I'm sure I'm not the only person in the world who has ever wondered whether I spend too much time on my phone. The trouble is, it is just so tempting. It is in my pocket (or on my person somewhere) all the time, and it takes just a second to be drawn into its oh-so-addictive grip. I'll pick up my phone to quickly edit my online grocery order, notice I have an Instagram notification, quickly read that, get redirected from there to Facebook, get distracted by a very important post on Diply.com, remember that I wanted to Tweet something that happened earlier, and before you know it I've missed the deadline for editing the groceries and the wrong food gets delivered the next day. What's worse than ordering two types of brie but no breakfast for the kids though is the amount of time that I waste checking and re-checking my notifications or just mindlessly scrolling through my Twitter feed.
I have often tried to cut down on the amount of time when I look at my phone, and have previously even had 2 weeks a year where I go without both my phone and the internet, but somehow the time I spend on my phone always creeps back up again.
When I stopped work last year I didn't worry too much about my phone-time initially, as I persuaded myself that it was a useful tool for relaxation. I also told myself that as I use my phone to connect with people, which is what I badly needed after being so withdrawn and unhappy, that I shouldn't restrict how much time I spent on it. And of course there are the very many apps on my phone which are necessary for my day-to-day life, such as the ones I have for my bank account, for navigating the London transport system and ordering my online shop.
If I stop to think about how I actually use my phone though, I can see that I am hardly using it for those things. Many people, I'm sure, would find playing games on their phone relaxing, but not me. I rarely play them, and those I do occasionally play (Candycrush, I'm looking at you) make me stressed and irritated rather than relaxed. I'm also not sure that my phone helps me to connect with people, as I can see that it is less about actual connection and more about looking at other people's lives in an envious fashion. As an example, I have several friends who are not on Facebook and whose preferred method of communication is either text or email. I can start the day with a to-do list that includes "text so-and-so" on it, look at my phone countless time during the day, including spending a lot of that time scrolling through Facebook, but still not have texted said friend.
I do use the London transport app often, but that accounts for less than 1% of the time I am on my phone. I am also not using the app I have specifically to help me with some basic self-care that I should be doing. I recently saw a physio to try and sort out the prolapse that I have had since giving birth 7 years ago, and she has given me some pelvic floor exercises to do three times a day. I have the Squeezy app on my phone to remind me to do them, and on a daily basis I ignore the reminder the app sends me in favour of looking at Twitter one more time.
So, over the last few weeks I have been idly thinking that I ought to cut down on the time I spend on my phone and try to use my time more productively. Firstly though, I was interested to see just how much time I was wasting, and so downloaded the Moment app to see what the damage was. I'm afraid to say that even I was shocked. I tracked my usage for nearly 2 weeks, and found that I was spending an average of 4 hours a day on my phone. In my defence I barely watch television, as the time I spend on my phone has replaced the time I used to sit on the sofa watching mindless tv programs. I also have the kindle app and so some of that time is spent reading ebooks. Most of it, though, is spent idly looking at social media and wishing I would procrastinate less.
Because yes, using my phone is just one more way that I have found to procrastinate. My procrastination has taken many forms over the years. In my teens I would often lose myself in my latest book, at University I spent way more time than I should have done reading glossy magazines, and as a junior doctor I found that my house was never so tidy as it was when I had an exam to revise for. Throughout that time I met all the deadlines I needed to meet, passed my exams and progressed in my career, so you could argue that the procrastination didn't really matter.
However, what I did find was that if I had something important to do (such as revise for an exam, or write a teaching presentation), then either something else that I needed to do suddenly seemed really urgent, or I would tell myself that I would just spend half an hour reading my latest novel, and then get on with the important task. What this meant was that I felt guilty reading the novel, and didn't really enjoy it, and then worried when completing the task, in case it wasn't going to be finished in time. Most of the time I probably spent just as much time on the task as I would have done if I had completed it a the planned time, but felt more stressed while doing it.
I have never been able to articulate exactly what this feels like to anyone, but I'm happy to say I don't have to, because someone else has said it better than I ever could. Over at the Waitbutwhy website there is an article on procrastination and when I read it it felt as if the writer was in my head, it resonated so strongly with me.
It has to be said that having children cured me of a lot of my procrastination, mainly because the amount of free time you have when you have small children is so minimal that you can barely find time to go to the loo, let alone spend hours a day on Twitter. Over the last 6 months though, without a job to distract me, and with the children at school, there has of course been ample time for me to lose myself in my phone.
Now don't get me wrong, I have still achieved a lot in that time. I sleep for about 7 hours a day (children permitting) and even if I spend 4 hours on my phone that still leaves 13 hours in which to get stuff done. Hence I have also found time to crochet, cook, and write blogs. However, I wonder what else I would be able to achieve if I had another few hours spare in the day.
For the last few days therefore I have developed a new tactic. I only look at Facebook a couple of times a day, I hardly look at Twitter, and if I have a job to do (like edit the online grocery shop) then I don't look at any other app until I have finished the task.
It's working so far, in that I have cut down my phone use this week by over 2 hours a day, and I have been markedly more productive. Maybe I will write that novel yet.
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