Change in Behaviour
Reducing My Phone Usage, One Year On: Article 4
Introduction
One doesn't simply cut a bad habit. Just like killing off a warlord, if they’re not replaced by someone who cares about the people, all you’re left with is a void, starving to be filled.
How much time do spend staring at your phone? Or are you too afraid to check? It's not just about the time you’re consciously using your phone, but all the time you’re unconsciously thinking about it. The time you spend carrying your phone around like it’s your child (don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me). The time you spend worrying about what you’re missing (from other people’s lives, no less). The time you spend feeling uneasy when your phone’s not right next to you, freaking out you left it in an obscure place, never to be seen again—and the thousand other ‘what-ifs’. These fears are all unwarranted, but your brain is fantastic at convincing you of something, when it wants. When you want. It’s your brain after all, not some stranger’s. I'm not feeding into your delusion, I’m more than happy to snap you out of it, however.
What are you supposed to do with all your ‘extra’ time after ditching your phone? In mild cases, you might get 10 hours of your life back each week, in extreme cases you’ll be reclaiming 40+ hours a week. Realise you could have been working another full-time job, or doubled your hours of your current job. You could have been working on a skill, a passion, a hobby—or lord forbid, spent quality time with your loved ones.
Ask yourself: What’s one thing I’ve always wanted to do, but ‘never had time for’?
In my case, what was initially going to be an experiment turned into a lifestyle redesign. I began consciously filling the void left behind by mindless scrolling with meaningful activities. A bit of everything. I didn’t think to myself, “I’m gonna to replace this time with x (not the social media platform..),” I became conscious of my addiction (let’s not kid ourselves, that’s what it is). l realised I want more from life, stopped allowing my excuses to rule, and started doing things I wanted, rather than watching others.
One of the most insidious side-effects of phone addiction is the misguided belief we’re ‘present’ while glued to our phone. Even having our phone nearby can slash immediate attention by 8-10 %, and preschool kids who watch more than two hours of screens daily show 7.7× the odds of ADHD-like symptoms. Our phones keep us in a constant state of, not all the way disengaged, yet not quite present and engaged. We’re in a persistent attentional limbo. We’ve got ourselves convinced we’re these multitasking machines. We’re not.
How long till your brain bounces back?
45 min: vigilance starts to rebound
24 h: you notice phantom-phone reaches
14 days: sustained-attention scores look ~10 yrs younger
30 days: dopamine pathways largely reset
A few years ago I had every excuse under the sun to use my phone. l just want to quickly note this down; oh I remembered about a problem I was having with a server and I might have a solution, let me test it; someone messaged me, I should reply before I forget; gonna check the status of (any of a hundred different things). It was endless. The mental exhaustion was becoming insurmountable. At the time I didn’t recognise the main cause, looking back it makes perfect sense. My brain wanted so much to have peace, to have time and space to breathe and focus. I wasn’t letting it, I was sabotaging myself and my phone was an accomplice.
Improve Yo’self: Where did all the Time Go?
I’ve been doing the whole, “self-improvement” thing for some years now. It’s one of those things you chip away at, not seeing much change (consciously) and then bam, all of a sudden you have an epiphany about how much has changed. The frog boiling in water and all that. We’re sitting in it, we are it. You’ll get reminders here and there, a friend who hasn’t seen you in a while, “you’re looking fit,” or you’ll realise conversations are just ‘easier’, or those butterflies who used to crowd your stomach in many situations have migrated south, for good.
I dusted off some books and made my way through them. What I read wasn’t cliche self-help books, and not all was for my benefit alone. What I’m realising, even as I write this, is generic self-help and motivational books / videos, anything are next-to-useless. They’ll give you enough dopamine, motivation and excitement to buy their course, their book, their body-doubling motivational cockatoo. That’s it. What they give you for free is a taste of the dopamine and temporary motivation you’ll get when you fork out hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. The madness of it all is you’re paying for the privilege of further diminishing dopamine levels. Once your hormones are back at ‘normal’ levels, you’ll be right back at square one, looking for your next ‘hit’. Yes, I’m gonna keep beating that drum. These are addict behaviours. Once you admit it to yourself and come to terms with it, the real work can begin—unabated.
Now that I’ve broken my soapbox, here’s exactly what I’ve done over the years (if you’re looking for a quick-fix, see the paragraph above):
diagnosed with ADHD
got myself out of a shitty situation
started understanding myself better (with intent—this takes time, patience, and is neverending)
embodied (I’m not overly religious or ‘spiritual’, but thinking this way daily helped me let go of so much that wasn’t mine)：
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
And wisdom to know the difference.
recognised and accepted my areas of struggle
read books that helped leverage my strengths (if you don't know what these are, start at point three)
If you want a detailed breakdown let me know—the point is it’s your journey; generic motivational tripe will provide short-term, artificial dopamine boosts. Break out of the loop. Be honest with yourself and willing to act on what you discover—if you’re not then you won’t, and being stuck where you are becomes a choice, your goal. It’s that simple.
It’s Productivity, Dear Watson
I won’t delude you into thinking I’m nothing but a productivity powerhouse now. Lying to you for clicks, likes and a short hormone spike ain’t my style. One of the biggest mistakes you can make when deciding to ‘be better’ is thinking you’re gonna see dramatic change in a short amount of time. Why though? For one, realise your dopamine generation is shot to hell because of your phone addiction. This means you’re trying to climb Mount Everest with no sherpa, no oxygen and bugger-all food. Be conscious of this! Secondly, we’re human (something many of us forget, or ignore). Your mind and body aren’t manufactured to operate within a tolerance of a thousandth of a millimeter. They’re squishy, malleable, plyable, growable. That’s great, because it’s what we want. If we were as rigid as titanium or steel we’d be stuck with the hand we were dealt at manufacture. Remember that.
