In this article, I would like to share 5 steps that you can try to do the digital detox without giving up digital devices.
It is going to be all about how you manage yourself.
Let's jump into it.
Digital Detox is so important for digital nomads
If you are a digital nomad working fully remotely, this article is something that you want to read seriously
This is what I have done and now I am completely managing the time that I use digital devices.
5 steps for starting your digital detox habit are...
- Step 1: Understand how much time you use the digital devices
- Step 2: Eliminate the unnecessary time of using digital devices during daytime
- Step 3: Delete the unused or unnecessary app from your phone
- Step 4: Set the time to turn off/on every single digital device
- Step 5: Try to continue this habit
Let's take a look at each step to understand more about these steps.
Step 1: Understand how much time you use digital devices
The first step of digital detox is to understand how much time you use digital devices; when I mention the vocab "digital devices" in this article, it also includes "use of social media" because the most common way to use digital devices is to get access to Social Media.
As social media is unfortunately known as one of the most addictive factors in this century, you have to be conscious if you are a social media user how much you spend time on it.
According to Addiction Center, "5 to 10% of Americans meet the criteria for social media addiction today."
If you choose 10 random people from America, 5 - 10 people are addicted to social media; isn't that too much???
Other data from MatthewWoodward.co.uk is showing us the fact that more than 210 million people globally are addicted to social media.
It seems like that person with a social media account spends 5.7 years of their whole life.
I do not say this is good or bad but if you use social media pretty often, you have to be aware of this fact.
Quickly going through the definition of social media addiction, your behavior looks pretty much like below.
- THE FIRST THING YOU DO IN THE MORNING IS CHECK SOCIAL MEDIA
- YOU CHECK SOCIAL MEDIA DURING THE WORKDAY
- YOU ARE ANXIOUS WHEN YOU CAN NOT CHECK YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA
- YOU ARE CONSTANTLY CHECKING HOW YOUR POSTS PERFORM…
- YOU SPEND A LOT OF TIME OVERTHINKING AND PLANNING YOUR POSTS
- YOU THINK YOU HEAR YOUR PHONE BUZZ WHEN REALLY IT DIDN’T
- YOU NEGLECT YOUR OWN HOBBIES IN FAVOUR OF SCROLLING
(Reference from itstimetologoff.com)
If you think you are kind of addicted to digital devices / social media, now you have to understand how much of your time you are spending on it, and this is going to be the starting point of the whole journey of digital detox.
Step 2: Eliminate the unnecessary time of using digital devices during daytime
Now, let's move on to the 2nd step; Eliminating the unnecessary time of using digital devices during daytime
By understanding how much time you spend on digital devices / social media through step 1, now it is the time to think about "how much time can I decrease?".
You can utilize the screen time function to know how much time you can decrease one by one.
No more scrolling down!!!
For instance, if you find yourself using Facebook for one hour per day, do you want to look back at the breakdown of the use; meaning what you have used the service Facebook?
If you look back at how are used Facebook and if you haven't texted anyone and you were just scrawling down to check the posts, you can stop doing this.
I want to ask you something; "Before checking the post and after checking the post, which part of your life has been changed?"
I think in most cases nothing has been changed because most of the posts on the news and some other friends update.
If you are seriously thinking about taking the first step to digital detox, "Checking the timeline of social media is the first step and easiest step.
How to control yourself on your phone
The tip that I can share with you is to create a folder for "Work purpose" and "Private purpose".
This is the easiest way to control yourself on your phone.
If you are freelance like me, probably you have one phone/laptop, so inevitably your screen time will be longer than the people working at a company.
So, you want to manage the folder for each purpose.
When I used to have my phone with me, I had this very strict screen time setting for each app.
What I have done for my app was to set the screen time for each app.
For example, the app that I use for my work is without any screen time setting, but for the app that I use for my private use and if the app is not necessary to check often, the screen time setting for the app is the minimum setting "5min per a day".
Or even yeah but I don't use every day has the "0min per day" setting.
The "0min per day" setting is pretty useful because you don't uninstall the app, so when you really need to use the app outside, it's still reachable.
Step 3: Delete the unused or unnecessary app from your phone
This is what my phone looks like before losing.
Please refer to the article "Life without a smartphone: day1-day4" to know why I lost access to my phone completely and what happened after that.
My suggestion here is that you can delete the app if you can do the same thing on your browser.
Again, if it is not urgent, you do not have to carry around the function as an app on your phone all the time.
The more apps you have on your phone, the more possible distractions you can get from your phone as a notification.
Once again, you want to go through all the apps that you have on your phone and try to find out which app is unused for a long time.
If you can not start by deleting, setting the screen time to 0 min will be the previous step.
Step 4: Set the time to turn off/on every single digital device
The 4th step I'm going to introduce for the digital detox is to set the time to turn off/on every single digital device.
In my case, I have something called 13 hours rule which is I can not use the digital device for 13 hours a day.
Usually, the 13 hours will be from 21:00 the night to 10:00 in the morning.
When 21:00 comes, I shut down all my digital devices and put them into my backpack.
The reason why I do this is that if the devices are physically close to my desk or living area,
Once you set the rule, it is pretty easy to follow the rule, so the point here is that you want to have a concrete and simple rule that you can follow every day.
Step 5: Try to continue this habit
The last most difficult step is to continue this habit.
I know continuing something is very difficult because you'll need a strong will to achieve your goal, and you also have to have the mindset to control yourself.
However, as a person who has been doing this habit for a long time, I think anyone can achieve the goal to do digital detox step by step.
It will not give you a sudden change but if you keep continuing to put your effort into this life-long project, at some point you'll be able to see the change you made for yourself.