10 Ways to Reduce the Pull of your Smart Phone

Tips for Creating a Vibrant Life

Henri-Joseph Harpignies, Landscape, 1895

Maybe you have a great relationship with your phone. You never find yourself in the Abyss of Wasted Time, scrolling through who-knows-what while your life passes you by. If so, this article is not for you. But if you want to tuck your phone away more often and find joy in spending time on things that will matter to you when you’re 80, read on.

1. First, be honest about how you’re spending your time. Look at your screen-time data for a week, and write down how much time you’re spending on the top three apps. Delete all time-wasting apps— those apps you find yourself spending far more time with than you want to. Re-evaluate in a week; did you find yourself with more time to spend on things that really matter to you?

2. Physically remove your device. James Clear calls our environment the “invisible hand that shapes human behavior¹ and he’s correct. When I remove my phone from sight and place it in my bedroom, far away from where I can see it or think about it, I often spend the entire morning/evening occupied with other things and don’t think about it at all. Clear also says that disciplined people are “better at structuring their lives in a way that does not require heroic willpower and self-control. In other words, they spend less time in tempting situations.”² How can you structure your environment so that you don’t mindlessly reach for your phone every time you have a free moment?

3. Practice driving places without it. I recently was headed to meet my sister for dinner, but had misplaced my phone. The restaurant was unfamiliar and I didn’t know how to get there, and I am embarrassed to admit how frustrated I was. Eventually I got on my computer and wrote down directions (flashback to my teenage years!) and was on my way. It shocked me how resistant I was to driving somewhere unfamiliar without a map on my phone. Clearly this is something I need to do more often.

4. Create more phone-free zones. Ruth Gasgovski of

   School of the Unconformed
   discusses creating environments without phones in this article, which I recommend reading in full. Confession: I have a dream of opening a cozy cafe/library/salon—a place for discussing ideas with actual, physical people (novel!)—and one of the requirements to enter would be that no electronic device is allowed. No phones or laptops permitted. Just people, conversation, and connection with each other. In fact, Chef Tim Love recently opened Caterina’s, a restaurant with a phone-free policy (in my very own Fort Worth, Texas, no less). Love calls it a “human experiment,” and that “if you can’t possibly deal without your phone for two hours, this is not the place for you.” Bravo, I say. (Tip: you can make any restaurant a phone-free one if you just…don’t take your phone.) Do you have phone-free zones in your home? In your community?

5. Incorporate more socializing and communicating apart from our devices: more cozy evenings reading aloud, more family game nights, more dinner parties & in-person gatherings, and more letter-writing. Let’s spend more time playing, conversing, laughing, crying, learning & creating—together. When I’m in the twilight of my life, I want rich memoires of time spent well to reflect on; I can’t imagine that I will ever look back fondly on evenings spent scrolling through the news or social media.

6. Get outside. Read There’s No Such Thing as Bad Weather or Balanced and Barefoot for inspiration, or check out 1000 Hours Outside, a movement towards spending more time outside and less on screens. Quiet the incessant noise of technology with a daily reading of God’s First Book.

7. Start a nature journal. Once you’re spending more time outside, start sketching or painting the beauty that you observe. This guide to nature journaling or this book on keeping a nature journal are great places to start for inspiration. No need to take your phone along to snap pictures when you can draw what you see.

8. Go where there isn’t internet access, or better yet, no electricity at all. A group of men & teenage boys from our church went on a camping & mountain hiking trip this summer in Colorado, and this report from one of the men stood out to me: he said that the trip was a success because no one was able to charge their phones. Again, bravo. There is nothing quite like living outside for a few days to clear the fog of our tech-saturated lives and see clearly the difference between what really matters to us and what doesn’t.

9. Read, read, read. If you don’t yet have one, start a reading habit. Reading real, physical books is an excellent antidote for all things tech/anti-human. I echo Paul Kingsnorth’s words: “books beat screens every time and I will die before I say otherwise.” Read alone, read aloud, start a book club and read with friends, set a goal to read every day and go read all those books you’ve been wanting to read but haven’t made the time for. (And please tell me what you’re reading; I‘m always looking for excellent book recommendations.)

10. Create a physical, tangible, non-digital life that is so full, rich, vibrant and appealing, that time spent on your phone seems dull in comparison. Our lives, if we pay attention, are as rich and varied as the most sumptuous feasts of any sovereign in history. The sights, sounds, tastes, relationships, people and places are all so beautiful and wonderful. Let us not choose to ignore the bounty of that feast and dine upon mere crumbs that fall from the table.

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What tips would you add? How do you keep your digital life under control and spend time daily nurturing your real-life relationships with the people you love?

1. James Clear, Atomic Habits, (New York, Penguin, 2018), 82

2. James Clear, Atomic Habits, 93

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