Image via Kersh.ca

Let me begin by saying this: without technology, I would have no business. Technology has given me access to incredible customers, new friends, and of course, the resources I need to share what I do quickly, and (mostly) inexpensively. So I feel a little hypocritical typing this post at all, but it’s more important than ever. We have so little time to do everything we need to do, and even less to do the things we want to do, so why do we spend every waking moment glued to our phones?

I’m as guilty of this as the next person, just ask my husband. Our technology use is a regular topic of conversation in our house, and when I say “our,” I mostly mean “my.” And he’s right; I begin work at 5 am some days, and don’t end until evening. I’m working while I feed my daughter breakfast. I’m working while I do things around the house… it’s the nature of the beast, and I feel fortunate to be able to do a lot of my work from a tiny metal device with a few wires in it. It keeps me connected to my customers, my businesses, and naturally, social media.

But what I also do besides work all the time is never sleep. I often have a hard time falling asleep, which causes anxiety, and leads to even less sleep. My sleeplessness came to a head a few months ago, and I honestly felt completely run down and devoid of energy and motivation. That’s a horrible way to go through your day, especially when you’re chasing after a toddler.

One of the things I realized was that my constant social media use at night was keeping me up. Who needs to go to sleep thinking about what other people did with their days? Just the act of looking at my phone, even if I was just reading the news or playing a game was enough to get me thinking about all the things I didn’t finish and all the items I needed to add to my list. So I did a couple of things:

1. I stopped looking at my phone past 8pm. I’m not 100% with this rule; sometimes I have something work-related that has to get done, but for the most part, I try to put my phone away once I’ve done as much work as I can do, and save the social media-ing for the morning. I do my best work in the morning anyway, so there’s no point in trying to really accomplish much in the evening. It’s important to know yourself and know when you’re going to be most productive.
2. Put a notepad by the bed. My anxiety tends to ramp up right as I’m trying to go to sleep. A lot of times, that anxiety comes from remembering all the things I need to do the next day at the worst possible time. Since I don’t want to look at my phone, I keep a pen and notepad handy so I can jot down whatever I want to remember in the morning, because I know myself, and I know I won’t remember if I don’t.
3. I started meditating and listening to calming music. I was never the type of person who believed in meditation. Not that it couldn’t work for other people, but I just thought it sounded kind of… boring. And a waste of time. A friend of mine encouraged me to download Headspace, a meditation app that has become quite popular. The first 10 meditations are free, so I thought why not? Can’t hurt. And it helped more than I thought it would. Giving myself 10 minutes to focus on the guided meditation leader’s voice helped me to relax. And the most important thing I learned from it is that you’re going to have all kinds of thoughts, both positive and negative, but that’s all they are. We can’t give them too much power. Through meditation, I’ve learned to take a step back from any negative thought I’m having and identify it and move on. When anxiety creeps in, I almost hover above it and tell myself, “Okay, you’re having a negative thought. Let’s let that pass.” And without fail, it always does.

What are your tricks for unplugging and stepping away from the internet for a minute? I definitely need that time away from my phone, but do you?