Reclaim Your Attention: Sleep, Boundaries, And Digital Detox With Colin Corby

In this episode of The Self-Help Podcast, Deepali sits down with Colin Corby — technologist turned digital-wellbeing expert, TEDx speaker, endurance athlete, and a leading voice on attention, identity, burnout, and what it means to stay human in an AI-driven world.

Colin doesn’t approach digital wellness as a trend — he approaches it as a lived experience. After personally facing fatigue, identity confusion, and the mental fog caused by constant connectivity, he rebuilt his life around intentional boundaries, focus, and digital discipline. Today, he helps leaders, creators, parents, and everyday humans take back control of their minds in a world that constantly demands more of them.

Together, Deepali and Colin explore why digital detox is not about deleting your apps — it’s about redefining your relationship with technology so you can reclaim your time, clarity, and sense of self.

This conversation is honest, sharp, and deeply timely. Colin shares real stories, powerful metaphors, and practical tools that anyone — especially high-achievers, working parents, and creatives — can begin using immediately.

🧠 Key Takeaways

✨ Digital detox is not about escaping tech — it’s about reclaiming yourself.
The goal isn’t quitting your phone; it’s rebuilding the clarity and presence you’ve lost.

✨ Attention is your most valuable currency. Guard it fiercely.
What you focus on becomes who you are.

✨ Boundaries are not restrictive — they’re protective.
Healthy digital habits give you energy, identity, and emotional space back.

✨ Tiny shifts create huge results.
Even one intentional pause can reset your nervous system.

✨ Your environment shapes your choices. Design it with intention.
Make focus easier. Make distraction harder.

Colin Corby's TED Talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEMf-y7KqTc&list=PLZi99fIL3-7pP49Xg4ygku6dW8WnkIIGi

The Digital Detox Youtube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@thedigitaldetoxcoach

https://thedigitaldetoxcoach.com/

Come say hi to me:

https://www.deepalinagrani.com/

Want to be a guest on The Self-Help Podcast with Deepali Nagrani? Send Deepali Nagrani a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/deepalinagrani

Deepali Nagrani- Podmatch Affiliate Link
🎙️✨ Let’s Tell Stories That Whisper “Me Too” — Together. Are you a speaker, storyteller, expert,

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Transcript

Why Digital Detox Matters Now

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to the Cell Phone Podcast. Today we are diving straight into a topic that I don't think every single one of us struggles with. Digital detox. Why we desperately need it, how to actually do it, and what it means for our mental, emotional, and physical well-being. And to help us understand this better, we have someone who doesn't just talk about digital well-being, he has lived it, studied it, and built an entire career and mission around it. So today we are going to learn a lot from Colin Corby. Once again, welcome back to the South Hell Podcast. I'm your host, Dipali. Now, Colin Corby is a technologist and digital well meaning expert. He is a direct speaker, an endurance athlete, and the voice behind impactful conversations on attention, identity, burnout, and what it really means to be a human in an AI-driven world. We are completely driven by AI today, so it's going to be an interactive conversation. Colin teaches leaders, teams, and just like every everyday people like you and me on how to reclaim their attention, rebuild boundaries, and thrive really without being controlled by constant connectivity and notifications and buzz and messages and everything. Colin, welcome to the show. I'm very delighted that you're here today.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Thank you very much for inviting me.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

I was so like excited reading up about you when I was going through uh your profile, and I realized you've worn many, many different hats throughout your career. So it must have been an exciting journey.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Yes, I started off as a technologist and worked for lots of uh very good global companies. But also I I suffered a lot of stress in my mid-30s, so I had to take up sport in order to be able to be more resilient to stress. So I exercised my body in order to be able to cope with uh with stress. So that's when I started endurance, iron man events, swimming and other things. And it was only after about 30 years in technology where I was uh gonna have a change that I decided, well, do you know why I I love technology? I love sports psychology and and what you can do with uh mind-body connections, and why am I spending so long on my phone? So I thought, ah, I'll crash those three things together and uh talk about digital detox.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Incredible. And yeah, when you speak about uh being in technology for so long, I relate because you know I work full-time in tech and consulting and I understand with life, you know, with work, with family, with your hobbies, how how it can be overwhelming at times, and I think it's very, very important to find a way to control your stress or at least control the controllables as much as you can. So thanks for sharing that with us, Colin. And starting now, right with you know, your area of overlap, a digital detox. Why do we even need a digital detox in this time and age? And and what are the real life symptoms when you experience burnout and stress, say fatigue, brain fog, uh reactivity, confusion. What made you raise the alarm on this, and how did you go about pursuing it?

