How to use your phone less: It’s not about the time we spend on our phone - it’s about the time we spend off it.

I had a revolutionary thought this week.

I was, as I usually do weekly, checking my Digital Wellbeing metrics and looking at how much I used my phone this week. The number was the same as it often is, and within the bounds of the limits that I set for myself. On the surface, it seemed like I was on track. But something felt off. I felt overscreened. For anyone not part of my world (and therefore not used to auditing their screen use): the sensation of being overscreened shows up differently for different people. For me, it’s a slight disconnect from my body, It’s my thoughts and reactions being a fraction slower, a fraction less clear. It’s the colours in the world being very slightly less bright. It feels like a day when you’ve slept just 30 minutes less than your body needed. Like you’re almost in the room, but not quite.

I sat with the feeling, stretched, did my laundry and waited for my brain to figure out what was wrong. It came to me, as it usually does, as I was going to sleep.

My total screen time hadn’t increased. But the number of times I’d opened my phone had. I’d spent the same amount of time on my phone, but I’d split it up. And that meant my phone time had bled into my day, into those micro-moments that allow our body and brain to rest. I’d been checking my phone as I walked up the stairs, as I got off the train, as I waited for the kettle to boil. I’d been doing what I always tell people not to do - which is be unintentional about phone use. And that meant that even when I wasn’t on my phone, a part of my brain wanted to be. 

Have you ever given up a food?

Either because you discovered an allergy, or cause you were on a health kick? I have. For the first few weeks it’s really hard. Your body physically craves the food. It’s used to it. Then after the first few weeks your body stops craving it, and you only really want it when you see. Let’s take an easy example. Take coffee. After the first few weeks (according to most studies) the caffeine is out of your system. The headaches have stopped. The tiredness is better. Your body learns to live without caffeine (in most cases). But when you pass a coffee shop…ooooh it still hurts. Your brain remembers the feeling of going into the coffee shop, the smell (oh the smell!) and the sensation of an iced latte in your hand. You have the memories of doing the thing, so there’s a part of you that can’t understand why you’re not going ahead and walking into your favourite cafe for a double shot coffee. It’s the possibility that causes the friction, the itch. 

It’s the same with your phone.

Which is why I tell people to - if they possibly can - choose a phone zone. Go on your phone in the living room. Or in your office. Or (if you’re lucky enough to have one) in your home office. Or (if you’re even luckier) in your garden office. Choose a place in your house where you can focus, and do your phone admin there. You’ll find you’ll get through the admin quicker. You’ll do the laundry quicker if you’re not trying to answer an email at the same time. And - and this is the clincher, the really crucial bit - you’ll find that the desire to use your phone in other parts of the house fades. It takes time. It takes practice.

But when you’re used to only going on your phone in one place, the need to go on it all the time in other places lessens. Your brain no longer associates standing waiting for the kettle to boil with scrolling through your phone. You find other options because the phone isn’t there. It just isn’t there. Why? Because here’s the other piece of advice I give people, leave your phone in its zone. Leave it in the garden office. Or the living room, in a special device box. Or - heck - if your office is a nook in your corridor leave it there. Don’t carry it in your pocket. Don’t carry it, like a favourite teddy, from room to room. 

And I know, I know,  it’s easy advice to give, and not so easy to take. I know because I’m still living with my phone, still negotiating the boundaries. Still carrying out my weekly audit. Still finding new ways to navigate this relationship we have with our phones, to be grateful for the things that having a phone gives me, and to be wary of losing myself into my smartphone. I’m still figuring all this out. But that was what I realised this week when I was figuring out why I felt overscreened. 

And so my intention for the coming week is to return to a discipline I’ve used before, to choose one place in the house where I will do my phone admin, and to allow the other spaces to become phone free. 

And if you have an intention for the week around phone use, or have any thoughts or questions - I’d love to hear from you. You can reach me at louisahadaricoaching@gmail.com.