Do you sleep with your phone beside your bed? Is it the last thing you see before going to sleep? Do you check your phone first thing in the morning? You’re not alone if you have answered yes to any of these questions.
“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.
Your goal is your desired outcome. Your system is the collection of daily habits that will get you there.
This year, spend less time focusing on outcomes and more time focusing on the habits that precede the results.”
James Clear – From Atomic Habits
The Experiment
I committed to not using my phone within the first 30 minutes of waking up for the month of January 2021.
My Experience
Evening (PM)
After years of battle, my nighttime phone hygiene is finally at a state that I am comfortable with. I have scheduled the do not disturb and greyscale features to turn on automatically from 8 pm to 8 am.
The do not disturb feature blocks notifications which can be a distraction or force me to context switch. It also prevents me from seeing seemingly “urgent” notifications that I would not be able to act on. I found these notifications that have different effects depending on the time of the day. In the morning, I would often attend to other people’s “important” tasks before attending to my own. I believe that the Pay Yourself First principle from The Wealthy Barber applies to our time as well as our money. Attending to other people’s to-do list is analogous to paying bills before investing. What is really so urgent that it cannot wait an hour? Like investing, paying yourself first works better if it is automatic. Build it in your routine to give yourself the first x minutes of your day. Commit to it. At night, actionable notifications often led to anxiety since I wouldn’t fix the problem right away. I would often pay for it by having a hard time falling asleep or by obsessively going over the problem in my head all night. Is that cost really worth it to you? What do you gain by checking your phone?
The greyscale feature is a great addition to do not disturb. The simplest way to put it is that greyscale makes your phone boring to use. We don’t realize how much colours affect our subconscious minds. I am confident that we would spend less time on our phones if they were designed to have greyscale kick in for parts of the day. Of course, this is not to say that we should always have our phones on greyscale. Maybe you want to see your grandkid’s new hair colour on your weekly video call. It is more about not getting unconsciously sucked in when we checked our phones for purely information content. Why do you need colour to send a quick text or check the temperature?
Morning (AM)
A game-changer for me was to leave my phone in another room at night. I told myself that I needed to have my phone next to my bed since it acted as my alarm. It was really a justification for my addictive behaviour of checking my phone before and after sleep.
I still heard the alarm when left my phone in the kitchen which is not too far away from my bedroom. This had the additional benefit of forcing me to physically get up to turn off the alarm. I found that I rarely went back to bed with this simple change. It is too easy to stay in bed and browse your phone when it is sitting next to your warm cloud that you call your bed.
Just buy a cheap alarm clock and put it across your bedroom if you need a louder sound to wake you up. I invested in an alarm clock that wakes you up more gradually with light and sounds. This is definitely not a need but we use it every day and enjoy it. A full review of this clock will be available on my YouTube channel.
Similar to making your bed, I found that committing to just 30 minutes of no-phone time in the morning acted as the first domino for other habits. My productivity, creativity, and overall well-being went up. I was automatically paying myself first. I found myself picking up projects I had dropped or starting some I had been avoiding. It didn’t just have a positive effect on my work, however. I also found myself making tea in the morning more often, going for a walk or stretch, writing in my journal, or playing with my cat more often.
I found that leaving my phone in a box at night made it easier to forget about it. We are conditioned to check our phones just by seeing them on the counter. It ensures that I am more intentional about checking my phone in the morning. I make sure I am ready to “open the box” of everyone else’s agendas.
Takeaways
- Do not sleep with your phone in your room.
- Pay yourself first each morning.
- Consider automating features such as greyscale, do not disturb, and turning off your volume.
Affiliate Links
- A World Without Email – By Cal Newport
- The Wealthy Barber – By David Chilton
- Philips HF3520/60 SmartSleep Wake-up Light
- Atomic Habits – By James Clear