Colin’s Stress Story And Endurance Mindset

From Tech Love To Detox Mission

SPEAKER_00 3:27

So, what we forget, especially when we're working technology, we're so excited about all the new technology, what it can do, all the amazing things, that we sort of try and replicate it. We think we operate somehow like technology. But in fact, we're biological animals. And in order to be able to perform at our best, then there are certain things that we have to look after. We have to look after our sleep, um, our diet, we have to exercise, we have to do lots and lots of different things in order to be healthy. And what I like to say is that the human brain is about one million times more power efficient than a supercomputer with roughly the same processing power. But how we achieve that, and how lots of other animals achieve that, is by having this balance between being a biological being and being able to do all the things that we we need to do. So we have to look after our bodies. So when I suffered stress, and that was before the smartphone age, it's because I'd I got so excited about the projects and the people and the technology that I forgot that actually I was a biological person and I had to look after myself, otherwise there'd be consequences. And there were consequences. I started to get, heart started to race, I started to get dizzy and pass out. And so that was a tipping point for me, but a very useful lesson early enough in my life to say, well, okay, everything's about balance. And so the reason why we need to digital detox is because it's so easy to get out of balance. Now, when we're on our laptops, when we're on our smartphones, we're constantly being bombarded by external stimulation, we're constantly being distracted, we're constantly multitasking, and all those things tend to uh build up stress. We get accumulation of stress. And if we don't manage that stress by stepping away for short breaks of rest and recovery, by making sure we get enough sleep, by making sure we don't work, you know, 24 by 7 on a particular project or particular type of work. Unless we do that, then that accumulational stress will build up and build up and become chronic stress. And that's when you get into burnout territory. Um, as soon as you get into chronic stress, then burnout is a possibility. And as soon as you get to burnout, then you need medical help. It's gone too far. You need serious medical help. So, what I try and do is get people to balance their online world and their real world, physical world, in order to be able to do great things at work, um, enjoy the technology, but also enjoy being a human, being enjoy other people and looking after themselves as well. You can have it both, you could have both the best of both worlds, but you do have to achieve that balance.

SPEAKER_01 6:38

Right, and the goal really is to try and find that balance. And I love it when you said that, you know, it like there were many, many moments when you realized technology was not just a tool anymore. It was taking over your well-being, your interests and passion about, you know, working, learning about new tools and technologies, processes sort of, you know, was taking it over. So thanks for sharing your turning point. And you have a tech background and endurance athlete mindset, right? So it's safe to say that you know the blend of both worlds. How did those two words collide and uh shape your philosophy around digital well-being and performance quality?

SPEAKER_00 7:16

So, because I I had to start exercising in order to achieve the balance, then I I realized, well, when I first started, I I took up swimming and I was pretty bad at it. That I had to train. And after I was training, I was getting better. Very slow steps, I was getting more, getting fitter, being able to swim better, started racing, and then I was thinking, well, okay, I'll I'll do some triathlons. And eventually I did an Iron Man triathlon. But that whole process took place over many years, but it did enable me to think about, well, actually, how we talk to ourselves and how we think can affect what we're able to do. So it's this power of the mind that we actually do have so much more control than we think we have. And so it was that whole idea of how much control we can have with our own minds to choose what we want to do to create good habits rather than bad habits. And then, like everybody else, um around about 2010, 2015, I started to spend too much time on my laptop and my smartphone, probably like everyone else. And I thought, well, this is fascinating. Why is this happening? And then I did lots of research about behavioural psychology and the way that the apps are designed to keep us engaged, to keep us connected, and to keep distracting us. And I thought, well, that's really, really interesting. Um, given that I had learned how to control my mind, I thought, well, okay, there must be a way of being able to live and work in this technology, technological world that we've created and also stay healthy. So that was really that that mixture of all of those things that uh brought me to uh creating the digital detox coach in 2018.

Outsourcing Attention And Skills

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Wow, and and you've been doing it ever since, right? So, and I see you were also on the TEDx stage uh sharing your views and talk about the topics. I'm sure it must have been also exciting. Now you also say that our attention is being outsourced, right? Like there are a thousand messages, uh notifications on our phone, our laptop, work, personal life, and not just stolen. What do you mean when you say that?

SPEAKER_00 9:35

So we are being constantly bombarded. So if you imagine you're in a room with lots and lots of people and they're all shouting at you, saying, Come and talk to me over here, come and play this game with me, come and do this thing, look at what the exciting things I've got. So we're constantly being bombarded. And we're switching our attention because we've we've been designed to be easily as distracted. It would have evolved that way because it's an important survival skill. So, in a sense, when we're online, it's very easy to lose control about what we pay attention to. It's almost like we've outsourced our attention to whatever app we're using, whatever notification tends to distract us. So that outsourcing of control. And when you're when you're online, the other analogy I'll use is it's a bit like a sweet shop. If you're in a sweet shop, and I like chocolate, so if I'm in a sweet shop, I might eat uh my favourite bar of chocolate. And it's very hard to resist. Will power is one of those things that generally isn't, real power generally isn't enough in these situations. So I have to come out of the sweet shop in order to be able to forget about the chocolate and go and do other things. And the online world is very similar. We have to come away from it in order to regain control of our thoughts and processes. The other thing is when we're online, things tend to be very superficial. We tend to um scan-read. Um, we tend to be easily distracted, our attention spans have reduced. I think Professor Gloria Marp did some um studies over many years. It's reduced from two and a half minutes to 47 seconds for information workers in particular. So we've got used to this, not going deeply into anything. Whereas when we're offline, then we're able to think for ourselves. And some of the deeper thoughts, some of the deeper emotions, they take time to formulate in our minds. When we're talking to someone else and we're really paying attention, in order to understand someone else, we have to almost feel what they're saying, to take on board what they're really saying. How would it feel for us to be able to understand what is being said? So outsourcing our attention online is incredibly easy to do, and willpower isn't enough, but there's a second side to that. We're also outsourcing our knowledge and skills as well. So an easy example is um an old example is a satnav or Google Maps. If you want to go between two places, if you use an old paper map, for example, you tend to have to study the map, study the area, and find your way. But at least you remember how you got there. If you use Google Maps, then it will tell you how to get from A to B. And so you understand how to turn left, how to turn right, how to move forward. But you don't necessarily remember how you got there. So there's a form of the Google effect or digital amnesia where have outsourced our knowledge to something online. And of course, now we've got AI, we're outsourcing some of our thinking as well. So we might um we might need to write an email. And so we can all write emails now today, but then tomorrow we might just do a very poor email and let the AI finish it off for us. And then over time we'll get worse and worse at writing emails. So we're outsourcing our thinking as well in the age of AI. So there's an awful lot of outsourcing going on to our technology.

