Can you put your phone down — and leave it down?
If you said yes – great! How long? For 15 minutes? 20? 30? 45?
The #1 issue that my clients have is the distraction of their smart phone, whether it is actual usage or just the tug at their attention. Our lives and schedules are so tethered to our phones that putting it away can bring distraction, anxiety, and distress.
Here are some solutions that have helped my clients with their smartphone usage:
Keeping the phone out of the bedroom at night.
If the phone is being used as an alarm, get a standalone alarm clock (and keep the phone out of the bedroom).
Avoiding phone usage after 10pm (or at least 1 hr before bed).
Avoiding phone usage before 7:30am
Having someone hide the phone during the day (yes, really!)
If you check the phone during the day, set a timer (for 10-15 minutes)
Additional helpful questions to ask when picking up the phone for non-necessary usage:
Does this bring me joy right now?
Does this align with my priorities today?
Taking a moment to reflect in these moments can be a way to avoid diving into phone use.
Things that clients report as a result of putting away their phones:
Better communication with their partner
Better communication with those around them
Better moment-to-moment time management
Better impulse control/disconnection from the phone (in other words, fewer tugs to use the phone throughout the day)
Yes — there are many apps and programs that you can download, all of which can be very helpful! But when we have agency and use our own self-control we are very likely to make a permanent change.
You are missing 50% of your life.
In Amishi Jha’s powerful new book, Peak Mind, she tells us that we are missing 50% of our lives because we are unable to focus our attention.
Yes, you read that right: 50%.
This is not always related to stress, and not always related to social media. But we are so used to functioning on high alert that we often give only partial attention to what is immediately in front of us. Our attention is a highly valued commodity and the media (social and otherwise) knows exactly how to exploit it.
Cultivate the capacity and skill so you don’t have to fight.
Jha quotes The Art of War, written in the 5th century, which states, “To win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.” In other words, don’t waste your energy trying to get better at fighting the pull on your attention. You cannot win that fight. Instead, cultivate the capacity and skill to position your mind so you don’t have to fight.
So how do we stop fighting our phones?
How do we cultivate our attention?
Jha reports that mindfulness is one of the most powerful tools for maintaining focus and attention. In her book she writes that we can see results when we do this for only 12 minutes a day, but you can start with just a few minutes a day right now. (I’ve started this myself!)
I help my clients get clear on schedules so they can pay better attention, have less anxiety, and have more focus.
There is no silver bullet, but by getting clearer on what we want to focus on, we can put our energy into cultivating positive attention.
If you want to read a short anecdote about my college students’ phone use, read on!
Phone use and my students
In 2006, I asked my community college writing students to read an article called “The End of Solitude,” by Willam Deresiewicz, about the inability of many people to put away phones and simply explore solitude. As an experiment, I asked my 30 students to put away their phones for 1 week and log their experiences: how they felt, what they did to ignore the phone, and what they did as a result. About 75% of the class participated, and the small other group did an alternate experiment, which was to record their phone usage. They reported feeling better, making room for alternate activities, and being shocked by the amount of phone use they noticed in others.
In 2010, I asked my 30 students (different from the earlier students) to read the same article and assigned the same experiment. This time, fewer than half did the experiment, and the rest did the alternate assignment. Those that did the assignment enjoyed it, but the others had too many distractions.
In 2017, I asked my students (only 20 in this particular class) to read the article. Knowing students’ dependence on phones I asked them to put away the phone for just half of one day; I knew a week was far too much to ask. Still, my students balked. How could I ask such a thing? Asking them to put away the phone for half a day was too much to ask, they said. They could maybe – maybe – put away their phone for an hour. About ¼ of them put away the phone for half a day, ¼ did it for 1-2 hours and the others simply monitored their usage for half a day.
Our students and kids are having trouble with their phones, and so are we as adults. It’s time for us to cultivate our focus and attention so we can be present 100% of the time.