Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 263 | How to Guard Against Frequent Phone Use In This Season

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Ep. 263 | How to Guard Against Frequent Phone Use In This Season · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  I call it like my phone has to be leashed at night and in the morning. What I mean by that is like it has to be plugged in in a in a cabinet.
• 0:10
  What's up, guys? Welcome to another 5-Minute Fatherhood. So one of the things that we've heard from a lot of you guys about during this season is that because of all the news cycles and all the emotions people are feeling, a lot of people are just spending a lot more time on their phone looking at news sites, looking at social media, checking in on things. And what can subtly happen while you're doing that maybe for really good reasons, and this happens to me all the time,
• 0:33
  you know, I'll be working and just needing to spend a lot of time on my phone. But after a good three or four days of that, I'm my like, almost my body chemistry has been altered to like be totally phone oriented. And I have to figure out how do I break this, this sort of new level of addiction over the phone. So I wanted Jeff, you've wrote a whole book about this stuff and you've thought about this a lot. So what are your, what are your thoughts about how to help, especially during this season? Yeah.
• 0:59
  Yeah, it's hard. And I think too, you'll have up and down seasons. And the biggest tip I could give too is that it's less about being perfect and more about getting back to ideal as fast as possible. Does that make sense? I think a lot of times we shoot for perfect with something like this. And then just the minute we're on our phone more or whatever, we kind of either feel shame or guilt or just like, ah, whatever. And I'm back on it again. I've noticed it's really not about that. It's just the quicker that I can stop the loop, you know, and just go back to the ideal, the quicker that then actually those...
• 1:27
  sections last longer and then those compound over a period of time. So I think that's the first tip because I'm even noticing it in the quarantine stuff. Like I feel like I was in a good spot, the quarantine stuff then kind of totally just jostled me out. I'm on more, we're doing something. I'm like, ah, it's just, you start feeling a certain way, like you said. So you have to kind of get quickly back to like a set level of boundaries and practices and, you know,
• 1:45
  And you get to make those up. But I think practice those at least try like week long experiments. And then at the end of the week, debrief whether or not you thought that was helpful or successful. Right. So we have a bunch that now are pretty much set in stone. Like, you know, like I call it like my phone has to be leashed at night and in the morning. What I mean by that is like it has to be plugged in in a in a cabinet. Like it's just it's connected. It's not in my pocket. It's not near me. It's not on a side thing. It doesn't come in our bedroom.
• 2:09
  So I think like having a place for your phone to like put your phone to bed and wake your phone up at a certain time is a really helpful practice. And I do that and I and do that outside of the bedroom. So whether it's the kitchen or the office, mine literally goes in a cabinet door. So there's so many layers of friction of like I have to go in my cabinet. I'm going to go in my office, go in the cabinet, turn the phone on. You know, that's it's so much more friction than like rolling over and grabbing it. So you turn it off as well.
• 2:33
  Yes. And turn it off. Cause that's just enough friction where I noticed if I don't turn it off, I go, I, you know what I mean? Like if I can check the notifications, but turning on, it's like the, whatever that is, 20 seconds that takes is a very large, larger barrier than you think. So turning it off and on, um, at night and then the morning is probably the biggest helpful practice you could do.
• 2:50
  to just create enough friction. Another one is I turn mine off one day a week, uh, on Sabbath. Some people like I totally get, if you've got emergencies, whatever, you can't do that. Um, because Alyssa has hers on and she's not as connected as I am that like, as I know someone needs something, they'll just call her. Um, what are some other ones? I do think having like, um, one moment in the day that it's off. So whether it's, you tell yourself at lunch, whether it's a mealtime or whatever, just, but having like a sacred time where like you can't be reached for an hour, I think is really helpful. Um,
• 3:18
  Um, and so I would say that, um, oh man, I can go on and on, but I think just having writing, writing these down in your notes section and then kind of trying for a week and then debriefing it and then solidifying the ones that worked and kind of redoing the ones that didn't, I think is a really helpful practice. But I don't know anything else you would add.
• 3:34
  No, that's really, really good. And guys, if you haven't had a chance to check out Jeff's book, To Hell With the Hustle, there's so many important things like this, especially now in this season where people, if you find yourself with a lot of time and you're trying to steward a lot of time, you need to reset a lot of things that you've done in your life that might have just sort of gotten you into a frenzied pace and you're like, I don't know how to do with the silence, the time, the space.
• 3:58
  Yeah, I highly recommend checking out Jeff's book. So you can get that on Amazon or wherever books are. Anywhere. Yeah. Check it out on Audible. Yeah, it's great.