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For many of us, our smartphones have come to feel like another appendage. We carry them wherever we go, fondle them during meals and conversations, and sleep with them next to our pillows. Wherever one is, so is the other.<\/p>\n
However, unlike our typically unabashed appreciation for our physical limbs (arms and legs ftw!), our feelings about our smartphones tend to be quite a bit more mixed, if not downright negative. We bemoan the ever-present desire to check and toggle their screens and the way they fragment our thoughts, prevent us from doing any deep work, and make it difficult to focus on the friends and loved ones around us. This is likely especially true for those who are old enough to remember a time in which you went about your daily activities \u2014 to class, work, the gym, dinner \u2014 without this constant companion in tow; who are old enough to remember a state that didn\u2019t feel deficient but wonderfully unencumbered and simple. A time when boredom had to be faced nakedly, with only the inner resources of the mind, and a friend\u2019s face was the most engaging thing in the room. A time before the itch.<\/p>\n
There are things you can do to loosen your attachment to this technological appendage, which include deleting or blocking certain apps on your phone, and which we detail here<\/a>. I can say from experience that these methods are extremely effective in reducing your phone\u2019s attraction and thus how often you check it.<\/p>\n But installing apps to block other apps can seem a bit like a hair-of-the-dog kind of cure, and relying on external blockers doesn\u2019t fundamentally change your relationship <\/em>with your phone.<\/p>\n To modify that relationship, it\u2019s helpful to develop some concrete habits \u2014 a set of more embodied behaviors \u2014 that tangibly shift the place of your phone away from the center of your life.<\/p>\n Here are 5 we have field-tested and heartily recommend:<\/p>\n It\u2019s been said that how you start something is how you\u2019ll finish it, and nothing could be truer when it comes to what you do immediately upon rising. If you check your phone first thing in the morning, you are absolutely, positively setting yourself up for a day of distraction.<\/p>\n For many people, their phone\u2019s alarm wakes them up in the morning, and the very first thing they do when they open their eyes is to unlock its screen. You become dependent on the glow of this artificial sunrise — and the way it switches on the drip-drip-drip of dopamine release — to feel aroused and get going. But in giving your brain that hit as its very first reward of the morning, you prime it to look for more of the same throughout the day.<\/p>\n If you want to set yourself up for a day of focus instead of distraction, then try to keep yourself from looking at your phone for at least 15 minutes \u2014 the longer the better \u2014 after you get up. Even better if you kickstart the day with the very opposite of smartphone surfing \u2014 an activity that actually requires concentration — like prayer or meditation.<\/p>\n In keeping this habit, it\u2019s obviously hugely helpful to not keep your phone by your bed, or even in your room, so, as we\u2019ll mention below, don\u2019t go to sleep with it at night. Instead, you\u2019ll need to get yourself a regular \u201cold school\u201d alarm clock. There are plenty that offer noises beyond the annoying beep-beep-beep you may associate with these devices, even some which simulate a sunrise<\/a>, silently waking you with a bright glow of light, but without an attendant urge to immediately check Instagram. <\/p>\n This habit makes a huge difference in how your day goes, so if you implement nothing else from this article, DON\u2019T CHECK YOUR PHONE FIRST THING IN THE MORNING!<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what happens when you take your phone with you on the go: you check it at red lights in the car; you check it while standing in line at the grocery store; you may even check it while you\u2019re driving, even though you know this is horrendously dangerous.<\/p>\n Even if you leave the phone in the car while you do some activity, like, say, going for a run, you\u2019ll check it right before you start and right after you return — bookending that mind-clearing experience, whose effects could have started sooner and lingered longer, with a dive into noise and distraction.<\/p>\n So just leave your phone at home when you\u2019re out and about (or if you\u2019re driving to work where you\u2019ll need your phone, put it in your briefcase in the backseat or in your glove compartment). I know this may sound extreme \u2014 don\u2019t people need to be able to get ahold of you? But as someone who came of age pre-cellphones, people used to be completely, utterly fine without being reachable 24\/7. When\u2019s the last time you really, truly got a message while you were doing an errand or working out that had to really, truly be answered right then and there? Unless you\u2019re in some kind of high-pressure job, it happens very, very infrequently. Instead, you typically check your messages and emails while out . . . and then wait until later to answer them! If you\u2019re honest with yourself, the need you feel to take your phone everywhere isn\u2019t about staying in touch with others, but the itch to remain in contact with the stimuli they send you<\/em>.