Speaker 1: And then halfa looked at me and said to me, mummy,
Speaker 1: can you put your phone down? And hearing that from
Speaker 1: probably a six year old, if that doesn't wake you up,
Speaker 1: nothing will. And that was the day I decided I
Speaker 1: needed some rules because this is just not on. Hello guys,
Speaker 1: and welcome back to Stepping Up. I hope you are
Speaker 1: having an amazing day or night or whatever tom of
Speaker 1: day is that you're listening.
Speaker 2: I feel like with this episode.
Speaker 1: I look when I click on episodes or YouTube videos
Speaker 1: or anything to do with like phone and technology, I
Speaker 1: always feel a little bit judged, like low key feel
Speaker 1: a bit judged because I have no self control when
Speaker 1: it comes to technology because it's dopamine and it's nice
Speaker 1: and I love to have a good scroll. So before
Speaker 1: we get into it, and obviously you can see by
Speaker 1: the title of this episode, it's like the rules that
Speaker 1: I live by with my phone because it honestly was
Speaker 1: ruining my life, my attention span, so many other things,
Speaker 1: even my mental health. So before we get into it,
Speaker 1: I want you to know this is a judge free zone.
Speaker 1: We listen, we don't judge here. And I made these
Speaker 1: rules because I love scrolling till it's two o'clock in
Speaker 1: the morning. Future me hates it, but I'm this person,
Speaker 1: so this is not me preaching or whatever. Like you
Speaker 1: if some things that you love from this episode, you implement,
Speaker 1: go for it. But this is just there's no judgment here. Okay,
Speaker 1: there's no judgment. But I'm so excited to be back
Speaker 1: in your ears today because oh there's just so much
Speaker 1: been going on in my life as well. Like before
Speaker 1: I get into this episode, but you know, Harper recently
Speaker 1: turned ten, which is insane because she's ten and I
Speaker 1: should still be twenty five but I'm not. But anyway,
Speaker 1: and it just goes so fast, and I know it
Speaker 1: sounds like so cliche, but it's hard to see them,
Speaker 1: you know, as I get older and how fast.
Speaker 2: The time goes.
Speaker 1: And then you tend to feel a lot of guilt
Speaker 1: because like for me, you know, obviously, like all of us,
Speaker 1: life's going so fast and before we know it, it's
Speaker 1: another year has gone. And you know, I had myself,
Speaker 1: I was questioning, like I was watching her just she's
Speaker 1: so clever and.
Speaker 2: I just love her obviously, I love it so much.
Speaker 1: She goes all right, you know, but it made me think,
Speaker 1: like have I been present enough? Have I been present
Speaker 1: enough as a mother in my own life? And again
Speaker 1: this does tie with the phone, because a lot of
Speaker 1: our time does go to that. But you know, I
Speaker 1: planned this really cool sleepover before. It was like a
Speaker 1: little pampa party. There's tps like you know, those cool
Speaker 1: pinterest looking things. So with our girls, we don't really
Speaker 1: like we don't really let them have like a big
Speaker 1: party every year.
Speaker 2: Every year.
Speaker 1: It's like they will have it for certain things. So
Speaker 1: when they turn five, they had a bit of a
Speaker 1: bigger one and then yes, so it was like double
Speaker 1: digits is a big deal. Guys, like it's double digits,
Speaker 1: so she needs to have it. She had to have
Speaker 1: a bit of a soiree, so that's why we let
Speaker 1: her have that. Otherwise it could be just like a
Speaker 1: park date. Although I'll have friends come over. But we
Speaker 1: don't tend to do yet big birthday parties every year,
Speaker 1: that's just what we do. But for this I wanted
Speaker 1: to do a little bit special, so we had the
Speaker 1: little pampa party. They all got little eye masks. It
Speaker 1: was really really nice and of course she asked me
Speaker 1: if she could have a phone, to which I also
Speaker 1: said no.
Speaker 2: So my girls.
Speaker 1: I'm people a bit surprised by this, but I'm really
Speaker 1: strict with the girls in tech.
Speaker 2: And it's not because I judge other people.
