Reducing my reliance on my phone
In my last blog I wrote about Jumanji and how it’s full of life lessons. This week I’m continuing with my Jumanji love! #nospoilers
Shortly after arriving in the jungle, Professor Shelley Oberon (played by Jack Black in what I think is his BEST ROLE EVER) says: “I feel like ever since I lost my phone… my other senses have kind of heightened.”
As we come to the end of our two-week holiday (sorry Victorian friends), I’m happy to say I feel the same. I’ve made a concerted effort to spend a lot less time on my phone these two weeks, and instead, focus on the world around me. My challenge once I’m home will be to keep up with some of my new habits!
The biggest change has been not having my phone by the bed, as I haven’t needed an alarm clock. Which means I haven’t rolled over in the morning, automatically picked up my phone and started scrolling through Twitter and Instagram for an hour… I’m going to trial no alarm for a while and see what happens. I do still have an ancient clock radio (a birthday present when I was 12!), however the alarm function hasn’t worked in many years. Perhaps it’s time to replace it!
Here are a few ways I’ve been able to reduce my reliance on my phone:
Removing email from my phone so I wouldn’t get sucked into work – and while I did do an hour of work every day, I only used my laptop at specific times.
Turned my phone into greyscale – if you have an iPhone you do this by going to Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Color Filters. Turn the Color Filters toggle switch on, and Grayscale appears as the top option (although I turned the colour back on when taking photos).
Turned my phone into flight mode for much of the day – this way I could still use my camera, but not be interrupted by calls or messages.
I thought about removing Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, but decided to keep them – I haven’t had Facebook on my phone for about 18 months and haven’t missed it at all!
I have a goal of keeping my daily phone use to below 90 minutes a day – let’s see how I go!
How much do you use your phone? Could you also reduce use? What might you notice?