Our phones are a comfort blanket we hide under
I won’t lie, I was pretty happy with this analogy. I think it describes our relationship with our phones accurately.
We as humans naturally gravitate towards comfort, and our phone is comfort.
All the people we know, all the interests we have, all in one spot.
So we go towards that comfort, even if we have no real need of doing so.
TV ads come on? You grab your phone.
Waiting in line for a coffee? You grab your phone.
Run out of conversation? You grab your phone.
We all do these things! It’s sad but we do. It’s just the reality of our addiction (yes I will use that word even if it comes across as strong).
I battle with reducing my phone time like many of us, but have no fear, I have had some success.
Here are 3 ways I have reduced my phone time:
Out of sight, out of mind
If you don’t see it, you don’t think about it. It’s really that simple.
If you’re phone isn’t there it’s not a quick after thought once you complete a task and once you come back to your desk. Hide that thing, put it in another room, do whatever you have to to remove that little sucker from your vision.
I put mine in a small draw in my desk at home. It’s still within reach (which I should probably change) but I know I have stopped reaching for it as much since tucking it away. At work I simply face the phone down on my desk which funnily enough, isn’t as effective.
Do Not Disturb
Ah the Do Not Disturb mode on Apple devices — what a beautiful feature you are. I started putting my phone on Do Not Disturb during work hours only, but guess what? I never switched it off.
My phone is in Do Not Disturb mode 100% of the time now.
But Darren, don’t you miss important notifications? Well I asked myself, what is really that important that I need to feel a vibration in my pocket instantly and bring my attention towards it?
NBA scores — agreed.
Phone calls — also agreed, so they are the only thing that my phone still vibrates for and lights up for.
The rest — not important.
Ok fine, my work comms are all active on my computer and when I step out I do check my phone quite often. And yes if there’s something important happening that is the 1% where I turn off Do Not Disturb.
But try this, it’s super effective for me.
Intentional scrolling
Scroll social media intentionally. Yes, picking up your phone is one of my hacks to not pick up my phone as much.
This actually makes sense to me. By me identifying that I want to scroll social media and intentionally doing so at a certain time, this gets rid of any further itches for the next few hours that I may have to randomly pick up my phone again and do the same.
To me if you intend to doom scroll, it’s actually ok. The issue is when it isn’t intended and it just completely zaps all energy and positive spirits from you afterwards.
Take a break, check your phone for 5 minutes and lock back in.
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To finish, I 100% still struggle with my phone addiction (I’m saying we all have this). So if you have any ways you reduce your phone time please do share. The weirder the better.
Case in point, I read today that someone puts an elastic band over their phone to make it harder for them to scroll, so therefore they scroll less. Genius I guess.