Speaker 1: Like you know, if your kid watches YouTube and all
Speaker 1: the things every day, like that's awesome, Like you whatever
Speaker 1: works for you and your kid, you do that. But
Speaker 1: my girls, it's like the ipaddle like whatever, it turns
Speaker 1: it to crack, like they just they can't get off
Speaker 1: of it and it just changes their personality.
Speaker 2: Love them dearly, but I just couldn't deal with it.
Speaker 1: And I also like for me being I've been on
Speaker 1: social media for like over ten years now, and I
Speaker 1: know how much it really affects my mental health. So
Speaker 1: I'm like, it's the longer I can protect my kids
Speaker 1: from that. And just like you know, like the things
Speaker 1: that can be put on kids YouTube and stuff like,
Speaker 1: it doesn't always it's not always kid friendly. And I
Speaker 1: really believe that, you know, looking at the kids now
Speaker 1: these days, they didn't go through the awkward phase that
Speaker 1: we did. Like we we didn't have TikTok tutorials to
Speaker 1: show us how to do makeup, like we wore mabeling
Speaker 1: moose and I had no eyebrows. I don't know how
Speaker 1: they came back, Like thank goodness for the eyebrow gods
Speaker 1: that they grew back, but you know, they need to
Speaker 1: do their time of looking awkward as well.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's fair.
Speaker 1: And I do believe like kids are acting older, like
Speaker 1: you know, you know, even kids younger than harp are
Speaker 1: like they want to wear skincare and stuff, which is cute,
Speaker 1: like yes, but it's like it just makes me a
Speaker 1: bit sad because I feel like for us growing up,
Speaker 1: you know, on TV, there was a certain channel like
Speaker 1: ABC where you know you tune in and heavy cartoons
Speaker 1: and that was like the kid time and then we'll.
Speaker 2: Go back to the adult shows.
Speaker 1: And as I say, there was like remember like the
Speaker 1: k Zone magazine and there's like kids magazine, and then
Speaker 1: there was like Dolly Doctor that really saved us a
Speaker 1: little bit as teenagers, and everything kind of was in
Speaker 1: their age group. But now because there's like YouTube and
Speaker 1: social media, there's no like everything's mixed together, so our
Speaker 1: kids are not like learning things that are knowing about
Speaker 1: things that maybe they shouldn't at their age, and that's
Speaker 1: what kind of worries me.
Speaker 2: Anyway, Sorry, I digress.
Speaker 1: So Harpa wanted a phone, said no again for the
Speaker 1: million of time, which is literally brings me on to
Speaker 1: today's episode.
Speaker 2: Sometime.
Speaker 1: I want to try and make this episode. I know
Speaker 1: I can talk a lot, so some of my episodes
Speaker 1: are about forty minutes, so let me know if you
Speaker 1: guys are happy with the length of it. I kind
Speaker 1: of just talk until I'm like, Okay, that's enough stuff.
Speaker 1: You need to put the mic away. So I want
Speaker 1: to try and make today's one a little bit snappier,
Speaker 1: but also it probably won't be. Let's be honest here,
Speaker 1: So today I want to talk about my phone and
Speaker 1: the weird little rules I have that really has helped
Speaker 1: me with it. Because you know, I am going to
Speaker 1: hit you with some numbers first up, which are going
Speaker 1: to be a little bit confronting because it was for
Speaker 1: me as well. But I think this is going to
Speaker 1: help you maybe want to change a couple of things
Speaker 1: if you want to, Can you tell them my people
Speaker 1: please are please don't hate me.
Speaker 2: So the average.
Speaker 1: Person picks up their phone ninety six times a day,
Speaker 1: and I'm pretty sure mind for Instagram was more than that.
Speaker 1: Just saying that's once every ten minutes, you're awake. And
Speaker 1: we spend roughly four hour and a half hours on
Speaker 1: our phones a day, and that is over a year,
Speaker 1: that's sixty seven full day staring at a screen. And
Speaker 1: I can tell you right now my screen time it
Speaker 1: was double that, and it's still very high. So when
Speaker 1: you think about that in years, I've actually done this
Speaker 1: on an old episode. I actually calculated that I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure it took up like nearly half my life.
Speaker 2: It was terrifying, if not more.