Presence, Identity, And Life As Content

SPEAKER_01 13:26

Yeah, I love that example of the nicely written email and fully written email. I mean, we all know, in fact, for being also Colin A, but like by the idea of running everything through AI, that like I've almost, I think in my mind, like almost lost my complete confidence. Like, I just want this AI to validate everything that I'm writing and that I'm saying kind of with this over alliance, which is also very toxic in a way. So we must learn to kind of create boundaries um while we're dealing with anything like that. Now, speaking of the boundaries and speaking about identity, first coming on the topic of identity, you said who we are online versus who we are offline, right? Two different aspects to our being, our identity, how we appear to be. Now, how is this merging and why does it matter now more than ever?

SPEAKER_00 14:17

So we live in an online world, and when we apply for a job, the company, we look at our online presence. If we need to talk to the government, we need to do it online. So everything is online. So we create who we are online. We have to manage who we are online, and we self-regulate who we are online because we're we're publishing things. And if you're publishing, which is posting on social media, there are lots of things that you shouldn't say. There are lots of views that you shouldn't publicize if you hold them. So you self-self-censorship and self-regulation. So you create this persona online. Now that's okay if you have an active offline world where you're you're with friends, you're with family, um, you're in sports, uh, clubs, you're doing activities, you've got your own identity. Now the danger today um is that people assume that their online identity is who they are. Now I say assume, the things that they do in the real world are done in order to provide content for the online world. So I I recently went to Italy on holiday, and wherever I went, there were lots of people taking Instagram shots. And there was a wonderful, wonderful one of um a girl who was standing on a wall and she was being pushed off this wall into a lake by a partner. And she was she was going in and out of this lake so many times. I mean, she must be tired out. It's all about creating content. So instead of being somewhere with other people, all of a sudden it's a content thing. You go to a restaurant with your friends and you're taking pictures or videos so that you've got content. So a lot of people get driven by content creation instead of actually having to live their lives as well. And and actually, we're losing the art of being fully present. So in terms of my bad, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

I was just thinking like we've we've really learned that we need to be focused in the moment present right now.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

And it's really hard to be fully present if you're if you're in the digital world, because we're so used to being distracted, so used to multitasking from one thing to another thing, to actually it's a it's a great challenge for all your listeners. The next time you speak to um a friend or a family member, put your phone away and focus on being present with that person. And most people find it very hard because you think something might be happening on my phone, or wow, this is taking a long time. It is a hard thing to be fully present these days. So it's a skill that has to be practiced.

First Principle: Protect Your Sleep

SPEAKER_01 17:15

I mean, for the most part, relate to this column, because there are times where I feel like I'm even though like I'm doing something in the moment, I'm not fully physically present. Like, even though I'm physically present here, but like fully not mentally present, right? So this is something that has bothered me for very, very long. And I have worked really hard. I mean, I'm not saying that I'm perfect by any means, but with every fibre of my being, now I try and focus and be in the moment. So, say we are recording right now, so I'm not thinking about we have two more recordings lined up for today. I'm not thinking about I need to go pick up my son from the daycare at 3 p.m. I'm not thinking about the food that I need to have for dinner tonight. So I think it can be like once you have this that this awareness, I think it can be hard and tricky, but you know, we have to make that change if we're gonna really change. And when you said about the fact that people are driven by contemplation and they almost forget to enjoy the movement, right? And so I have not been that person, so like I've had many friends who were like so driven and inspired by clicking pictures that they forgot to be in the moment, right? Like I would have friends going in for a nice fancy meal at a restaurant, and like they would start eating, and then in the middle of the meal they'd be like, Oh my god, I forgot to click a picture, and I want to put it up on Facebook or on Instagram. And I'm like, Okay, please enjoy your meal. So I for one have not done that. I don't know why I'm sharing this, but I feel like I do take a lot of pride in that. Like, I don't want to just do something for the world, but I want to do more for myself in the sense that I'm present with my son. I'm really enjoying that meal, I'm finding joy in that plate of food or like sipping my coffee instead of posting on Instagram just because you know it's the cool next thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

