I. Am. Loving. This.
I don't think I actually “need” a phone detox, but I suspect most people will say that if you spring the idea on them. I don't feel that I'm addicted to my phone, but I have to admit that on the occasions where I've forgotten to bring it with me, I've felt panic. And I don't like that sense of emotional attachment to a piece of electronics.
I decided to try out the 30-day phone detox in the book, How to Break Up with Your Phone, which I read and reviewed a couple of weeks ago.
It's been fabulous.
Look at the above photo. A busy woman sits at her desk. She's got her email open on her laptop. She's got a clipboard with an invoice on it, something that either needs to get paid or that needs to be collected. She's got a pen and a envelope, so someone is expecting to hear from her. She's got a calculator and what looks like a sheet of notes ripped out of a notebook. She's got the business pages of the newspaper obscuring a file folder and what looks like a report of some kind.
I look at that desktop and shudder. Ugh. I do not want to be this person.
But what is she doing? She's on her phone. She appears to be paying an invoice with an app.
TOO. MUCH. STUFF.
There is just too much stuff going on, all at once. How is she responding to email and paying a bill and writing a note and reading a note and keeping up with the news and evaluating a report–all at once?
This is not a thing. You can't think more than a single thought at a time. Multitasking is a lie.
I'm not going to list every step that I took from Catherine Price's book, because I really think people should go read it themselves. Don't just think, “Oh, a detox, I need that,” and then stumble through steps you find on the internet. Borrow or buy the book, read the actual brain science, buy into the idea that your phone is stealing your attention. Then do the detox.
In week one, Price has you to through a “technology triage.” The operative thing here for me was noticing how icky it feels to be on my phone for more than a few minutes, and to delete social media apps. I'm not actually a big social media person, but I really appreciated how great it made me feel to get rid of the actual apps! Really, if you need to get onto social media, you can do it from a browser. Deleting the app gives you control.
Once I realized that I don't even LIKE being on my phone (unless I'm actively texting someone), I stopped wanting to even pick it up. I would remember that I'm not actually going to feel good afterwards.
I downloaded a tracker app to see my progress. I would say the results after a week of detox: outstanding.
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