Speaker 1: So, even if you want to like really scare yourself,
Speaker 1: go on your screen time and calculate if you keep
Speaker 1: continuing that over a year, how many days that is,
Speaker 1: and then over a lifetime.
Speaker 2: That's a little wake up call for us.
Speaker 1: And so there was a study from the University of
Speaker 1: Texas that found that having your phone on a desk,
Speaker 1: even face down and even turned off, reduces your cognitive capacity,
Speaker 1: which is your brain spending energy not looking at it.
Speaker 1: So it's like your phone just being in the vicinity
Speaker 1: is draining your brain just by being there because you're
Speaker 1: trying to actively not pick it up.
Speaker 2: Like I can't tell you how many times, I don't know.
Speaker 1: If this has probably happened to you guys, got my
Speaker 1: phone's diet, and I will forget it's died, and I'll
Speaker 1: try and look at it constantly, and I'm like, call
Speaker 1: it crap. I just it's such a habit that is
Speaker 1: just so ingrained in our brains. And obviously for people
Speaker 1: with ADHD, our brain's very low on dopamine and the
Speaker 1: phone gives us a really good dump of dopamine, so
Speaker 1: it's even more addictive. So this is why we're going
Speaker 1: to have these little rules. If that you like them,
Speaker 1: take them on and see if they help. So it's
Speaker 1: no secret that I have ADHD and my brain has
Speaker 1: no off switch, and my phone is designed to exploit that.
Speaker 1: Like apps socials, they're literally designed to keep our attention,
Speaker 1: because attention is the biggest currency. It's the greatest currency,
Speaker 1: especially right now that businesses and that have so they
Speaker 1: want to keep us on the apps as long as possible.
Speaker 1: So when you realize that number one, you can stop
Speaker 1: blaming yourself and feeling like a piece of shit because
Speaker 1: it's not your fault. It's the phone's fault because it
Speaker 1: likes it's literally they're using science to design these apps
Speaker 1: to keep it yes with dopamine, so we will not
Speaker 1: get off our phone. So I made rules, and this
Speaker 1: was because I started realizing over time how much my
Speaker 1: phone was affecting my mental health. And there was one
Speaker 1: day in particular, this was a couple of years ago
Speaker 1: now pro aw years ago now, even where I was
Speaker 1: sitting on the couch scrolling on my phone and Harper
Speaker 1: was obviously trying to get my attention and I didn't
Speaker 1: even hear.
Speaker 2: He did not even hear, which is sad. It was
Speaker 2: really freaking sad.
Speaker 1: And then Harper looked at me and said to me, mummy,
Speaker 1: can you put your phone down? And hearing that from
Speaker 1: probably a six year old, if that doesn't wake you up,
Speaker 1: nothing will. And that was the day I decided I
Speaker 1: needed some rules because this is just not on.
Speaker 2: And now when I.
Speaker 1: Say these rules, like I some of these have changed,
Speaker 1: some of these are newer, and yes, I fall off
Speaker 1: with these like a fall off the bandwagon, even though
Speaker 1: there is no bandwagon.
Speaker 2: I fall off with these.
Speaker 1: But these are the rules that even if I am
Speaker 1: doing a few of these, it will It reduces my
Speaker 1: screen time so much, and it really does help my
Speaker 1: mental health because our brain, so when your phone dings
Speaker 1: or you see a notification, your brain actually thinks you're
Speaker 1: being chased by like a bear.
Speaker 2: Like we have a quartersole spike.
Speaker 1: You get the adrenaline rush, which kind of feels good,
Speaker 1: but our brain doesn't know that, like you're not actually
Speaker 1: in a stressful situation. So getting that constantly all day,
Speaker 1: think about what that's doing to us, even like our hormones.
Speaker 1: Like you, I actually don't want to know that what
Speaker 1: that would be doing to our hormones and things like that.
