones break through.
Speaker 2: Number three protect deep work blocks. Schedule ninety minutes a
Speaker 2: day where you're unreachable. Use that time for thinking, planning,
Speaker 2: or working on something that moves the needle. Leaders who
Speaker 2: defend this time elevate their organization. Number four reset team norms.
Speaker 2: Teach your people that instant is not the same as urgent.
Speaker 2: Set expectations that emails can wait a few hours. You'll
Speaker 2: be shown at how stress levels drop. In Number five,
Speaker 2: micro recovery moments. Instead of reaching for your phone during
Speaker 2: a break, take a walk, breathe, or grab water. Let
Speaker 2: your mind reset without another digital hit. So here's the
Speaker 2: message I want you to take away and share. You
Speaker 2: were not obligated to answer every ping. Every nudge is
Speaker 2: someone else's attempt to set your priorities. If you want
Speaker 2: to reclaim your energy, your vision, and your leadership, you
Speaker 2: must learn the discipline of ignoring. Because here's the reality.
Speaker 2: Leaders who protect their attention aren't less engaged, they're more powerful.
Speaker 2: They're the ones who think clearer, decide faster, and lead stronger.
Speaker 2: So two hundred and seventy five nudges a day, every
Speaker 2: two minutes, you can either be a slave to the ping,
Speaker 2: or you can lead your life and your team on
Speaker 2: your terms. So my challenge for you today, silence the noise.
Speaker 2: Turn off one notification right now, block out ninety minutes
Speaker 2: tomorrow for distraction free leadership. And when you feel that
Speaker 2: vibration in your pocket, ask yourself, do I control this
Speaker 2: or does it control me? That's the power of ignoring
Speaker 2: the digital nudge. This has been the seven minute Leadership Podcast,
Speaker 2: and I thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: For more Paul Fell of Alito Podcasts, visit paulfellowalito dot com.