How To Come Unglued From Your Phone

We've definitely reached a point where our phones are basically an extension of us. Another limb.

You know that feeling where you're going up the stairs, and you think there's another stair at the top but there's not so you have a miniature heart attack? Yeah, that's the feeling I get when when I don't feel my phone in my pocket and I realize oh yeah I'm talking on my phone.

But as much as I love scrolling for used furniture on offerup that I don't have room for and looking at recipes on Pinterest that I'm never going to make, I'm very aware that I could spend less time with my head buried in the little screen.

And just from looking around when I'm literally anywhere in public, we all could. But since I can't go on a much needed retreat to Luke's Diner in the land of the Gilmore's, these tips and a bit of will-power will have to do.

Face the Truth

How much time do you actually spend on your phone per day?

If you don't already know off the top of your head, I suggest you find out. And dear lord if you love Instagram as much as I do, brace yourself.

You can find out either through Screen Time on your phone or from many other available apps.

It's really interesting to see where your time is actually going, and how much of it. Looking at the hours spent on my phone per week really opened my eyes to where that time could be otherwise spent. What could I get done with another few hours in my week?

Maybe I'd actually get my laundry done.

Set time limits for yourself

Like a child.

Jk. But really, sometimes we need to parent ourselves a little when we don't have our parents around anymore to nag us to go play outside.

Set limits/reminders on your phone to notify you or turn off the app after a certain amount of time. A lot of the time when we are scrolling, we don’t even realized how long we’ve been on our phone. Even if 20 minutes doesn’t seem that long, it kind of is.

You could’ve let some super fit youtuber kick your ass in a workout video. Or you could have gone for a walk and looked at actual nature instead of drooling over someone's hiking feed. You could have put the laundry in and spent the rest of your time watching an episode of The Office by now.

I think I’ve made my case here.

Now, do I press the “ignore limit” button far too often on Instagram? Admittedly yes, but I also feel a little grosser every time I do because I’m forced to actually face the fact that I just spent 30 minutes on instagram instead of working out or working on a blog post or something.

The grossness of it motivates me to use the app way less than I used to.

Progress.

I do, however, usually listen to the facebook notification because usually any excess time spent on there is spent looking at memes or watching a viral video of someone who saved a squirrel. 15 minutes is all I really need to check in to my favorite FB groups and browse marketplace real quick.

By checking where most of your time is spent, you'll figure out your own vices and what to monitor a little closer.

Don't keep your phone on you

Don't freak out. It's not actually an extra limb, okay.

Keep your phone out of reach when you eat dinner.

Plug it in out of reach when you go to sleep at night. Bonus: you’ll have to get out of bed to turn your alarm off in the morning.

Plus looking at the light before bed is super bad for your circadian rhythm. Just sayin.

Leave your phone in another room when you’ve get bigger priorities at hand. Whether that be quality time with your partner or bff, or that big side project you’ve been consistently procrastinating on.

This is a big habit to break, I know. But once you become aware of it and make an effort to keep it out of your pocket, it will help break the other bad habit of picking it up every 10 minutes for no reason.

Do a digital cleanse

Bulk unfollow people that aren’t bringing life, joy, or inspiration to your feed. All those seconds of looking at things you don't care about add up to minutes and hours wasted on stuff you dgaf about.

Bye, babe. Not for me.

Delete all the old files cluttering up your desktop. Or at least organize them and rename them from Untitled47 to something more useful.

Also delete all those apps you haven’t opened in months (or ever). Although you might not be actively wasting time on these things every day, they are clutter, distractions, and unnecessary stimuli.

Streamline your stuff and feel better. When you have all these useless things, your brain is constantly taking in a bunch of useless information - make room for what matters

Unsubscribe

Unsubscribe from like 80% of your subscriptions, or in my case, probably closer to at least 95%.

If you’re already an email minimalist like my husband, I salute you and you're notificationless inbox app. Carry on.

But for the rest of us, we know we haven’t opened an email from Sears in 10 years and we aren’t going to start today. Unless you continuously have a use for those emails (I’m looking at you, sweet, sweet, JoAnn coupons; our relationship is still going strong), break it off. No matter how sweet those "we'll miss you" goodbyes sound, stay strong.

I know this pretty much falls under the last category of a digital cleanse, but I wanted to bring special attention to it because email is a whole other jungle - one with notifications and enticing subject lines to lure us into buying crap we really don’t need.

One minute your working playlist is on, your sleeves are rolled up, and you’re ready to kick your ass right into gear and get going on that special project and the next moment: Ding! You’re 45 minutes in trying to figure out the cheapest thing you add to your order to meet the minimum required a free gift.

I'm actually very ashamed of this, but I became one of those people who’s inbox app had a big red notification number in the thousands. Thats a big hole to dig out of. Don’t be like me.

Unsubscribe to all the things trying to take your money or don’t interest you enough to open on a regular basis.

Turn off notifications

Don't let the fomo get you.

I mean, I just googled it and the average American picks up their phone every 12 minutes (another reason not to keep your phone in reach at all times) which brings our phone time to about 80 times a day.

Yikes.

I have notifications turned off for Instagram and Facebook because those were my biggest time-suckers. For awhile there I even deleted the apps because I needed to break the habit of mindlessly scrolling whenever I was struck with a moment of waiting or boredom.

You already know I love IG, but I don't need to be opening it every time I get a like. And the only reason I downloaded the Facebook app again was so I could use Marketplace.

But even aside from those two apps, I was getting so many useless notifications from apps I didn’t need to be looking at daily.

Think about it: your phone buzzes, you pick it up. Stop your phone from buzzing at you all the damn time, and you’ll stop picking it up so damn much. Bada bing bada boom.

Action steps

In the next 15 min ... take a look at your screen time. Then set time limits on your biggest time-suckers, and turn off notifications you don't need.

In the next week ... set aside some time for a digital cleanse, including your bulk unsubscribe.

Consistently work on ... breaking the habit of keeping your phone on you at all times. Also be vigilant about picking it up for no reason.

How do you keep a healthy relationship with your phone? What do you need to work on?