Speaker 1: So just have a little thing about how it's not
Speaker 1: only you know, distracting, but it also is you know,
Speaker 1: changing us at a chemical level as well. So rule
Speaker 1: number one, this is about social media. Of course, social
Speaker 1: media lives on page three. So you know, with iPhones
Speaker 1: you can customize your home screen. So I had, you know,
Speaker 1: the very bar at the bottom you usually have text,
Speaker 1: phone call things like that. I had Instagram in that bar,
Speaker 1: so it was always there, so no matter what page
Speaker 1: I was on, I could still act access Instagram. Now
Speaker 1: what I did because when I looked at my screen
Speaker 1: time I went to Instagram and it was like an
Speaker 1: offensive number of hours I was on Instagram, So I.
Speaker 2: Was like, no, no, no, this is not on. So
Speaker 2: what I did again.
Speaker 1: I talked about an episode before saying we'd systems that
Speaker 1: work for my ADHD brain, and one of the tips
Speaker 1: in there said, if anything is more than two steps,
Speaker 1: redesign it. I'm going to say the opposite when it
Speaker 1: comes to your phone, like, if it's less than two
Speaker 1: steps or three steps, increase the amount of steps. So
Speaker 1: this means it's not as accessible. I don't want it
Speaker 1: to always be on my home page because I will
Speaker 1: click on the app. Like how many times do you
Speaker 1: go into your phone to do something and you end
Speaker 1: up just on TikTok or Instagram and you're like, I
Speaker 1: didn't even want to.
Speaker 2: Be here, like this is not where I puck my car.
Speaker 1: So what we do is we move your Instagram or
Speaker 1: social media apps especially, take it out of that bottom
Speaker 1: bar and put it on page three, because not only
Speaker 1: are you not able to access it as quickly, you
Speaker 1: have to actively unlock your phone and then scroll at
Speaker 1: least three times. I feel really cool, do it on
Speaker 1: page six if there is a page six on your phone.
Speaker 1: So the more steps, the more resistance, and the less
Speaker 1: likely you are to want to just go on there.
Speaker 1: And it's not going to become a habit. And a
Speaker 1: really good thing to do. Like to do also with
Speaker 1: this is once your brain's used to it being on
Speaker 1: page three, move it, move it again, because it's going
Speaker 1: to like your brain will get used to going to
Speaker 1: that spot. So the more you can kind of mix
Speaker 1: it up, the better. And like in science they actually
Speaker 1: call this friction design. So research at Stanford's Technology Lab
Speaker 1: found that every additional step between you and an action
Speaker 1: reduces the chance you'll do it by twenty percent.
Speaker 2: So bad for good habits. So we want to put
Speaker 2: your gym clothes out and all the things.
Speaker 1: But for bad habits, let's put extra steps in the way,
Speaker 1: even if we have to put objects between me and like, bloody,
Speaker 1: what is it kmart? Let's put all these objects in
Speaker 1: the way so I don't go there anymore. So just
Speaker 1: increase your steps. Leads me onto my phone. Rule number two,
Speaker 1: which is gray scale mode after seven pm. Now, if
Speaker 1: you didn't know this, your phone can go into gray
Speaker 1: scale mode, which means it's essentially like a black and
Speaker 1: white television, which is really shit for our dopamine.
Speaker 2: It's not very exciting.
Speaker 1: You'd be surprised how much color and design our brain
Speaker 1: really likes.
Speaker 2: That it's aesthetic. It makes it like very interesting.
Speaker 1: That's why we do love, you know, social media, because
Speaker 1: we don't know what's next.
Speaker 2: We don't know what.
Speaker 1: Colors are going to be on the screen. And I
Speaker 1: love carousel posts on Instagram. I love the design. I
Speaker 1: love mixing up that stuff like it's really fun. So
Speaker 1: my brain loves that. So after seven PM, my phone
Speaker 1: will go into gray scale mode, which I'll tell you
Speaker 1: how to do it as well.
Speaker 2: This is for iPhones though, so if you're on something else,
Speaker 2: I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: Color is designed to keep you scrolling, and Instagram in
Speaker 1: grays scale is super boring. You don't get to see
Speaker 1: the cute outfits, like what color is her dress? What
Speaker 1: color is that cutevars she.
Speaker 2: Got from Kmart?
Speaker 1: I gotta stop talking about Kmart, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Like it's just not as excited. It's kind of like
Speaker 1: eating a cold piece of toast.
Speaker 2: It sucks.
