Doing the Hard Things

I mentioned last time out that I want to make some changes to my routines.

I want less phone time. I’ve noticed that large swaths of my time are taken up these days with endless, mindless viewing of my social media apps. Only one is really a net positive, where I have burgeoning relationships, and I feel it adds to my life in a meaningful way. The rest are, at best, neutral. I haven’t used Twitter/X for some time now, and while cutting that out of my life was a huge positive, I can’t bring myself to quit the others, at least, not yet. In all, I don’t think I need to, but I certainly could do with less.

Over the past couple weeks, I have been trying to be mindful of when I most often am on my phone mindlessly scrolling. Usually it comes in three places: the bathroom, during commercial breaks in a baseball game, and during the day when I don’t particularly have anything specific to do.

I think I have cracked at least one problem, leading to a solution, and I am almost to another. The third is a bit more difficult, for reasons I’ll mention when I get there.

First: the bathroom. This one seems easy to me, and I’ll implement the solution starting today. I, like almost everyone with a smartphone I assume, take my phone into the bathroom with me. Growing up, smartphones didn’t exist, so I couldn’t do that, and instead took a paperback with me or read my mother’s old Reader’s Digests. I don’t know why it took me so long to think of this, but I will simply ban my phone from the bathroom. I will leave a paperback in the bathroom (so I don’t forget, it would be so sad to be bored in there!) and this may even kickstart my reading habit again. Wouldn’t that be nice? But seriously, if I can’t survive without my phone the few minutes the few times a day I am stuck in the bathroom, I’ve got more of a problem than I imagine.

Second: baseball games. Baseball season lasts from late February through November, and that is a long stretch where I watch at least part of a game almost every day (it used to be more, but these days I can barely focus on one game a day). Anyway, I get distracted every half inning because of the commercial break. This annoying few minutes comes and goes all game, and I mute the commercials as they are repetitive and irritating. I want something to do, as staring at a silent TV of images I don’t care about is boring. I tend to grab my phone and check each app in turn, mostly not even engaging or seeing what is there. After two innings, this really gets pointless as, unless something is breaking, there aren’t updates on social media that frequently. Not only am I zombiescrolling, but I’m not even seeing anything new. What am I even doing?

My solution? Have a project to work on throughout the game. Right now it is scanning photos for my mum. She has albums and shoeboxes full of old photos, and scanning them in doesn’t take much mental energy. Therefore I can work during the commercials, and often during the innings as well until the action heats up, and put down the phone. This allows me to make positive progress on something I want to do, and take in a ballgame at the same time. Win-win.

Third: in the down times. Here is where I still don’t have a direct solution. Part of the struggle is my overall inability to focus/concentrate and my lack of pep. I have tons of things I want to do, and many projects to work on, but mostly in the mid-afternoon and mid-evening I get to a point where I am semi-tired feeling, but don’t want to or can’t sleep, but also don’t have the gumption to do anything. Doomscrolling enters stage left and takes over the hours. Literally, hours. I don’t feel better because of it, usually feeling more restless even, and again, it isn’t like I am reading something new for a few hours because there aren’t even updates that often.

I am trying to get to the heart of why I doomscroll. Part of it may be a fear of missing out, a baked-in feeling of missing things that are being posted, but I think that is more or less the algorithm messing with my mind after a decade or so of being trained by it. Breaking the habit of doomscrolling may help me to see that I can check in once or twice a day (or less) and catch up with anything I’ve genuinely missed and not have that need as much. Part of it may also be the genuine connection to the few people I interact with online, and not wanting to neglect that. Again, I don’t have to be online constantly to do that. Boredom may also be a factor here, though, as I said, it is less that than an inability to focus. Either way, I don’t like being idle, and doomscrolling has the illusion of busyness. Breaking the habit will also break the illusion, and could lead to me actually being bored enough to get inspired to do something else.

A possible solution here is limits. Allowing myself a total amount of time to be on social media, and then that’s it for the day might be a great way to set limits for myself. I think that may be possible directly from iOS. If not I might simply need to exercise some self-discipline. Either way: possible solution! I might need some medical intervention here if my inability to focus or have energy has a physical or mental solution. That might take talking to my doctor or re-engaging with a therapist, but those are steps I am willing to take. I want to be healthy, and I can see that doomscrolling is not healthy.

Lastly, there is my morning routine outside of the bathroom. For some reason lately (last couple weeks) I’ve been waking up earlier than I would prefer and don’t have anything specific to do before I actually need to get ready for the day. Again, the bright allure of my smartphone screen tends to suck me in. I also want to put it away during this time. I mentioned this before, but I think I want to start a practice of meditation/mindfulness, coupled with reading time (a different thing than my bathroom reading – less novel and more nonfiction or poetry) and writing time (less blog and more poetry or prose). Not only would I probably feel more productive, but most likely more creative, too.

If I can manage to be at all successful with all this, I think certain aspects of my mental health and overall feeling of well-being will improve. I am excited to make the experiment. I remind myself that it isn’t about being perfect, or having an unbroken streak, but it is about being consistently intentional. Looking at my phone isn’t a moral failing, or a sign of some sort of contrived addiction, merely a natural part of living in this future of the 20th century. But I have noticed, for me, that it isn’t something I want to continue, and so I am putting this out into cyberspace as a way to mark the change I want to make. This feels like a hard thing to do, but as my sister frequently tells her daughters: “we can do hard things”. I can do hard things!