Breaking Up With My Phone: Part 3 - Going Grey!

So my journey with breaking up with my phone continues, and I’m very pleased to report that I’m starting to see some reductions in my usage. My screen time is now down to around five hours, sometimes four and a bit, which I know still sounds high, but for me it’s huge progress considering I was regularly in the six, seven, even eight hour range.

Focusing on Phone Habits

The last few days have all been about looking at habits around phone use. When am I using it? When don’t I want to be using it? What are the automatic behaviours I’ve fallen into over the years?

For me, the biggest triggers were:

• picking it up first thing in the morning as it is my alarm

• scrolling last thing at night

• having it physically on me at all times

• using it to check the time! 

So I made a bold move: I bought an alarm clock 🤣

I'm also investing in a watch! 

It means I no longer need to take my phone into the bedroom, which immediately removes two of my biggest triggers: late-night scrolling and checking my phone for the time - and then getting drawn into other things.

Another of my big realisations is that I have a habit of carrying my phone with me everywhere. It is literally in my hand ALL OF THE TIME and comes with me around the house from room to room. It’s always on me, and I’ve realised how much that feeds the feeling of needing to be constantly connected. It links back to that sense of safety and availability that I love and hate about my phone. So I’ve been practising leaving it in one place and moving around the house without it. That small shift is already making a difference.

Another big shift has been becoming more conscious around the kids. I’m using my laptop a lot more for things like WhatsApp, Canva, emails, and writing Instagram captions. Being able to handle more of those tasks from my laptop means I’m less likely to get distracted by everything else happening on my phone. When I’m on my laptop, I’m working. When I’m on my phone, to the kids it could be anything to them -YouTube, scrolling, gaming - so this feels like a healthier distinction.

Tidying Up My Phone and going grey!

One tip the book recommends is tidying up your phone: deleting apps, removing clutter, and organising screens. I had no idea how messy mine had become. I actually didn’t know you could have the same app icon showing multiple times! So I’ve been deleting a lot of junk, creating some order, and honestly it’s been incredibly cathartic. Still a work in progress, but it feels so much lighter already.

Another suggestion is turning your app icons to greyscale, so the phone is less visually appealing. I can’t decide how I feel about this one. On one hand, it definitely reduces the “pick me up” temptation. On the other hand, it now takes me twice as long to locate anything, so I’m spending longer staring at the screen trying to find the right grey square. However, in a way that’s creating a useful pause. It gives me a moment to check in with my 3 questions: What for? Why now? What else? So the jury is still out on whether greyscale stays or goes.

Celebrating Progress

So overall, I’m celebrating:

• reduced usage

• healthier habits

• more awareness

…but also recognising that there is still a long way to go. This is very much a journey, and I’m still deep in it. But progress is progress, and I’m proud of where I’ve got to so far.

How are you doing?
What habits do you have?
Are you going to try changing any of your own phone patterns?

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Lots of love

Tracey

xxx