Speaker 1: And the signs behind this is because color activates the
Speaker 1: ventral stratium anyway, I want to say that again. And
Speaker 1: there is science behind this because color rewards the part
Speaker 1: of our brain that is like the rewards center. So
Speaker 1: red notification badges specifically trigger urgency responses. So that's why
Speaker 1: when you think about like fire alarm, the notifications anything
Speaker 1: like they warning danger, our brain knows that that color
Speaker 1: is important and app designers know this as well.
Speaker 2: So every color choice.
Speaker 1: On your phone is super intentional again to keep your attention,
Speaker 1: and so grayscale disables the reward loop that you're getting,
Speaker 1: which is also going to be helpful because in a
Speaker 1: couple of hours you should be going to sleep technically,
Speaker 1: and this gray scale thing actually was studied and they
Speaker 1: said people that switched to grayscale reduced daily screen time
Speaker 1: by an average of thirty seven minutes without even trying,
Speaker 1: because the phone just became boring.
Speaker 2: So even if you want to, you could do it.
Speaker 1: If you really want to, just step this up a notch,
Speaker 1: turn your phone on grayscale all the time.
Speaker 2: So how to set this up on your iPhone?
Speaker 1: So you're gonna go to your settings, then go to
Speaker 1: accessibility and then accessibility Shortcut and then click on color filters.
Speaker 1: Then triple click your side button to toggle grayscale on
Speaker 1: and off. You can also automate it, so go into
Speaker 1: the shortcuts app and then go to automation time of
Speaker 1: day and then choose your time, so seven PM or
Speaker 1: whichever time you'd like, and then click.
Speaker 2: Set color filters on.
Speaker 1: And this is just going to make sure that you
Speaker 1: also don't have to remember to do it, which we
Speaker 1: know is not my forte, so put it on automatically.
Speaker 1: I even have a shortcut as well that turns my
Speaker 1: screen brightness right down. And I also have it on
Speaker 1: like the night mode thing, so it hasn't got the
Speaker 1: blue light because as we know, blue light makes your
Speaker 1: brain think it's daytime. And that is why we can
Speaker 1: scroll two o'clock in the morning because our brain think
Speaker 1: it's in the middle of the day because we have
Speaker 1: this light blaring in our eyeballs into our Retta's keeping
Speaker 1: us awake. Now moving on it to rule number three
Speaker 1: is every alarm has a name. Now as you remember
Speaker 1: on the eight weird rule sorry, and as you guys
Speaker 1: remember from the eight Weird systems for my ADHD, this
Speaker 1: is something similar that I talked about there. So every
Speaker 1: alarm has a name because because I need my phone
Speaker 1: to talk to me like a passive aggressive assistant, otherwise
Speaker 1: I'll be like why did I set this alarm? And
Speaker 1: as you guys know, I have alarms for starting the
Speaker 1: process of leaving for an appointment. So I'll have an
Speaker 1: alarm to say get dressed. I'll have an alarm to
Speaker 1: say eat, blah blah blah. Because when you think about it,
Speaker 1: if you just have an alarm for the appointment, you're
Speaker 1: gonna be late. So for me, there's now or not now,
Speaker 1: and if it's not now, it's not my problem until
Speaker 1: it is now. I need to prep myself to get
Speaker 1: to the appointment. I need to maybe shower, I need
Speaker 1: to eat, I need to get dressed. So those are
Speaker 1: alarms that have names. So if we don't put names,
Speaker 1: like you kind of just want to be told what
Speaker 1: to do, you really do Like as humans, we need
Speaker 1: to have the visual cues in our face. And this
Speaker 1: even comes down to labeling our alarms, so they will
Speaker 1: literally say things like wake up, actually, get up, shoes on,
Speaker 1: leave now, or you are late, Like it literally is
Speaker 1: very passive aggressive my phone. And this is why, like
Speaker 1: because of time blindness, which if you guys don't realize
Speaker 1: what that is, it's just like we like certain people
Speaker 1: don't have a great sense of time. I have no
Speaker 1: sense of time. So time blindness is tricky for everything
Speaker 1: in our lives. And that's why we're late to everything.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Five minutes and five hours feel the same to me
Speaker 1: and to a lot of people with ADHD.
