Do you need a digital detox? These 8 steps can help you claim back your time and actually use your smartphone smartly. Your loved ones will thank you!
Technology can be a wonderful thing. It can make your life easier and provide you with all the information you could possibly need within seconds; but sometimes it can take over. Learn how to avoid the negative and amplify the positive aspects of having technology at your fingertips.
- Stop checking my phone in your car
We should not have to say that it’s VERY dangerous (and you should definitely stop doing it), but with this rule you also stop checking it at stoplights, in heavy traffic, or any time you are in my car. You will realize how often you actually check your phone in the car, how unnecessary it is, and how it actually makes things like sitting in traffic more frustrating than they are.
- Stop checking your phone during TV commercials
You may hate commercials as much as everyone else, and sometimes your social media profiles seem like the perfect thing to fill up those two-minute interruptions. But when you pick up your phone during a commercial, think if you actually put it back down when the show comes back on. Chances are you don’t and it captured your attention, drawing it away from what you actually wanted to watch.
- Keep your phone across the room when you’re not using it
You will soon discover that the only thing stronger than the allure of constantly checking your social networks is the allure of not getting up off the couch. The further your phone is from you, the less likely you’ll be to randomly check it.
- Turn off all notifications
If you enable them, you are asking our phones to interrupt everything you do. These interruptions can be very unnecessary. Now, there are no dings when somebody likes a Facebook post or sends an email.
- Stop checking your phone while in line
There’s nothing really wrong with this, but it’s definitely not an intentional use of your phone. By following this rule, you send a message to yourself: you are in control of your attention and not ceding it to your phone.
- Put your phone away after posting on social media
After you do it you’ll be tempted to check and see whether people like and share it over the next hour or two. To counteract this, log off after posting something and don’t check the phone for a while. It’s a conscious effort to avoid getting drawn into it. Likes, shares, or interactions will still be there when you check back.
- Stop repeating the cycle
By the time you finish checking your email addresses, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat accounts, enough time went by that you may want to go back to the beginning of the cycle and check them all again. Obviously, that’s not a great habit.
- Recognize it’s a work in progress
A reason that a full digital detox can be a bad idea it’s because it can be an all-or-nothing scenario , and that’s not how you create a positive, lasting change. Like all things, it’s a work in progress and that’s OK. The point is to head in the right direction and learn along the way.