<\/p>\n Of course, I realize that people use their phones to play music\/podcasts in the car and while working out, so this isn\u2019t a hard-and-fast rule; rather, it\u2019s an encouragement to treat as many of your little trips as possible like pockets of tech detox, where you can recalibrate your itch for your device and better keep it under control. I\u2019d mention though that you might consider using something like Sirius XM in your car as an occasional alternative to phone-generated music, and trying a quiet workout every once in a while; it\u2019s a good opportunity to practice the spiritual discipline of silence<\/a>.<\/p>\n Studies show that even the visible presence of a phone that\u2019s turned off inhibits people\u2019s conversations; subconsciously worried they\u2019ll be interrupted by the device, folks stick to shallower topics. So don\u2019t put your phone on the table during a meal, nor hold it in your hand when talking to other people, even if you don\u2019t actively check it. Keep it tucked away in your pocket or a bag, and be completely present and focused on those around you<\/a>.<\/p>\n In a study<\/a> done on diets and food intake, researchers found that participants ate more candy when it was placed in a clear jar on their desks, but less when candy was stored in a opaque jar, and even less still when the opaque jar was placed six feet away from them. The result makes simple intuitive sense: the more directly something is in your line of sight, and the more easily accessible it is, the more you\u2019ll think about it, and the more you think about it, the greater the temptation becomes, and the greater the temptation becomes, the greater the chance you\u2019ll eventually give in to it (it\u2019s hard to say no over and over again).<\/p>\n As with candy, so with smartphones. Even if your phone is turned off, if it\u2019s sitting in sight on your desk, your brain will be thinking about its desire to check it. Even if you\u2019re not conscious of this desire, it will still be niggling in your mind, continuously colliding with your impulse control, and back and forth the two forces will fight. Eventually your willpower will be worn down<\/a>, and you\u2019ll give up; even if you do manage to hold out for a while, the battle raging between check\/don\u2019t-check will invisibly suck up your mental bandwidth and weaken your focus.<\/p>\n To eliminate the Pavlovian prompts that will induce you to check your phone, keep it completely hidden when you\u2019re working, reading, or watching television \u2014 when it\u2019s out of sight, it\u2019s out of mind. If all you can do at the moment is hide your phone behind your laptop, even that helps. But the farther away it is, the better: if you can put it across the room or on the other side of the house, do it; your mind kind of files it away as \u201cunavailable,\u201d doesn\u2019t want to bother with the energy required to retrieve it, and stops thinking much about it so you can concentrate on other things. I find that when I put my phone in a different part of the house, it even helps to go a step further and put it inside a drawer; that may sound silly, but it seems to prompt the brain to deep-six the idea of checking it even more.<\/p>\n 71% of Americans (that number rises to 90% among 18-29-year-olds) sleep with their phones in or near their beds. You\u2019ve probably heard how bad this habit is for your sleep, what with the emittance of all that blue light and the potential urge to check a notification that arrives in the middle of the night. But it\u2019s also terrible for fostering a dependent relationship with your phone; it is strange to ponder that a glowing screen is the last thing millions of people see before they close their eyes at night. That which we bring into our bedrooms and beds are the things most intimate to us \u2014 do you want your phone to be one of those things? To cuddle up to those cold circuits as a security blanket?<\/p>\n Instead of training your brain to think of your phone as an appendage that even nestles down between your sheets, let your relationship with it end at the threshold of your bedroom door; leave it to charge in the kitchen or living room, and instead take a good paperbound book into bed with you to close out the day.<\/p>\n Then, when you wake up in the morning, your phone won\u2019t be there when you roll over, and you can begin the day without it, naked, but not afraid.<\/p>\n Listen to our podcast with Cal Newport about digital minimalism:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n1. Don\u2019t check your phone first thing in the morning.<\/h3>\n
2. Don\u2019t take your phone in the car\/on errands.<\/h3>\n
3. Leave your phone in your pocket during meals\/conversations.<\/h3>\n
4. Keep your phone hidden away when you\u2019re working\/reading\/watching television.<\/h3>\n
5. Don\u2019t keep your phone by your bed.<\/h3>\n