Speaker 2: So research actually shows eighty HD.
Speaker 1: Adults underestimate time by forty to sixty percent. I would
Speaker 1: say one hundred percent. But anyway, so if you think
Speaker 1: you have twenty minutes, you probably have eight. So Thatt's
Speaker 1: these alarms. Now, that's why unnamed alarms don't work, because
Speaker 1: seven point thirty means nothing to our brain.
Speaker 2: I'm just like cool.
Speaker 1: But if you so say you want to get up,
Speaker 1: like you need to get up early for something important,
Speaker 1: you need to label it like you don't wake up,
Speaker 1: you have to go to school pick up in twenty
Speaker 1: minutes or something like. It could be very long, or
Speaker 1: it could just be like this is why, because then
Speaker 1: you've got the reasoning behind it. It's not just wake up,
Speaker 1: it's wake up XYZN and then you will remember straight
Speaker 1: away why this is urgent and why this is important.
Speaker 1: And we work really well under pressure. But if it's
Speaker 1: just an alarm that says six o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 1: there's no emotional tie. There's no pressure to that well
Speaker 1: for me anyway. So naming your alarms is key, and
Speaker 1: this also comes down to like alarms to stop working.
Speaker 2: So for me school pick up, I'm in the zone,
Speaker 2: not always, but I'm in the zone.
Speaker 1: And for me to like really have a hard stop,
Speaker 1: I kind of struggle because my alarm will go off
Speaker 1: and I'll still keep going. I want to finish what
Speaker 1: I'm doing, so I will set fifteen minutes to stop,
Speaker 1: but then I won't stop, So then I'll have another
Speaker 1: alarm to be like, Okay, you actually have to stop now.
Speaker 1: And that really does help because you when you were
Speaker 1: like pulled away from a task, it can take a
Speaker 1: little bit of time. But once I've got the backup alarm,
Speaker 1: that means I actually have to leave, so it really
Speaker 1: really does help. The next rule is do not disturb
Speaker 1: is my default. So as you guys know, there's modes
Speaker 1: on your phone, so you do not disturb. You've got
Speaker 1: personal whatever you want, and I've got a few different modes,
Speaker 1: and when I say do not disturbs my default, I
Speaker 1: do mean the mode, but also the settings of my
Speaker 1: other modes and my focuses. So if you have an iPhone,
Speaker 1: this is again for you. I'm so sorry for everyone else,
Speaker 1: but if you when you unlock your phone, and if
Speaker 1: you scroll down from the top, you will see a
Speaker 1: little toggle and it will say personal, work, Sleep And
Speaker 1: these are just the settings of your phone for that focus.
Speaker 1: So for example, if I have my phone on work mode,
Speaker 1: I have a certain home screen that doesn't have all
Speaker 1: the apps and things as we know they're on page three,
Speaker 1: but I have a certain home screen that makes my
Speaker 1: emails more accessible, just apps that I use at work
Speaker 1: that is on my homescreen. Because you can change your
Speaker 1: home screen, you can change who you get notifications from,
Speaker 1: you can change like what notification badges you have so
Speaker 1: tailored and it's awesome. So for example, for me, in
Speaker 1: my evening routine focus mode, even my brightness is down,
Speaker 1: there's only certain people that can contact me things like that,
Speaker 1: so do not disturb for me is on quite a lot,
Speaker 1: and for me.
Speaker 2: It's it just helps me focus.
Speaker 1: But also, you know, we tend to forget that their
Speaker 1: urgency is not your emergency. We are so contactable all
Speaker 1: the time, and we're actually not meant to be. We're
Speaker 1: meant to have our little village of people where we've
Speaker 1: got like what a couple hundred people, and we're not
Speaker 1: meant to have access to millions of really hot attractive
Speaker 1: humans on our Instagram to compare.
Speaker 2: Ourselves to.
Speaker 1: Also people that use lots of filters and stuff. So
Speaker 1: you know where I'm going with this. It is just
Speaker 1: not meant for us to always feel like we're on
Speaker 1: and we wonder why we're so stressed. So it also
Speaker 1: does come down to, you know, if you are trying
Speaker 1: to be present or you're just trying to yeah, be productive,
Speaker 1: even every time you get distracted, like science says, it
Speaker 1: takes us the twenty three minutes to refocus.