I think the thing is that because we're all involved in in the new technology world and we're all online, we all have the same struggles. So so there aren't any perfect people. People, the key point is to is the self-awareness. Once you are aware of what you're doing, you're you're then able to decide if you want to make some changes. The thing about making changes in the real world is everything is takes time, everything takes practice. And everything online is quick and instant and instant gratifications. So we have to practice and learn to change our habits. Changing habits takes a long time. But self awareness is the first key step.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

As we say, self awareness is the thing to action. Only when you're aware, you will be able to take steps or move forward in the right direction. Even those can be small, teeny tiny steps. They don't have to be like Big bold steps that overhaul your life. Small teeny tiny steps. So speaking of which, Carlin, as a digital detox coach and well-being expert, tell us about what are the small basic things that people can do in their everyday busy lives to actually actionise this change in their day-to-day.

SPEAKER_00 20:21

So once someone has the self-awareness of the habits that they've picked up over the years of being online and they've decided actually that's not the person they want to be, then the first thing that I tell people is, well, because you're going, because it's going to be hard work and you're going to have to practice and changing habits takes time. Imagine that you're going to run a marathon. And if you're going to run a marathon, and lots of people do, on day one they can't run a marathon. So I try and get this idea that it's not going to be instant. You can't suddenly decide, in fact, most people can't suddenly decide, I'm going to completely change my life and I'm going to be completely in balance with technology, and everything's going to be great, and I can do this in a couple of days or a week. It's a continuous process throughout your life. Because technology is changing all the while, so you've got more challenges coming along. So the first step is to get that realization that things are going to take time. It depends on the individual, what their priorities are, but I always try and start with sleep.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Wow, that's a big one.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

Yeah, because we need to protect our sleep. As biological animals, we need to protect our sleep. In order to perform well, whatever it is we're going to do, we need to protect our sleep. But if we're on our phones just before we go to bed, we have to slow down and wind down from all of that external stimulation. And it takes much longer to get to sleep. I always say first step is protect your sleep. Don't look at your phone or interact with your phone at least one hour before you want to go to sleep to allow the mind to slow down. If you want to do something in that hour, then reading books uh works for me. In fact, it tends to send me to sleep sometimes. So reading physical books is something you can do. And I'd be a bit controversial, you could speak to a partner.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

No, no, that's really therapeutic. No, I I agree with you, Colin, on this one, 100%. Yeah. Speaking to your partner, I mean, unless you both start fighting on a controversial topic, then that's a different road we don't want to go. Yeah, 100% agree with you.

Morning Control And News Hygiene

SPEAKER_00 22:35

And the second half of that is to protect your day. So in part of protecting your sleep is to move your phone away from your bedside. Now, in an ideal world, you'll have an alarm clock instead of your phone. If you need to use your smartphone as an alarm clock, keep it well away from your bed because uh research has shown that the mere presence of a smartphone close to you exerts a cognitive pull. And what that means is you're not consciously aware of it, but you're unconsciously aware of it. And so if your phone is there, you're tempted to pick it up. Um, if you wake up in the night, you might be tempted to not only look at the time, but to look at something else. So you keep it away from the bed. In the morning, now when you've had a good night's sleep, uh, good rest, you've got lots of energy, you think, ah, what is it I'm going to do today? What are all the things I want to do today? You're in control of your day. As soon as you pick up your smartphone, after you've switched the alarm off, if you start scrolling on news and social media, all of a sudden, all of that input, and bearing in mind all news is bad news, um, is starting to affect your day. So it doesn't matter what you thought you were going to do, your mood will be affected by what you have seen. And so you won't be in charge of your day again. So the second half of that is to protect your day, is by all means switch your alarm off in the morning, but don't catch up on social media or news, certainly for the first 30 minutes or half an hour. So you've got a chance of deciding what it is that you really want to do during the day. So that that I will always start with sleep.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

Yeah, I know I also speak about this in a lot of my episodes, Colin, about getting an alarm clock. It's 2025, we should all have an alarm clock. And not wake up to the horrendous sound of our alarm on the phone. I know it can be really terrifying because um I remember when I used to have my phone next to me, like next to me on the bedside table, with that scary sound, I'd be like, okay, am I late for work? Did I miss a meeting? Or my son's not up, you know, yada yada yada. And it triggers like a very anxious response in your nervous system first thing in the morning. And we don't want that. I mean, I wish we all had the liberty and time to be woken up by birds and the beautiful shopping, but that's not possible in life.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

You say that, um, but I I actually got an alarm clock, which is also one of these alarm clocks where the light gradually comes on.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Wow, okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:13

And so my alarm is actually bird song. So yes, you can.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

Now that you've run this up there.

SPEAKER_00 25:18

You can get it. But the thing is, I I started off by moving my this is quite funny, I started off by moving my phone away from the bed first, to the other side of the room. But I actually found I could still get up and have and go and have a look at it. So I ended up charging it uh downstairs. So it was a real journey to uh to go and look at it.