I’ve been sitting and writing for the past 2 and a half hours on this article, it’s been productive too. what should you take away from this?
stay in your own lane—it’s taken a lot of work and failure for me to get to this point; focus on where you’re at—it’s about you, not me (I don’t know how I stack up against others, and I don’t care)
I have many ‘off’ days and you will too; accept it, embrace it
The Replacements
If you try and replace every minute of your phone usage 1:1, you’re setting yourself up for failure. Deep down maybe that’s what you want. However, once your phone addiction subsides, a new world opens up to you. Over this past year I’ve tried many things and some of them even stuck.
I tried a bunch of different ‘routines’ and ways of working. Simplicity won out over structure. Discovered my weakness for endless planning and ‘tweaking’ to avoid the boring stuff.
I ditched video courses and podcasts for books (full disclosure: on my e-ink tablet but never on my phone). Shorter books won out over longer, complex books. This could be explained by my ADHD—it could also be due to the effects of prolonged phone addiction (with a large serving of short-form content). I read about copywriting, sales, systems thinking, techniques on writing notes, ideas. I aimed to read one book a month. I failed—I failed to even track it. Sometimes keeping track of things takes up more cognitive load than it’s worth. I still finished a number of books.
While reading I kept an A6 notebook and wrote down ideas and thoughts as I went (one idea per page). This really helped the information stick (and is backed by research {add relevant research}). I have an article on the method here.
I experimented with taking voice notes instead of writing them as described above. l applied the same logic—one idea per voice note, limiting them to 1-minute to mimic an ‘A6-sized page’ worth. Voice notes are not as effective as handwritten notes, especially for later recall.
l successfully replaced passive consumption with active learning and doing. Mostly.
The Irreplaceable
A number of years ago I could have been classified as, physically present but mentally checked out. Trying to do it all. Juggling thirty plates made of pancakes dripping with syrup. For context, I can’t juggle more than two balls. I was trying to juggle at least four different worlds, each with their own unique needs: my work world, my kids’ world, an unappreciative and controlling wife, and my own world, which was filled with complexities all on its own. I made myself a promise that I wouldn’t let my phone interfere with time with my kids. I kept that promise, though there was a brief period where I didn’t. I would make excuses as we all do, like using my phone to look up activities we can do together, which led to tangents or an endless planning or researching scenario. In this past year I made much more of a conscious effort to spend quality time with my kids. All of these efforts stacked up, and our bond has strengthened a lot. Seeing their confidence and abilities grow has been fantastic.
Doing More With Less (Distractions)
I always wanted to write more, at the same time I didn’t want to be a slave to my phone. My compromise was to invest in an e-ink tablet. This is what my article writing (sometimes) looks like now (my first draft is usually all handwritten then transformed into text):
I write more across the board now: journalling, ideas (books, tech/gadgets, many), outlines, plans, as well as public-facing writing you’re reading right now (thanks for reading!)! As time goes on I’m getting much better at not just writing but being more effective in my writing. Writing also improves my ability to think through ideas and problems.
What I learned: being distracted ≠ busy ≠ productive/effective - learn to slow down, do less, enjoy and appreciate what you have.
What else did I get up to? Played the piano more—a few times I would just sit for 30 - 40 minutes with my MIDI keyboard and record some nonsense. I practiced singing—no, I’m not available for your kid’s birthday party, thanks for thinking of me though. Maybe for their 21st. Cooked more, though this regressed, sometimes it’s too time-intensive. De-cluttering went from, “oh god I don’t have time to deal with all this,” to, “hey, this is calming and therapeutic.”
The most interesting thing I replaced my phone time with was—nothing. Yep. Nothing. Also known as bugger all, zilch, nada, zip, ingenting, null and a bunch more. When I say you should do more with less, well, there’s not much less than nothing. If you’re young, the idea of doing nothing will be a foreign concept. When I was a kid it was something I did a lot. Laying, sitting just staring at...nothing in particular, usually a wall, zoning out. If I was proper zoned out, time would fly. I’ve since reunited myself with this past-time. At first it was difficult, uncomfortable. All I could think about was my damn phone. Worrying, fretting. About what? Unimportant stuff, that’s what. There were times I felt myself reaching for my phone before I was conscious of it. In the beginning I forced myself to do something whenever I thought about grabbing my phone. Push-ups, sit-ups, getting a glass of water, a cup of tea, to break the cycle. I still do—idle hands are the devil’s playthings after all. But now I’ve grown accustom to the feeling. The anxiety of, “I have to be doing something” is all but gone. I no longer feel guilty about it. You shouldn't either. If you’re a knowledge worker, this goes double. Sleep isn’t the only rest we need.
Enjoy your ‘unplugged reflection time’.
You’ll start to notice things again. How the sun feels—birds! Did you know birds are a thing? They sing all kinds of songs. The sounds of the gravel and grass as you walk. You’ll notice quiet, you’ll appreciate it. You’ll appreciate noise as well.
You’ll miss hundreds and then thousands of notifications and it’ll be glorious.
Most of all you’ll notice the absence of unnecessary stress. It’ll float away, not in five minutes, not in a day, but it’ll come.
Over the years, the last year in particular, I’ve swapped out many virtual activities with real-life ones. Whether with people, projects, or even cleaning up, everything feels more grounded and purposeful than the transient dopamine hits my phone used to provide. I know my last article was the physical one but I can't help but drill home the benefits of doing stuff over being stationary, glued to your phone (or any screen for that matter).
My sleep and stress levels are objectively better.
Do you want to sleep better and stress less? It’s in your power.