Introduction
Context
Like many other Americans, over the course of the pandemic, I’ve seen my use of my phone grow to a concerning level.
According to a report from App Annie (now Data.ai), the average American spent 4.1 hrs a day in 2021. I’ll share what my personal phone usage metrics are in a bit, and before we get into the details of my attempt at remedying this issue, I’m just wondering, how did we get here? (I actually more like, How did I get here?)
Honestly, the way I see it, there’s probably no single answer. I mean, I’ve probably always had some level of unhealthy phone usage – I’ve inherited some pretty bad news addiction from my folks. The news addiction then, of course, went into overdrive as Covid hit and I tried to stay up to date on the situation with that. Then, as the stress from the world literally shutting down became difficult to bear, and I went through major changes in my own personal life, I relied more heavily on my phone for everything from shopping for basic needs, to escaping from the emotional rollercoaster I was on.
But however we got here, however I got here: we’re all mostly spending way more time on our phones than we would really like to. At least that’s true for me.
As the name of this blog suggests productivity is important for me. Using my time effectively to achieve my goals matters a lot to me. Having recently just entered a new decade, I’m all the more aware of the precious, yet fleeting, nature of time. So the thought of the sheer loss of time and opportunity that spending 4 hours on my phone leads to, deeply pains me. But in addition to sheer loss of time, various research studies various studies also point to the adverse effects that excessive phone use (which usually also entails high social media use) can have on mental health, and motivation, hampering our ability to live intentional, fruitful, and fulfilling lives.
For all of these reasons I absolutely necessary for me to find ways to significantly curb my phone use and regain my time, my life.
What am I going to do?
What? – Aim to reduce phone use.
How? – That’s a good question. And the answer to it will likely evolve as this experiment progresses. But the first step for me will be to consider my phone use at home. That is admittedly the place I spend the most time on my phone on. Here’s what I’m going to do:
Keep my phone with my keys at my apartment’s entrance, AND NOT TOUCH IT!!
The idea is that upon entering my apartment, I would set aside my phone at my apartment’s entrance, next to my keys, to some friction to my ability to retrieve it and spend time on it
I know this may seem a bit drastic and in future posts, I’ll go into the workarounds I’ve implemented to make this work practically, like communicating via phone/txt, having an alarm in the morning, etc. – but, as drastic as this may seem (and maybe this actually sounds too soft to some of you, haha), but I feel this may be a necessary action to curb my phone use.
For how long?
How long will I run this experiment? That’s another good question, haha. This leads me to consider another question: what are my ultimate aims with this?
Well, part of my aim with this is to not only just try to not use my phone for some time, see how much more time I reclaim, and explore and solve impediments that lay in my way, but I’m honestly also hoping to actually create a new habit with this.
So how long does it take to create a new habit? As James Clear suggests in this article, contrary to (I guess) popular belief, it doesn’t take 21 days to build a new habit, but rather 2 to 8 months. So I’ll be aiming to run this experiment for about 6 months at least. That said, I will be breaking up the chronicling of my journey in roughly two 2 phases.
In the first phase, I’ll be reporting, weekly, on the first 4 weeks of my experiment, just to have a bit more of a concerted effort around this, and to quickly report on the issues and solutions I find along the way . After the first 4 weeks, I’ll only be doing periodic (maybe monthly) “check-ins” on my phone usage.
Tracking progress: Metrics
“You can’t improve what you don’t measure”
I pretty deeply believe in the idea that “You can’t improve what you don’t measure” (Attributed to Peter Drucker). When trying to change aspects of my life, I’ve found that I’m most motivated to try and make progress (and in fact do make more progress) when I have a tangible way of measuring the thing I’m trying to change.
And the metric I’ll be using for this is my iOS screen data. I’ll be monitoring my iOS screen time daily and logging the data in a google sheet I’ve created, at 11pm every night. Beyond simply seeing how much time I’m spending on my phone, I really hope this data will also help me identify trends and patterns around that phone usage, like which days seem to be the worst, why, etc.
To begin with, Here are my screen time metrics at the time of the publishing of this article (which is when I intend on starting this experiment)
We’ll see how realistic this is, as of the writing of this, my goal will be to reduce my phone use to less than an hour ago
Anticipated Obstacles
As I’ve alluded to above, I know this will not be a walk in the park. My phone holds immense functional value to me. But a big part of my phone usage is also for the entertainment, and honestly the emotional escape it often provides. As I chronicle my journey with this experiment, I’m really looking forward to exploring all the unhealthy patterns and habits I’ve developed around my phone, and thereby strive to reclaim bits of my life from it. Hope you’ll join me on this journey.