Notepads, Memory, And Performance

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Really, yeah. No, it's really interesting, and I've from the last few months I've actually started to do that because Colin, I realized, right, like if I would say go to the bed at 9 pm, I would be doom scrolling up until 10 pm, 10:30. And and you know, all the stimulus, everything absorbed, you know, without even realizing the absorb and rather what we're reading or what we are watching, right? Now, once we do that, I would find it very difficult to fall asleep, eh? And think. Colin, I've had episodes where say if I have just woken up because I'm thirsty, or say if I need to close the washroom and then coming back, I wouldn't be able to fall back asleep, right? And I was initially trying to, you know, slap and cover it with okay, I might want to go and take my magnesium supplements, maybe that will help me sleep better. But that did nothing for me. So what I've realized, I made a change of not keeping the phone in the room. I keep it outside in the dining room so that I am tempted to go over my Kindle and read. And sometimes five minutes into reading, I almost doze off, or like just cuddle with my son or playing with him and we are finally off, or we have like a star projector and we watch that on a roof and we're off. I realized that keeping the phone away helped me actually.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

Yeah, so what I would also recommend is to keep a notepad uh by your bed because sometimes we remember something. Oh, we mustn't forget that, and that's part of the driver. If we remember something, I must do that on my phone, or I must remember that for work. The simple act of having a notepad and pen by your bed is you can put that sort down as a note, and then all of a sudden you don't have to worry about it, you don't have to be anxious about it. So I I would always recommend a notepad post-your brain as well.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

That's a very important point that you said, and I've seen my dad all his life. In fact, he still continues to do so. He has a notepad and a pen just right next to his pillow, and this is something that I bought from him. So he would essentially brain-dumb every single thought that he has, like realistically, so that you know he's not worried about not doing it tomorrow or forgetting about this thing completely. So once you do the brain dumb, it kind of takes off the pressure off of your mind and you feel more relaxed. And certainly, I think it helps psychologically because you feel like everything is out of your brain. I know I don't know if it makes any sense, but you're like an empty brain sleeping nicely with all the pizza in the world. So But sometimes, Colin, in all honesty, I was doing that, but sometimes life gets so busy that I would forget to keep the notepad and the pen right next to me. So, what I do is if I take the phone on the bed with me, I just brain dump in my notes app or like send WhatsApp messages to my own self and then keep the phone away and sleep. So, whatever really helps you, as long as you're dumping out everything that's in your brain and you try and have peaceful, relaxable sleep. And sometimes I have to admit, Colin, like say tomorrow is a busy day at work, or like it's a challenging presentation, or like a talk that I need to give, or you know, something really uncertain that I'm not very confident doing, say a presentation about a topic I know nothing about, and I was just told a day ago that you have to do this. Now I'm like freaking out. I don't know how I'll do. So there's a lot of uncertainty, uncertainty, and fear and anxiety related to that, and this this I'm asking more for myself than for my listening audience. How do you deal, how do you deal with those situations? And like I'm just still grappling with all that fear and anxiety, and I still can't fall asleep. So, what's your advice here?

Breaks That Lower Stress, Not Screens

SPEAKER_00 29:09

So, what I then uh try and explain to people is that if you consider yourself uh an athlete, like a business athlete, and use the analogy of athletes. Now we all know uh athletes have to get enough sleep, they have rest, they eat the right food, and all the rest, to be able to perform at their best. Now I know it's counterintuitive, but in order for you to do the best presentation that you can do the next day, you have to have a good night's sleep. Just like an athlete who's going to run a race the next day. And it's counterintuitive because you think, oh, well, if I just carry on working, carry on working, then it will get better and better. But it doesn't because we're not going to perform at our best. It's really about having the mindset of an athlete to say, okay, I've done as much training as I can, because athletes can't train all the time. I've studied this topic as much as I can today. Tomorrow's a new day when I'm refreshed. I'll be able to do some more training or preparation the following day. And it's having that confidence in the process. So if you know that you, because we're biological animals, it's very easy to imagine that we're athletes and know how it is we're going to perform at our best. And I like to use memory. I help people with public speaking, particularly if they have to memorize words, plays, speeches. And so I use the analogy of the marathon. I said, okay, day one, you're not going to remember anything. And it's going to be a slow process. But the most important part of the process of consolidating memories is sleep cycles. So if you have to remember something tomorrow and you've only just started learning, oh good luck. But if you've got a month's notice where you have to remember the part of a Shakespearean play or something like that, um, then you stand a chance because you learn it in small batches. When you sleep, your memories are consolidated and they're strengthened. And so when you practice them the following day, um, you're strengthening those memories. And and I I the TEDx talk had to be done from memory. And I did it with my US colleague and friend Anna Smith, and I explained this memory process to her, and I said, look, if you forget anything, because we're mic'd up, um, just turn and smile. And in the in the the TEDx, there's a lovely point, and she was absolutely brilliant. In fact, she was so brilliant, going through her mind was, oh, I'm so I'm doing so well, Colin's gonna be really pleased. And at that moment, there was too much noise in her conscious mind, and she forgot the next line, and she turned and smiled, and I completed the next line, and then she took it up again. And people said, Oh, that was very well rehearsed.

