The bad habit I had to get rid of….

Have you ever had that feeling where you know you are falling into a bad habit and still continue to follow along with the behavior?  I was really developing some bad habits with checking social media. It really was ridiculous how many times a day I was looking at my phone! I really was becoming a slave to my phone. The sad part was that I actually don’t have that kind of time to waste! There were tasks I was avoiding by wasting time away on social media.  I recognized I was using my phone to distract me from making business calls. I was on the phone just not making business calls. It became necessary for me to change my behavior and create some better habits. I decided to see how I could do with 5 days of habit changing behavior.

Day 1

 I put this task on my schedule to really create some accountability. I put facebook, instagram and email on a schedule. This allowed me to take control and create some good habits. I could only check them once in the morning and once in the evening. I did catch myself reaching for the phone several times. I felt a little weird not checking it! It was almost like an instinct to reach for it the minute I wasn’t doing anything or even when I was! That tells me I really had a bad habit going on…..

Day 2

I started the day with prayer as I always do and then went through emails. After that, I allowed myself 15 minutes for social media. Not only was scheduling social media important but putting a time limit on it was essential. The limit of 15 minutes wasn’t bad. I realized how much more time I had by doing this. It was kind of exciting! As I went through the day I did struggle with reaching for my phone. I found I had to put it out of my reach as in another room to help me with the struggle. This worked well to get me to the next time I could check my phone. This wasn’t until evening when I was sitting in my car waiting for one of my son’s practice to end. The interesting thing was that I didn’t miss a thing! Yep, my social media friends and stories were still there waiting for me. Getting through day 2 I really was starting to feel like I could kick this addiction.

Day 3

It is Saturday morning and I’ve already checked Facebook twice! Time to get my plan for the day together and get away from this phone. I need to keep myself busy to stay away from the social media beast. Saturday mornings are definitely structured a little different than Monday thru Friday, maybe that’s where I need to look to set up a good habit. The other thing I realized is that I did not pray when I got up. This would be a good habit to continue with on Saturday and Sunday as well. I am determined to kick this.

As the day wore on, I didn’t have time to get on my phone. I really didn’t need to keep it with me since I was with my husband and kids. They are after all the excuse I use Monday-Friday to hang onto the darn phone. It was late when I checked my phone and it was only for emails. I consider this to be a minimal success!

Day 4

Much easier to ignore the phone because I am going to church and then planning my day. It really didn’t include social media. I realized about midday that I hadn’t even looked at my phone!  I really didn’t want to ruin the trend so I left the phone sitting on the counter in the kitchen and went about my day.  Evening came and I felt like I should at least check email. So I did. Then I just put the phone away. Getting easier…..

Day 5

Monday, is the start of a new week. I need to check social media for stats on different things I post, emails, etc. I can already feel some anxiety welling up inside me. Focus on prayer…..

Struggling to plan out my day. A part of me doesn’t even want to put social media on the schedule but I know I have to. The reason why I don’t want to is because there is a peace developing within myself. I think it’s because social media, emails have all become 1 more chore for me to do. It is freeing to limit myself time on these hacks.

As I have been going intentionally through my day I am really surprised how much I don’t miss the phone and all of its distraction. Once again I find myself at a lacrosse practice so I use this time to check out all of my social media along with email. I really didn’t miss anything. I also didn’t feel any better once I checked out the technology. I treated it just like another task.

So, I completed 5 days of good habit forming behavior and I have noticed that I am a little less edgy. I can think more clearly and I am more in the moment than I had been before. I was able to replace this bad habit with good habits to bring about change. It took awareness to start with. Recognition that I had a problem. Then I just broke it down simply for me to be able to maintain this new habit. I limited the use of my phone for social media work by scheduling the time of the day I use it and how much time I use it for. Not really that earth shattering but the results have been AWESOME!! I look forward to continuing the new habit.

Do you struggle with phone overload?? Perhaps,  a break in the habit is in order??