Speaker 2: So like even for me, I get I get.
Speaker 1: Very abnormally angry when I get you know, pulled out
Speaker 1: of a hyper focus motor from like you know, in
Speaker 1: the flow state, which means you're just able to just
Speaker 1: focus on one thing. And I don't mean to be
Speaker 1: like that, it's just because it's really hard for me
Speaker 1: to focus again, and it's hard for everyone twenty three minutes.
Speaker 2: So think about it.
Speaker 1: If you're trying to work, maybe you're in an open
Speaker 1: office space, and if you're getting like people asking questions
Speaker 1: or whatever, how many like twenty minute.
Speaker 2: Blocks, it's going to take up of your day.
Speaker 1: Like no wonder we're not able to get things done,
Speaker 1: so it comes down to that, but also being present,
Speaker 1: like when I'm with my kids, I don't want to
Speaker 1: be getting certain notifications.
Speaker 2: And do you know what.
Speaker 1: I actually turned off my email notifications off my phone
Speaker 1: years ago, and for me that was really scary because
Speaker 1: I was always like, but I am actually kind of
Speaker 1: not as good with emails now, but I was someone
Speaker 1: who would reply instantly, and you know, now that's fine.
Speaker 1: Maybe I could have my email notifications turned back on
Speaker 1: from like three or three point thirty, which is just
Speaker 1: another hack I'll talk to you about another time, about
Speaker 1: allocating windows of time to get back to people instead
Speaker 1: of always being contactable. But the thing is too with
Speaker 1: the do not disturb mode, if someone calls you twice
Speaker 1: and it's actually an emergency, it will call, it will ring.
Speaker 1: So you can do all these different settings, but for me,
Speaker 1: I just felt like my anxiety was so much better
Speaker 1: when I had less notifications, so I have I literally
Speaker 1: went to my notification settings, turned all my notification settings off.
Speaker 1: This is on personal mode as well, and only turned
Speaker 1: back on certain ones. And that's going to lead to
Speaker 1: my next rule as well. I delete all my apps
Speaker 1: and then I redownload them. So I am one of
Speaker 1: these people that like I'll go on the app store
Speaker 1: and I'll find all these cool apps and I'll download them,
Speaker 1: and then they like clutter my page. And this isn't
Speaker 1: really like, to be honest, this rule isn't really like
Speaker 1: for my mental health or anything.
Speaker 2: It's just more so like, oh, I guess, so it's clutter.
Speaker 2: Clutter makes it anyway, it is what it is.
Speaker 1: So if you're someone trying to cul your apps because
Speaker 1: you're like, man, you downloaded four different plant identify apps
Speaker 1: when your heaps into plants during lockdown, but you don't
Speaker 1: know which one you want to keep. The best thing
Speaker 1: you can do is delete all your apps. I know
Speaker 1: that sounds scary, and then you can redownload them for
Speaker 1: the ones you need to use, and then you actually
Speaker 1: realize what apps you're using. So that's going to help
Speaker 1: with your subscriptions. It's going to help with the clutter.
Speaker 1: And you know, if you get bored, then instead of
Speaker 1: searching for a new app to fill the time, like
Speaker 1: that's your moment to put down the front and go
Speaker 1: do something else. And if you really struggle with like
Speaker 1: decisions like trying to cull apps is hard. So honestly,
Speaker 1: the best tip is delete all your apps and obviously
Speaker 1: except the kids' school ones and stuff, and then re
Speaker 1: download them as you need them, and then you have
Speaker 1: like you can have a clean slate. And the thing is,
Speaker 1: too you can't be addicted to an app that's not there,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. So even give it a go,
Speaker 1: like trying it, like an app that you know is
Speaker 1: like your kryptonite. Delete it and see how you go
Speaker 1: for a few days, and it's going to really help,
Speaker 1: like reset your brain to not go to that app
Speaker 1: all the time.
Speaker 2: It's friction.
Speaker 1: We want the friction here. And my last rule is
Speaker 1: my phone leaves in the drawer. Now I wish I
Speaker 1: could say this is all the time, but this is
Speaker 1: when I'm working, I'm eating dinner, I'm playing with the kids.
