“I’ve told five people to do it. They tried it and loved it ... and now they think I’m some kind of zen-guru or something!”

These are the words of Dave, a successful financial advisor here in New York City. When Dave came to me five weeks earlier, he was overwhelmed, overstimulated and was ready for a change.

One of the first things I did was ask him to take out his phone and show it to me. It looked very similar to this:

I asked him how he felt when he looked at this screen.

“Stressed!”

I asked him to make a change. A change that didn’t require him to buy anything, download any apps or do anything overly complicated.

“Dave, I want you to turn off your notifications.”

He looked at me like I was crazy ... but he did it anyway.

That simple action was the start of a new level of productivity, creativity (and even happiness) for Dave...and I believe the same can be true for anyone. This simple adjustment isn’t a magic bullet but it will help you to focus better. It will also allow you to make YOU more of a priority and get more value from your own time. Let me explain why...

Notifications Distract You

If your phone is set to notify you every time you get a new email, someone comments on a Facebook post of yours, you get a Snapchat or any of the limitless possibilities, your focus is being interrupted and your attention is being diverted. As a result, you are going to be less productive, less creative and your work quality is going to suffer.

As Stanford professor Clifford Nass, one of the co-authors of the ground-breaking 2009 study into the effects of multitasking “Cognitive Control in Media Multitaskers,” stated in an interview with NPR:

“The research is almost unanimous, which is very rare in social science, and it says that people who chronically multitask show an enormous range of deficits. They’re basically terrible at all sorts of cognitive tasks, including multitasking.”

Notifications Make You Feel Bad

Think about this ... each time you look down at your phone, you see how many emails you have to return (or even just read), how many social media posts you have to sift through. Does that ever make you feel good?

If you’re like most people, it likely makes you feel overwhelmed (“How am I ever going to keep up with all of this?”). It creates feelings of guilt (“Ugh, I can’t believe I didn’t respond to them yet.”) And even makes you feel like a bit of a failure (“I suck at life and here’s just another reason why!”)

Notifications Can Even Make Us Dumber

Really? Yep.

Professor Glenn Wilson’s research into infomania found that when you are trying to concentrate on a task, and an email is sitting unread in your inbox, that distraction can reduce your effective IQ by 10 points.

Now think about what all of those notifications from your phone are doing to you …

Notifications Tempt You With ‘Random Reinforcements’

That little notification bubble is so tempting ... it’s so much more appealing than working on that big project. You know that one that’s really important to your career but also just so much damn work. There must be something more appealing in your phone’s email inbox or your Twitter app, right? WRONG.

Why do we think this way? Why do we look at our phones as some kind of saviors even though they rarely are?

The answer lies in our conditioning and the concept of random reinforcement. As behavioral economist Dan Ariely explains in 99U’s Manage Your Day-to-Day book:

The psychologist B. F. Skinner came up with the idea of random reinforcement, where you give a rat a lever and every hundred times it presses the lever, it gets a piece of food. For the rat, that is exciting. But if the number is a random number — any number between one and one hundred — it actually ends up being more exciting. And the rat keeps on working much, much more, even if you take the reward away altogether.”

But what does a rat and food have to do with your phone’s notifications?

I think that e-mail and social networks are a great example of random reinforcement. Usually, when we pull the lever to check our e-mail, it’s not that interesting. But, from time to time, it’s exciting. And that excitement, which happens at random intervals, keeps us coming back to check our e-mail all the time.

Here’s How to Make This Change Work For You

This simple switch has struck fear in the heart of every person I have suggested it to. Just like my financial advisor client, Dave, they don’t think that it’s possible for them and usually come up with a bunch of reasons as to why it can’t work for them:

What if I don’t respond to someone immediately?

What if there’s an emergency?

How will I know what’s going on?

It just doesn’t seem right …

Here’s how I get them comfortable with making this change and what I would suggest for you.

Start slow. Try it for ONE day ... and if the world doesn’t crumble around you, try it for one more day. And then one more.

Define what’s really an emergency. It’s important to know this for yourself and really understand it. (Spoiler alert: most things aren’t emergencies.)

Scenario A: Your daughter falls and breaks her arm at school. This is an emergency and the school is going to call/text/send smoke signals to get in touch with you -- you aren’t going to miss this.

Scenario B: Your co-worker emails you wanting to know where to find something for an important client. This isn’t an emergency and can definitely wait.

You’ll realize that about 99.9% of the notifications coming through fall into the Scenario B category.

Rate your mood (with and without notifications). Try one day with everything off and then try a day with all of them back on. How do you feel at the end of each day? Once you get a taste of the liberation that a notification-free, focused life gives you ... you’ll never want to go back.

Ready to try it?

Here’s how to adjust your notifications on your iPhone and here’s how on Android.

Chris Winfield is an entrepreneur and success ​coach in New York City. With the use of simple systems, techniques and the power of true focus, Chris teaches people how to get 40 hours of work done in 16.7 and much more.