Like many people in my culture, I have grown used to being on edge and spend a lot of time playing around on the internet and on my phone with little real productivity. I continually check my phone, find myself wasting time on it whenever I am waiting for something or someone, and spend more time on the internet than I realize I’m wasting. It is not what I want to do with my life or what I want to become. The posts and the stress are simply not worth my time and my mental health. There are so many other things I can do with my days! I want to:
- Make time to write
- Enjoy time with my wife
- Take care of our yard and house
- Find more work
- Go swimming and exercise
- Read books
New Choices
This desire was in the back on my mind before I lost my phone. A first for me, I still have no idea where it is. It could have fallen off the roof of my car (we checked the streets) or be hiding somewhere in the house in a place we haven’t yet searched. Either way, I bought a new phone, which was actually a relief due to the short battery life of my old one along with the annoying ads we couldn’t get rid of. Realizing this was an opportunity to change my life, I am making the concrete choices to change my use of technology so I am no longer on edge waiting for an alert on my phone or wasting time on the internet. These are the changes I have made thus far:
- Don’t have Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Instagram on my phone
- Am not logged in to Facebook via the internet on my phone and don’t know my password without looking it up
- Turned off all alerts except for text messages and instant messaging and those are silent
- Blocked the websites I waste a lot of time with on my computer and phone
- Severely limiting my time on Facebook (this is a habit that will take time to break as it is also part of my work and I will need to stay focused)
- Keeping my phone out of reach during work so I’m not tempted to keep checking for messages
- Turning off my phone in the evenings
While I love the connectivity of Facebook and knowing some of what is going on in the lives of people I care about, the time on there must be severely limited. It’s time to really think about where my time is going and how I want to use it while putting the practices in place that will help me live the life I want and to do the things I want to invest in.
Future Changes
I am still looking for a good internet add-on to track my time on websites and will be taking regular breaks at work away from my desk so I don’t feel like I need to give my mind a break with a website. I am sure I will think of other things as well which I want to change to help me refocus on my family, myself, and our home.
Reporting Back
To help me stick with this, I am going to write another blog post in a month where I will be honest about how my technology challenge is going. I’ll let you know what is going well and what I’m struggling with. I’m hoping by knowing I will be sharing my progress that I will work extra hard on making these changes.
I invite you to walk this road with me and make the technological changes you need to live the life you want.