PRETTY SHINY THINGS

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Are you aware of how often you pick up your phone?

One thing that drives us to pick it up all the time is the shiny object syndrome. It’s just so pretty!

Maybe we are enamored with the technology that allows us to (presumably) make our lives "so much better." It's mind-blowing to think that we walk around with a device with computing power several THOUSAND times more than the original space shuttle.

Our smartphone allows us to get directions to a new restaurant or plane tickets to a new city. It helps entrepreneurs manage their workload and entertain their children in the dentist's waiting room. And (I hear) it even transmits your voice to another person's earhole IN REAL TIME.

Simply amazing.

But does that mean we should be picking it up to gaze into it at every free moment? Probably not. Just because we have the power doesn't mean we have to use it every hour of every day.

So, what can you do to reduce the amount of time you spend on your phone?

Acknowledge it.

At some point, I set up my iPhone to tell me how much time I spent with it. How in the world did I average 6 or more hours a day on there? Well, I went to the settings to check my screen time and saw that I was spending so much of my day on social media! Was some of that for work? Sure, maybe 10-15 minutes. But the rest of the time?!

Be Mindful.

A lifetime ago, I was a cigarette smoker (gasp!). In order to eventually quit, I had to notice all of the times my body was moving toward grabbing the pack and lighting up. Smoking had become an established part of my daily routine: get in the car, light up, sit down in a restaurant, smoke while you are waiting for food (I can't even imagine that now), get together to chat with friends...you get the idea.

I started to skip the first automatic smoke of the day, then the next, then the next...until eventually, I didn't see it as part of my daily routine, and later, I saw myself as a non-smoker.

While doom-scrolling before bed can be addictive, the phone itself is not necessarily as toxic as smoking. As addictions go, it's probably more like food. You have to eat to live. And for most of us who have smartphones, it has become a tool for modern life. Consider treating the phone as a tool and not allowing it to turn into a vice--much like the bag of potato chips. Use the handful out of the bag, and then set the bag down. If you hold the whole bag and land in front of the TV (or prop up your smartphone to watch Netflix), you may begin to work your way through the whole bag mindlessly. This is similar to scrolling your Facebook feed so much that Zuckerburg tells you there are no more stories to see!

Make it Ugly.

Those bright colors are really pleasing to the brain. That gives you that nice fuzzy feeling (maybe a scientist would call it a dopamine rush) that makes it easy to come back for more. To make it not so pleasing, you have to make it ugly. One way is to change the coloring to grayscale. It makes your hard it makes your phone so hard to look at! For me, my eyes feel like they’re actually straining to look at it. Try it for a few days and see how often you reach for your phone only to put it back down because it is so uncomfortable to look at. Then, you can determine when using it is "really" a need, and you can consciously change the settings back to color to use it as a tool comfortably.

Get Help.

There are tools to help you better use your tools! For example, you can get an app like Freedom. This helps set you up for focused success. One of the greatest lessons from my yoga practice is to have a gentle, single-pointed focus. When you desire to complete a task, it's nice to have a nudge to keep you in that direction rather than a distraction that turns you away. You can also set up Freedom on your desktop. And maybe it will keep you from opening 100 tabs at once (who, me?).

I'd love to hear how you manage distractions in your life! Later, I will share how developing a single-pointed focus helps me at work and at home.

Have a Peaceful & Powerful day!