SPEAKER_01 32:13

Yeah, thanks for sharing that. And for someone listening who feels overwhelmed, you talked about keeping a notepad and pen next to you. You also mentioned about the habit of keeping your phone away, at least maybe outside the room or at least far away from you, so you're not tempted to quickly go and pick it up. You also mentioned that we can get an alarm clock. So, for someone who's easily overwhelmed by life and things, what are the other few habits that you'd suggest for them to be able to improve their sleep and therefore their performance and focus? So, what are those active?

Reinstate Boundaries And Fake Commutes

SPEAKER_00 32:45

So the next, my next recommendation would be to include rest and recovery breaks throughout the day. And so, what I mean by that is that you have a period of concentrated work, whatever your work is, but then you have a 10 to 15 minute break. Now, we often have these breaks where we go and get a coffee, we go to a water cooler, we we may go to lunch. So there are these breaks anyway. But what I'm saying with these brakes is that they are offline breaks. So that when you stop working on a particular thing, uh you don't pick up your smartphone. What you actually do is you physically get up, you walk, you grab a coffee, you talk to a friend, you actually use those brakes for rest and recovery. There's some great research by Microsoft and they were looking at back-to-back video calls, and they found that if people were going from one video call to another video call, two things that happened. One is the preparation time for the next call wasn't particularly great, but there was a build-up of stress during the day, and they took that stress home with them. And they found that if you if you had a 10-minute break, 10-15-minute break in between those video calls, that it gave the body a chance to naturally cope with that stress and also prepare for the next video call. So it sort of stopped that cycle of building up of stress and that feeling of being overwhelmed. So planning your day, and then the output of that was that in Microsoft Outlook, you can actually put 10-minute breaks between meetings and video calls and those sorts of things. So when you plan your day, plan your breaks. And that helps cope with that or build up resilience to that feeling of being overwhelmed. And the next recommendation is reinstate boundaries. Now we've all partly due to the way that we work online, partly due to the effects of the pandemic where we all started to work at home. All of the boundaries between all of our different parts of our lives have merged. But we need to reinstate the boundaries. So imagine that your your work has a certain time. So you start at a certain time and you finish at a certain time. Some people even do um as sort of a fake commute to go from their home life in order to go to their work life. Have, you know, at the time when you've you've finished work. Now, from a productivity point of view, that this is really important because although you stop working, you stop thinking consciously about your work. And you're doing other things. Some of the problems that you've been working on during the day will be still being turned over in your unconscious mind. It's happened to me on many occasions, but all of a sudden I'm doing something completely different, and a thought or an idea or a solution to a problem at work just comes into my mind. And you need that change in what you're doing from work to your personal life in order to allow that processing to happen in the background. Some people say the only time that they have, you know, really creative thoughts is when they're in the shower. Because that's the only time they're not online and not looking at their phones. So boundaries is the third recommendation for your listeners.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

And that's very interesting that you've brought up the topic of boundaries, Colin, because uh especially, especially after the global pandemic of 2020, the boundaries between the physical world, world and like the digital world have completely sort of blurred. So now, as you said, like the longest distance that we're traveling is coming out of a bedroom or say our living room into a study or like to you know our place of work in the house. Now, for me, also I've struggled personally with that because I was like, okay, I need to do something for tomorrow, so might as well do it when I'm having my evening tea, even though I'm technically locked out, like I'm signed out of work. That's very important that you say that because creating boundaries is very important, and I feel like boundaries cannot only be created in words, they must be left in action. Not only would you say it, it's what you do it, then no, you do it. Even if that means I think I'm stretching and I won't be able to take it up. It's very, very important because you're protecting yourself. You're all mental people struggle with that because they don't want to uh the people that they want to wait. I don't want I I mean I know they don't want to, you know, sort of demolish their reputation or like come across as someone who's saying loss more than yeses, right?

SPEAKER_00 37:33

Like I can't believe I can't believe that we admire leaders in companies in governments that make you think about getting very little sleep. I mean, some of their decisions must be terrible because they're not working at their best.

Design Environments That Reduce Triggers

SPEAKER_01 37:53

Yes, yes, they are sleep deprived and you know underfunctioning for sure. When you said you couldn't come to believe that, same with me. I like find it really very hard to believe if someone is overglorifying, working 48 hours a day or not scheduling rest and recovery time. Exactly in line to what you said over the few years, I've now started to keep some or schedule some vital space on my calendars, meeting some gaps and spaces, schedule time that I can sit down and have deep focus work down through the day between the meetings and also some time to kind of just disassociate completely, right? So if I'm going in meetings from 8:30 to 9, 9 to 9:30, 930 to 10. So 10 to 1015 or 1013 is my time. Now I want to disassociate. Maybe I can sip tea, or I can just stare at the balcony, or you know, do whatever. But I need something to disassociate in a healing way. I don't mean it badly, but I feel like you need to recollect your thoughts and you know, just get into your optimal zone and be yourself normally and happily so that you can come back to another meeting or another deep session of work fully recharged and most creative. Because I feel like when I was very overpelled and stressed at work, I like my creative juices wouldn't flow. Like I would do things which I'm supposed to do, but I wouldn't be my creative best. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 39:10

