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Digital detox activities: 5 examples and how to start them



Digital detox is difficult to do when you have no guide or no information to follow.

In this article, I would like to show you 5 examples of digital detox activities with each guide on how to do it.

It's very simple and if you try any of these activities, you will notice that digital detox is not that difficult.


The below 5 methods were invented and tested by myself and all of them worked perfectly for me, so I would like to share how I have done it for people who are interested in starting digital detox.


There is of course pro and con to digital detox so please refer to the article The Advantages and Disadvantages of Digital Detox to know the advantages and disadvantages of digital detox.



Table of Contents



  1. The Breakfast Challenge
  2. The Lunch Challenge
  3. The Dinner Challenge
  4. 13 hours Challenge 
  5. 24 hours Challenge


There are 5 challenges that I would like you to know starting from the easiest one "The Breakfast Challenge" and to the hardest one "24 hours Challenge".


Those 5 steps are in order, so if you want to start, please start with Breakfast Challenge, and if you make it, then try the Lunch Challenge.


If you want to know what it feels like to live without a smartphone, Life Without Phone Articles will be interesting to read.


　

The Breakfast Challenge


Everything starts from a slow and easy first step.

The Breakfast Challenge is the easiest one of the five examples.


What you have to do is very simple as below.

  1. Turn off all the devices before you go to bed
  2. Do not touch any of the digital devices after waking up
  3. Take a walk until you get hungry
  4. Eat breakfast at a cafe or coffee shop
  5. Go back to your place and now you can use the devices


So the core concept of the Breakfast Challenge is that until you finish eating breakfast, you are not allowed to touch any of the digital devices.


If you live alone, it is very easy to get distracted by the phone so you have to control yourself and not touch any digital devices until you finish breakfast.

If you can let your friend or your partner, or your family members join this activity, it will become much easier.


If you can easily manage not to touch your smartphone or laptop, you can stay at your place and have your breakfast by yourself, but of course, having your breakfast at a café or at a coffee shop is also a good idea.


Useful articles for this challenge.

The digital detox method "going to the park with no device" is so easy to do


The Lunch Challenge


The second example I'm going to introduce is the Lunch Challenge.

The Lunch Challenge is the longer version of the Breakfast Challenge, and the steps are as below.


  1. Turn off all the devices before you go to bed
  2. Do not touch any of the digital devices after waking up
  3. Take a walk until you get hungry
  4. Eat breakfast at a cafe or coffee shop (skip if you do not need to)
  5. Do some activities without digital devices ( such as reading a book ) 
  6. Eat lunch anywhere you want ( ideally outside )
  7. Go back to your place and now you can use the devices

I want to add some remarks on the Lunch Challenge.

For some people, it will be very difficult not to touch any of the digital devices until lunchtime, so it is very efficient to do it on Saturday or Sunday if you don't work.

I can say from all of the examples I'm showing in this article that doing the digital detox by yourself is very difficult even for me.


So involving someone else in this activity is very effective because if you spend time with someone else, time flies and you can focus on communicating with them.


There is also an alternative solution if you cannot adjust the schedule with your friends on a day that you want to do the digital detox; participating a volunteer work is very effective.

If your aim is to achieve the Lunch Challenge, you can look for volunteer work that is held in the morning time.


My advice here is that you can try to think in a way that the Lunch Challenge is just a combination of the Breakfast Challenge and morning volunteer work.


At this point, I think you are pretty much getting used to spending your time without digital devices.


The Dinner Challenge




Achieving the Lunch Challenge is definitely great to work on because I don't think the Lunch Challenge is something easy.

Now, it is time to go for the next one; the Dinner Challenge.
The steps are as below.

  1. Turn off all the devices before you go to bed
  2. Do not touch any of the digital devices after waking up
  3. Take a walk until you get hungry
  4. Eat breakfast at a cafe or coffee shop (skip if you do not need to)
  5. Do some activities without digital devices 
  6. Eat lunch anywhere you want ( ideally outside ) 
  7. Keep being outside until you get hungry for dinner
  8. Go back to your place and now you can use the devices


So, I added step 7 to the Lunch Challenge and here you go the hard one "The Dinner Challenge".


To achieve the dinner challenge I have a useful suggestion; combine this challenge with the short trip to the place you know.


Basically, if you are close to your place and you can go back to your home easily, you always have the option to go back to your place.

So combining a short trip and digital detox together and making it a "digital detox short trip" is very useful.


You may think that doing a short trip without any digital device will be hard so that's why you want to choose the place where you are familiar; you can go to a library, a museum, or simply cafe hopping in the area you know.


If you are familiar with the city, there's nothing you have to search for.

You know where the restaurant is, you know where the train station is, and you know how to go back home safely.


13 hours challenge 


  1. Turn off the devices earlier than usual before going to bed
  2. Sleep enough
  3. That's it!!! 


This works pretty much when you're physically tired.

There are no suggestions or tips that I am going to write here because regarding 13 hours Challenge, it's all about how you think.


For example, if you are very tired from 5 days of work and you want to take a good rest on Friday, then it is time to try 13 hours Challenge.


If you turn off your digital devices at 9 o'clock at the night, the next time you can touch your digital devices is10 o'clock in the morning of the following day.


It's time to take a rest.


24 hours Challenge 



  1. Turn off all the devices before you go to bed
  2. Do not touch any of the digital devices after waking up
  3. Prepare and leave your place for a short trip
  4. You can only check your smartphone after you come back to your place


The last method I'm going to show you he's the most difficult one "24 hours Challenge".


Same to the Dinner Challenge, 24 hours Challenge is very easy to achieve if you combine it with a short trip with someone.


I think the most common reason that you check your smartphone will be "because I had nothing to do."

Traveling with someone without your digital devices will enable you to achieve longer hours of digital detox and secure enough time to spend time with someone you love.


Once you have tried and achieved the 24 hours challenge, you will be very confident in yourself.


If you are having trouble with digital device management, the below articles will be useful for knowing step-by-step digital device management skills.

How to start digital detox with 5 steps: read this if you are a digital nomad


To sum up, the 5 examples of digital detox methods and activities are as below.

  1. The Breakfast Challenge
  2. The Lunch Challenge
  3. The Dinner Challenge
  4. 13 hours Challenge 
  5. 24 hours Challenge


If you can do all of the steps above, then Why uninstalling the app for a digital detox is essential? This is the next article to read because understanding the importance of decreasing the number of apps on your phone is very valuable.


I hope the examples that I have shared in this article will help you to start your digital detox habit.