Photo by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash
I completed week 2 of the 30-day phone detox, and I'm feeling terrific!
Week 1 was the “technology triage,” and involved some exercises in self-awareness. I was already pretty aware of the fact that excessive phone use makes me unhappy, but I appreciated the opportunity to really dig into how much I wanted more space in my mind and life. I deleted social media apps and installed a tracking app; I resolved to be more present.
Week 2 was about “changing your habits.” Again, these were all things that I already knew were good ideas (shutting down notifications, setting up no-phone zones). I skipped a couple of them because they weren't relevant. I already decline to look at my phone during dinner, for example. But I was blown away by the power of just moving all your apps off the first screen of the phone. WOW. That was huge. It took me a long time to rearrange everything to my satisfaction but the result is a soothing, EMPTY screen. I did the same thing on my ipad!
Because I didn't do all the steps meticulously, I've left myself some room to go back and get perfectionist, if I want. Right now I'm astonished at the difference it has made to do maybe 75% of the tasks on the list. I'm reading more and wasting less time.
Now, how do I persuade my teenagers to do this also?
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