I took all of February & most of March off of social media. I really don’t miss it for the most part. There's a few people (including our kids) and my movement guru Kara Duval that I popped in on the desktop version (which is so terrible you don't want to scroll) of IG just to check in for a few minutes a week. These past few months predominantly offline have felt like alchemy. All I keep coming back to is - I want more of this. I want to leave my phone in my little box and take my film camera on hikes. I don’t want to moderate social media comments or fret about the algorithm. I don’t want the people I love to see me looking down at my phone instead of into their eyes.
But it’s not just instagram that provides the distraction - it's everything - news alerts, text messages, slack notifications, substack notes, emails, etc. I’ve been using the “do not disturb” function on my phone so that the constant text messages aren’t interrupting me while I'm doing something else and I deleted all social media and news off my phone (I slipped when the Iran war broke out and re-downloaded the NYtimes app to my phone but course corrected after a few days of spiraling into doom scrolling). I even took slack off my phone. I did find myself using substack on the computer more which is feeling more and more like social media to me - I think I might just go ahead and get emails from the ones I subscribe to and not go to their site/feed at all. Next I’d love to remove emails from my phone as well.
It's so interesting to me how often we pick up the phone - to kill time, to procrastinate, to numb ourselves. And I've been thinking of all the things we do to numb ourselves or distract ourselves - scrolling, watching, consuming alcohol, marijuana, food… So I just encourage you to be aware of why you are picking up your phone, why you are pouring yourself another glass of wine, etc. (You can check the number of times you pick up your phone under the screen-time settings in your iphone - its pretty eye-opening).
And I've been thinking about how instead of constantly turning to our phone, we can focus on movement or stillness or creativity or connection - instead of picking up the phone, going for a walk. Instead of scrolling, sitting in the sauna or journaling. Instead of watching or scrolling, getting on your yoga mat or picking up a book.
I’ve used screen-time limits in the past but have found they are easy to bypass. I’ve used 3rd party apps to block certain apps - this seems crazy to use an app to keep me from using other apps but it did work with some success. But honestly nothing has worked as well as just DELETING THE APPS from my phone all together.
But I’ll be honest - our business suffers while on my self imposed social media breaks each year. Certainly the algorithms don't agree with time off and sales were down. But my body & mind sure appreciated the break. Overall I find myself in a 10x better place than before - in a much more peaceful state of mind and so much more engaged with my family and SO inspired to make time for what matters most and make the most of each day. I had so much more time for books, yoga, my pottery hobby, daily walks and cooking. I felt like it honestly freed up HOURS a day to play, create, rest & connect.
Bottom line - if I am not distracted I can love the people around me tremendously better and honor my self-care needs well. And with more silence and less noise, inevitably comes more creativity.
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