With the advance in computer technologies and the increase in networked devices, the world becomes more and more connected. We began to check and reply to emails with our mobile phones many years ago. We even did the first (more or less good) web surfing on old-fashioned mobiles (Maybe some remember ugly standards such as WAP). But recently the interaction with those digital devices and other people how are also making use of those got multiplied by a manifold.

We are updating our status in social networks like Facebook or Google+, sharing pictures, experiences and basically a good portion of our life while we are on the go. But since this is not a one-sided thing, our friends and other people in whose thoughts and experiences we’re interested in are doing the same. Almost everyone is doing it — and also many people we might not be interested in so much, or posts to topics which are not of concern for us are popping up frequently. Robbing us of our free time and demanding attention. This is not only annoying sometimes, but can lead to a good amount of stress which could be avoided.

Avoiding this is nothing we have to study rocket science or anything. It is just about spending some time to set-up rules in our email clients to properly sort-out spam and categorise emails to have a cleaned-up overview (similar to what you would do to your apartment as well). For your Twitter stream you might want to look out for an alternative client like Echofon which allows blocking content of specific clients or hashtags or people you’re not interested in. And for our favourite social network there are many browser plugins available which help us to focus on what is important for us.