Phone Fasting

You wake up.

The first thing you do is…check your phone.

For how long? Who knows.

You wanted to get up and do something. At the very least you know you should get up for enough time to get ready for the day. How about getting up to go workout? That chance is probably gone now. It got hijacked and the time vanished in a flash.

Then at the end of the night, you find yourself on your phone again. You maybe even said that you don’t feel like watching TV or playing video games. Yet again, another few hours drain away. What’s sad is that you’d be better off watching TV or playing video games because at least you have to pay attention for longer than 10 minutes.

But you and I are here to talk about the gym, right? Sadly, there are things that sap your energy for the gym. The phone is one of them. Not only does it eat up the actual time, but it takes away your mental energy you need to get ready for the next day or to just think about your training properly.

There’s a lot that goes into going to the gym that’s more than just “go to the gym.” You have to set yourself up. “I’ll go to the gym after work” becomes sitting on the couch “just for a couple of minutes,” which turns into an hour. Then your time is gone and your brain and motivation are fried from short form content.

I was already decent with my phone use.

I turned notifications off. I followed fewer people (I’m looking at you, Instagram). I already turned on app limits (which you know can be ignored easily).

What’s the final boss? Why does it still plague us?

It’s the cookies on the desk problem.

If you got some cookies and put them on your desk, for some mystical reason they vanish at the end of the day. This happens even though you told yourself just to limit it to a couple per day. This happens no matter your levels of willpower or discipline.

Why?

Because they’re right in front of you.

But what if the choice was taken away from you physically? What if there weren’t any cookies in the house or office?

You need a physical barrier.

Out of Sight…

I don’t know about you, but if there’s a treat in my house, my little racoon brain will find it, especially at the end of the day. I don’t know how other people do it. But magically, if it’s not in the house, I’m not about to go out of my way to drive and get something, especially if it’s just for myself.

I have the same “problem” with my old, slow, personal “fun” computer. It’s too “old” (10 years) at this point to play new games, so I don’t play new games (retro games for the win). I also don’t feel like throwing out the wads of money required to play new “better” games.

We know that our phones are addicting and eating up our time, but it’s the proximity that destroys us. It’s all too easy. If the thing wasn’t around or even didn’t exist, we’d be a lot better off, and probably happier too. You’ve probably had a before-phone and after-phone era and know the effects.

Yet at the same time, we need our phones to do things. We need to text people for plans, use them for work, check the weather, etc.

There is a middle ground. I personally have started using Brick and it’s been working for me.

Yet if you want a free solution (even though investing $60 for the rest of your life, $5 per month for one year, to gain back your attention span, productivity and peace of mind is totally worth it) then you’re going to have to move your phone away from you as much as possible.

If it wasn’t around in the morning, you’d get up because you had nothing else to do, aside from sleeping more.

If it wasn’t around for the last few hours before bed, your little monkey mind, even though it’s going to feel pain at first, will stop yearning for it. I’ve heard of people getting a lockbox to put their phones in until a certain time the next day. It doesn’t have to be as extreme, but you get the idea.

Phone Freedom Plan

The solution isn’t to get a cell phone from 1995 or delete every single social media app, only to download them 2 days later. You have to find a middle ground. Yet before the physical barrier trick, there are things you can do to reduce the craving for your phone use.

There are in no particular order.

• As always, plan what you want to do instead of phone use. Maybe you’ve been slacking off on working out and have a screen time of 4-5 hours per day. (Adults actually average 7 hours per day. Goodness.) We’re going to fix that. How about making sure you get ready in the morning? Having more peace at night? Playing games that have piled up in your steam library or reading books collecting dust in your house? Yes, those are better options than scrolling.

• Turn off notifications. For as many apps that make sense, just turn them off. You can use the app when you’re ready instead of the app using you and interrupting every single moment of your life. You think it doesn’t affect you, but it does. Things like texts and phone calls make sense to leave on, but you don’t need social media notifications bothering you. Besides, you can save up the notifications and get to them all at once when you use the app, not spread through the day.

• Follow fewer people. Do an audit of all the people follow and start chopping them out. You probably found a few once and just added them to your list just because you saw one interesting post. Get rid of them if they’re not needed. If you keep them in, you feel like you have to keep up with all of them. Don’t do that to yourself. This will make your social media more boring. Good.

• Use the app on a computer. This will make it where you have a designated area and time to check on social media. If it seems silly, it’s no sillier than carrying it around with you.

• Start phone fasting schedules. Don’t use social media for the first hour of the day, for the last few hours before bed, and during work. Allow yourself windows of time like during lunch or a couple hours after work, and that’s it. This is why I like Brick so much because you can set the scheduled times and you can’t do anything about it unless you get up and tap your phone on the actual device. If you’re out of the house, this is great because you can’t get to it.

• Find better downtime activities. This article isn’t about being productive 24/7. You wouldn’t go to the gym for 5 hours per day, so give your brain a break. BUT you need to find healthier options.

  • Read

  • Watch movies

  • Watch shows

  • Play games

• You may think “Hey, this is still entertainment,” but again, these alternatives actually take focus. Any of these options are 100x better than scrolling through the randomness of your phone.

Free Your Time. Free Your Mind. Free Your Life

People get upset with their screen times. People are annoyed that other people in the gym sit and scroll.

Yes your phone takes up your time in the moment.

But what’s more sinister is what it does to you outside of using it.

You feed your brain randomness and negativity. It’s ruining your attention span and the chance for a positive outlook. You can see people getting in arguments in comments with people they don’t even know and will never meet face to face. We get the news in an instant, causing us stress. You’re keeping up with people you haven’t seen in years or celebrities or influencers you’ll never meet, while ignoring the people around you. You have a hard time sitting still with your own thoughts.

What happened to you?

What happened to the kid that would just stare outside at the sky and think, draw for fun, sing for fun?

Your childlike wonder is being stolen from you.

This is the way to get it back.

If you do this long enough, you’ll have more free time to just think about your own life. Combine with with reading books on a topic in your life you struggle with, and you can come up with a plan.

Go forth and free your mind.

Thanks for reading! As always if you have any questions feel free to respond to this newsletter.