Speaker 2: I used to have a hard rule which I.
Speaker 1: Do want to bring back in is between the hours
Speaker 1: of five and seven, I used to put my phone
Speaker 1: in the drawer. So the reason I say you put
Speaker 1: your phone in the drawer, not face down, not on
Speaker 1: the table, because as we know that still takes up
Speaker 1: your mental energy, is because it creates a physical barrier.
Speaker 1: Like soon as you like, I just want you to
Speaker 1: try this at home. If you're at home right now,
Speaker 1: pop your phone in the drawer and close it, even
Speaker 1: though you'll be listening to me. So maybe don't do that,
Speaker 1: and you actually just feel lighter instantly because there's an actual
Speaker 1: physical barrier between you. For me, like when I was
Speaker 1: trying to be with the kids, again, I have very
Speaker 1: little self control when it comes to technology, So me
Speaker 1: just having my phone on the bench when I'm trying
Speaker 1: to be present with the kids, it wasn't enough. I
Speaker 1: needed it to be out of sight, out of mind,
Speaker 1: and also having that friction because I'd have to actually
Speaker 1: go and physically open the drawer to get to my phone.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just there. And I'm like, I would honestly
Speaker 1: always just say like, oh, just quickly check this, quickly
Speaker 1: check that, and it wouldn't be a quick check. I
Speaker 1: would then be back into scrolling because it's not that simple.
Speaker 1: So having that physical barrier and the extra steps is
Speaker 1: what's really really going to help. So my little hack
Speaker 1: is choose your phone's parking spot, choose a draw in
Speaker 1: your house, and I do recommend don't choose like the junk.
Speaker 2: Draw or a draw that's like really accessible.
Speaker 1: I want you to pick like maybe the bottom drawer somewhere,
Speaker 1: like it could be another room or whatever, because that's
Speaker 1: really going to also add extra friction for you not
Speaker 1: to go grab your phone. And this even comes down
Speaker 1: to bedtime, which I will do another episode on this,
Speaker 1: but like charging your phone somewhere else at night time
Speaker 1: instead of next to your bed, and you will not
Speaker 1: scroll because for me, I don't have I don't have
Speaker 1: self control. If I plug it in next to my bed,
Speaker 1: I want to be scrolling. You bet, I want to
Speaker 1: be scrolling cat videos past midnight. I need to have
Speaker 1: I'm a child. I need to parent myself here.
Speaker 2: So having that.
Speaker 1: Physical barrier will help people. Even buy phone jails on Amazon.
Speaker 1: You can get these phone jails. They're like a little
Speaker 1: container and you can set a timer and it won't open.
Speaker 1: But there's ones that will let you answer phone calls.
Speaker 1: I think it like lets you have the little swipe
Speaker 1: so you can answer a phone call. But that's also
Speaker 1: a really cool idea. So you don't need more willpower,
Speaker 1: you just need a draw. Anyways, this is not about
Speaker 1: hating your phone. I love my phone. It runs by
Speaker 1: businesses I wouldn't be here without my phone. But you know,
Speaker 1: HD brain, anyone's brain, a human brain plus a smartphone
Speaker 1: is just a bad combo. Your phone's designed for addiction.
Speaker 1: Our brain is wide to want dopamine. Our phone delivers
Speaker 1: dopamine on a golden platter. So it's not our fault.
Speaker 1: It's the tech designer's fault. So just remember your phone
Speaker 1: is a tool.
Speaker 2: At the end of the day. It's meant to be
Speaker 2: a tool. It's not really. It was never meant for entertainment.
Speaker 1: It was meant to be able to contact people, and
Speaker 1: now it is much more than a tool. But make
Speaker 1: it work for you, not against you. Albert Love if
Speaker 1: you guys would, if you are using any of these tips,
Speaker 1: please take a photo tag us on Instagram, and please
Speaker 1: tell a friend about this episode in this podcast. If
Speaker 1: it helps you, I feel like it would help them too,
Speaker 1: And please subscribe and I will be back in your
Speaker 1: ears next Monday.
Speaker 2: Bye.