Like while I suggest to people and there is a certain masculinity about this, not getting enough sleep, working all hours, and those sort of things. And that's quite toxic. And that's one of the reasons why I've introduced this idea of being a business athlete. Because when you look at athletes, male and female, it's it's the same process. In order to be as good as they are at their sport, they have to look after themselves. Looking after yourself isn't a weakness, it's a strength. And so to get people to think of it as a strength, then I use the analogy of being an athlete. And if anyone says are you having a ten minute break? You could just turn out and say, Yes, I'm a business athlete. That's what we do.

SPEAKER_01 39:58

I think you do. At this time and age, it's very, very important that we draw boundaries and operate with that mindset of okay, this is very important for my well-being, and I'm and I'm going to do that, even though it might upset a handful of people. Making sure that you're saying a yes to yourself and not know a no to yourself is very at least very important for me. I can't speak for anybody else, but for me, and I'm sure like some saying the same thing for you. High five to that level of self-awareness. And thanks for sharing, Colin. Now I know you say about environment speeds and the art. Can you break down how we can design our physical space? I mean both physical and digital space, really, at this point, to support the presence and drive our productivity and energy through the day.

SPEAKER_00 40:44

So an environment trigger um behaviors. I think we we do around about 40, 43% of the things that we do during the day are out of habit, our unconscious habits. We don't have to think about them. And many of those things are triggered by our environment. So I mean we know the simple case where on our smartphones, if there is a notification, you know, a red circle with a number in it, that will trigger a certain behaviour. If we're on our laptops and we've got multiple messages, applications, and various other applications up, each one of those could trigger a behaviour. So that's the environment that we're in. If we want to change that, the easiest thing is to move to a different environment. What I mean by a different environment is an environment which is offline where there are no triggers triggering your behaviour to be online. So everyone should have a space where they can go, which is an offline space, so that they avoid those triggers. Willpower is very, very hard to go through the day on willpower. We get very tired, it takes a lot of resources, it's unlikely to be successful in the long run. If we use environments, so we take physical breaks, 10 to 15 minute breaks, and we physically move to an offline environment to get a cup of coffee or whatever it is we're going to do. If we make sure that there are rooms in our house or apartment that don't have online technology, have books or musical instruments or hobbies, it doesn't really matter. If you create those environments, then you you're actually getting rid of the triggers.

AI Dependence, Creativity, And Agency

SPEAKER_01 42:31

Yeah, it's yeah. Thanks for sharing that because it's so important that we create that physical reality so we're not tempted to go and do things that we shouldn't be doing. So, an example of this that I could think right now when you were speaking was selling breading into my gym care workout clothes when I'm just gonna go and pick my son from the daycare. Because I know once he's out of the daycare and into car, and when we are back home, I don't want to leave the house. My mind keeps telling me, you know what, he was away all day, whole day in the daycare, and I was working. Now I'm so tired. I just make my coffee and just chill on the couch. But it is very important that I go and do my workout. So I just when I go and pick him up, I wear those clothes. So I'm like, then I'm very lazy. If I've worn the clothes, then might as well go and do it. Okay. 15 minutes and then spawn and so forth. So I try and doing things like that. And you, as you were saying, right? Not keeping the TV or the laptop, say in your living space. So living space is like a sanctuary for me, the way we've built in our house, right? So we have a lot of moody light, like moody ambience, some fairy lights that we turn up just to date our brain in the evening that it's time for us to wind down and chill and relax as a family, as opposed to putting TV and loud music. So all of these small teeny tiny steps are important for us to take if we really are serious about making any change. And these have to be small changes, you don't have to really overhaul your life. Because I once tried doing that, like bring changes and every introduce changes in every area of my life, and oh my god, Colin, I'm just so small. Okay, I'm stuck. I was like, yeah, and I'm leaning out of everything now. I'm just you know continue doing the way I was doing things. So, so yeah, thanks for sharing the practical recommendations. And I mean, it's it's exciting to hear to you. I don't know where 50 minutes went by. I mean, I've I've been thoroughly enjoying this conversation, but you know, to wrap this up, um, I just have a few more quick questions given this um you know phase of AI and human identity and and the future of our well-being together. So um as AI grows and continues to grow us by multiple folds, you warned us about a new kind of dependence that we are all seeing today, right? Like Google Maps and starting with the alarm, not even only using phone for calls and messages and WhatsApp, but literally for every single thing, right? Now it's also in a way outsourcing our thinking. As I was earlier saying, right? I need to run everything through AI before I, you know, it makes total sense. And I'm like, okay, we now have AI on this, and I'm good. So given this, right? And I I'm sure I'm not the one bearing the brand of it, I'm sure everybody else is. So how do we implement that? How do we stop this outsourcing thinking? I don't think we should completely give up on it because again, the technology is great for you to give us some ideas and important. Like consuming and doing things in mindfully.

