How to stay away from your phone
And still use it well
Raw and Real Conversation:
Each time I post something online about staying away from phone, someone says:
“How to handle emergency calls? And at professional level need of WhatsApp?”
So, today, we will talk about practical ways you could stay away from phone.
You could pick one, starting with whichever is most comfortable with you. Or pick more, if you are ready :)
1. Control what you can control:
I take out my sim out of my iPhone every evening after work, and put it back the next morning/afternoon. Yes, every single day. I have a tiny phone with a different number, where only family and landlord can access.
This is something I can control.
Someone mentioned on LinkedIn they hand over the phone to their Mom every night. Which is again wonderful.
Do what you can do. And don’t shy away from being different. It will help so many of us :)
2. Don’t just create a vacuum, fill it.
Most people, when you ask them what would they do without a phone, would have no answer to it. So perhaps, the problem is not with the phone but our lack of awareness of it.
Please sit with yourself and decide what would you do if phone was not an option. And do that.
Some things I do:
Play a sport (Basketball when alone, badminton when there’s company)
Read a book
Go for a walk
Clean your home
Clean your closet
Journal what has been troubling me
Look at my running ideas and start collating them on a piece of paper
I am sure the list is endless. If you think you have some creative ideas to do when not to use the phone, please reply to me. I’ll collate them together (with due credit) for everyone else to see.
3. Notifications should always be off
If you think your boss might text you, turn off all other notifications of all other apps.
Only the app where boss could text should have notifications. And allow notifications only for boss and family.
If you are a solopreneur like me, plan your work in a manner that you allow time to your clients to review your work, instead of playing a ping-pong of last minute review. Or only if there is a looming timeline, it is okay to be available during that time.
Turn off pings of everyone else other than people whom you think might contact you for an emergency. Be ruthless about it. Being available every time is a disastrous recipe for killing your focus.
You won’t allow every random person on the street enter your home, right? Why would you allow every random person on the internet do that to you?
4. Develop a healthy self esteem.
This is critical. Let us dive deep into why are even human beings addicted to their phones?
Because phones give a dopamine hit.
The red circle is that colour for a reason.
We see someone liked our post or someone sent us a message or a new video notification of YouTube of a creator we followed 3,451 days ago—it fulfils our human need of being seen.
“Someone thought of me” is the default setting our brain screams for.
However, in reality, most of those notifications are designed to manipulate you, just to make you hang around on those platforms.
You can’t fight the effort of the smartest minds on the planet, whose sole job is to increase your screen time on their apps.
The alternative?
You cultivate a healthy self esteem.
You put out content to give, to serve; not to be liked.
You want friends—you go hang around in person with your friends.
You want someone to validate what you are thinking, you read books, not go to a creator’s page. We all know we end up doomscrolling otherwise.
The greater the self esteem, the less time an individual spends doomscrolling.
Don’t try to run after the willpower by “trying” to spend less time scrolling. Increase your self-esteem instead. Do it every single day. Your need for validation would dissipate.
5. Few working hours without phone
Even if we think our boss might interrupt us, we all may have at least 1-2 hours every day, or maybe twice a week, where we could keep our phone on silent 100% and do our work with acute focus.
If you start cultivating that resilience and showing up for work, people won’t disturb you all of the time.
6. Plan your weekends meticulously, without phone
This is something I purposefully do, every weekend.
I may not plan it to the T, but I know what to do on Saturday morning, Saturday second half, Saturday evening. And so on for Sunday. NONE of those plans involve bingewatching. Bingewatching numbs our brain, thereby, making us reach out to phone when we are bored.
The vicious cycle continues.
The true meaning of a weekend, a break is to do something constructive. Does not necessarily has to be work, but something that makes you think or know yourself or your friends or family better.
Otherwise, aren’t we just killing our time? And ourselves?
7. Think, really think
How much of the time we spend on our phone is really adding value to our lives. We are looking down as our default lifestyle. In an aircraft. In a train. In our cars. In our homes. At work.
And then we have complains about how everyone else in the world should operate, but isn’t.
This might not be the most pleasant thing we talk about today, but sometimes we really need to look within. So we can finally look up from the palm-long thing in our hands to the peace-loving world we can create. At least for ourselves.
One person at a time is anyway enough.
Because of these habits, you will also do such excellent work that I guarantee no matter how “bad and brutal” your boss is, they would never have an issue with you regulating your online availability.
Reminds me of one of the first assignments of my first jobs:
I was at an audit location, with two of the senior most members of the team. One of them sent me an email, and then looked into my laptop screen to see if I had got it.
But my email was closed, to which she instructed: “How will you know if someone has sent you something?”
I listened to her, and still, never kept my email open at all times.
I would only check it 2x-3x a day back then. But at times I would decide.
You have to learn to make sure you play the game smartly, my friend.
You cannot just lose your focus because my boss might text.
From personal experience, there could be either of two things:
You have an emotionally unregulated boss that loses their temper if you don’t respond immediately. In that case, maybe we need to fix something with a different job. I once worked with a creator for just 2 days, because even in a part-time role, everyone from their team would call 5x-6x a day.
You believe your work is important, because it fills an empty hole inside of you. Whereas maybe the work would go on even if you were off the gird for a few hours here and there. Go back to the point 2 and 4, and maybe sit with yourself to fill that hole. I do that to myself almost every week. Nothing wrong with it :)
I hope this helped you in some way, to understand how to stay away from your phone.
To summarise:
Control what you can control
Don’t just create a vacuum. Fill it.
Notifications to always be off
Develop a healthy self-esteem
At least a few working hours without the phone
Plan your weekends meticulously, without phone
Think, really think
I am sure even if you pick one of these, you will see a miraculous change in your relationship with your phone, where you will spend less time with it, and be happier.
If you have any questions now or after starting, feel free to write to me, by replying to this email :)
2 Raw One Liners:
It is hard to listen to someone if you don't respect them.
Working with positive people changes everything.
3 Real Gratitudes:
Family: Enjoyed a lot with family this time during my trip to hometown last week. Don’t know when I had so much fun back home.
Writing: It is a soul-filling job, if you say :)
The ability to keep quiet: For a moment. So that we could respond in a calmed-out manner the next moment.
Chalo, that was a long one.
All the best my friend, for a lesser screen time, and a happier life :)
Stay raw, stay real
Nishtha
Whenever you are ready, here are some of my ebooks that would help you get at least 1% better in your game of life (you can access them instantly):
The Corporate Life Handbook: The book everyone working a corporate job needs :)
The Career Changing Guide: My bestseller so far :)
How to Deal with Heartbreak: Because, life happens :(
Every Writer Needs to Read this: I wish I had this one, when I was starting out as a writer
This is What You are Looking for (Paperback): Small Life Lessons for a Happier Life
Helpful
"You put out content to give, to serve; not to be liked."
Love this. Need to reinforce this more.