SPEAKER_00 45:27

So the first thing is to protect children from too much online use, and particularly AI.

SPEAKER_01 45:36

Well, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:37

Which allows their brains to grow and develop and acquire the skills that they will need. Then for us adults, we need to decide what are the skills that we that are really important to us. And what are the things that we really need to know ourselves? And we should have things that we want to know ourselves or to be able to do. So humans learn by doing. So we need a load of things that we can do ourselves where we acquire knowledge. Now, why why do I say that? When we've acquired knowledge, that knowledge is in our brains. When we want to be creative, our brain, our conscious part of our brain, looks for weird associations between all the knowledge and experiences that we've ever had and pops into our consciousness these wacky ideas that tend to solve problems or tend to be creative. If we don't have those experiences, if we don't have that knowledge and skills, we won't be able to have as many creative ideas or solve as many problems. The other side of outsourcing too much of our knowledge and becoming a dependency on our AI assistance and our AI tools is that we we lose agency, we lose control. And one of the things that is cited in people that suffer burnout is this feeling that they have no control. So having no control over our environment makes adds lots of stress to our lives and therefore is bad for our well-being. And the other thing is, the technology we have today, in ten years' time, we'll look back and say that was a load of rubbish. So, so we think we were amazing today, but in ten years' time we'll think half the things we've got today are terrible. So humans have to be creative in order to create the better technology in five years' time or ten years' time.

SPEAKER_01 47:40

Yeah, I am glad that you said that. When you were saying this last point, I was thinking to myself, right? Like, and this is like a very personal example. I used to feel tired all the time, and then I had my son, and then I'm working and everything. I'm like, what was I even thinking in my mind? Why was I tired all the time? And now I'm certainly tired, either like um looking after him, running after him, making some food for him, or cleaning the house, so it's like you know, an ongoing mess. So you know how it goes with the toddler. Yes, it's just that we keep evolving and we keep getting better, but also let our own mind become sharper in a way that we don't have complete dependence on AI, right? Like learn to write an email all by yourself, no need to run it through Chat GPT. It is okay if you make a mistake, it's no one's gonna judge your grammar, and if they do, that's fine. It means you are growing and evolving and becoming a better version and having less dependence, if not, you know, entirely cutting it out.

Practical Habits To Start Today

SPEAKER_00 48:36

So the other thing about AI is because the current versions of AI are just incredibly good processing uh tools, they process to the average. So if you allow AI to do lots of your own work, you're actually becoming more average in your output. On the face of it, it may seem, well, that's better than I could have done. But in actual fact, it becomes a very average thing to do. And so if you want as a human to be creative, we're all different. I would write something differently to you. Um, because my my my language and culture is just slightly different to yours. And certainly it's a lot different in America. Um so we all come at these things in a slightly different way, but if we use AI tools for everything, it all becomes a bit average and blank, even though the average may be a slightly higher average than would otherwise have been.

SPEAKER_01 49:30

Yeah, that's a very good example. Yeah. So what is it called? It was an excellent conversation. Uh, thank you for giving us the language, the tools, and the awareness that we desperately need. It's going to be me, very much so, in this overstimulating world. And uh digital detox, um, as you say, isn't about escaping technology, it's about reclaiming ourselves. So to everyone listening today, take one boundary, pick one habit, one intentional pause, schedule some time for rest and recovery, take some release as Colin suggested, and and make it a lifestyle, not just like one solar reset or something that you really do towards the holiday in December. If this episode has loved you, please leave a review, share it with someone who needs it, and check out the show notes for all of Colin's work. Colin, I'm gonna put in all your links, but let let our listeners know where they can find you, how can they work with you. I'll put the link to your talk as well, the TEDx talk.

SPEAKER_00 50:28

So, so um, yeah, please listen to the TEDx talk because it'll be relevant for the next five years or so, um, because it was slightly ahead of its time. Um the funny thing is I have to say, because we all live and work on online, that the best place is the website. Um, but I also have a monthly uh blog which is on Substack, and so that's completely free. And if you sign up to that, each month there'll be different topics, but there'll be lots of digital detox challenges associated with that. So that's really if you want to sort of the collection of all the different challenges and things you can do, then that's probably the best place uh to get them.

Links, Resources, And Closing Challenge

SPEAKER_01 51:14

Okay, yeah. So I'm going to be putting in the link to your Substack blogs, blog posts, and everything, your website, and also definitely we'll be linking in your TEDx talk. Even I'm very excited. Probably once we're done with this call, I'm gonna go and listen to your TEDx. I'm gonna definitely give it a listen. Thanks, Colin, once again. So thanks for your time today, and I can't wait to get back with you again one more time to also talk in a little bit of more detail about maybe say your top ten or top 15 recommendations of really actionable small teeny tiny changes that we can do. So can't wait to have you back on the podcast and for our listening audience. Thank you so much. Until next time, take care of your mind, protect your attention. It is very, very precious and stay grounded in your human self. Thank you for now and bye bye.