Texas Deb and the iPhone Detox Part I

I’ve had lots of starts, restarts and do-overs this year and it’s only February.  Nevertheless, this blog entry is also a restart.  When this year started, in all its shiny newness I had some real goals, hopes and dreams.  I think we all did.  The thing is winter gets a hold of me; depresses the snot out of me with its dreary weather and lack of vitamin D.  I’m sluggish and slow and while I can visualize where I want to be and what I want to do I seem to be moving at the speed of an elderly sloth. 

Last week I talked with a dear friend of mine about quitting the time wasters in our lives for a week and being more intentional with our time.  The biggest time waster being our smartphones and social media.  I’ve found myself picking up my phone countless times for no good reason other than to scroll Facebook sometimes only mere seconds since the last time I picked it up and scrolled. 

My questions are these:  What if I only used my phone for things that are needed for day to day living and to take care of my family and for the rest of the time left the thing idle and alone? 

Would it miss me? 

Would I miss it?  Will the sky fall?  Will the earth’s orbit come to a screeching halt?  I mean, I spent 28 of years of my life without an iPhone in the age of flip phones and Mapscos.  You remember when we didn’t have google maps?!

How much more would I get done?  Would I feel less anxious?  Less depressed?  More satisfied with my day? 

Would other time wasters and bad habits come to light if putting down the phone gave me the peace of mind to objectively look at my day? 

Now, I had meant to do this last week.  I’d delete the Facebook app from my phone as well as Instagram and Pinterest.  I’d only use my phone for things a phone is supposed to do like call people and other necessities like pay bills or check emails under certain stipulations.  I think however, my current volume of phone usage contributed to me not actually meeting that goal either.  I think I have a problem. 

What I’d like to share is one, I must shamefully admit that I am an iPhone addict.  I didn’t really think I was.  I hate to think that I’m one of those people who doesn’t put down her phone, ever.  The person that rarely makes eye contact because they’re staring at a screen.  I think I am, though. 

I was at an employee orientation with a bunch of people who didn’t know each other a few months ago.  During lunch I sat down in a circle of 5 chairs and looked around the room.  Every single person, sitting or standing in that room was staring at their phone.  Every.  Single.  Person.  There were about 25 people in that room. 

This last week handed me a great deal of stress and inconvenience and my response was to lean on my old crutch buddy, my friend, the iPhone. 

It was a stressful week because I worked a three day stretch of twelve-hour shifts.  I know I’m not the only person to do this and it could be argued that it’s not a really big deal, but the thing is it tired me out.  Three full days of taking care of other people only to stop and begin a week of taking care of my own little people, where I belong. 

On Tuesday, while I was trying to take care of the laundry back up our toilets began to bubble, and flood and our tub and shower begin to back up from the drain in what can only be described as an apocalyptic event.  It seemed the house had been possessed. 

Opting for a plumber rather than an exorcist we were able to get the problem sorted by the end of the day and with the help of in laws and husband it was much less painful that it couldn’t been.  I did have to clean out sewage back up from our bathing areas, but it got done and thank the good Lord for bleach. 

The thing is, I wasn’t feeling well this whole time.  Neither was my daughter.  Wednesday I spent the day taking her to the doctor, again the inconvenience was lessened by family, but it was still another day in a string of days that wasn’t normal or usual nor did it have any type of our usual routine in it.  We hadn’t had a routine for days.  I felt even more bogged down and overwhelmed than usual. 

Stress.  Stress and that sense that I had so much to do and that I was a complete failure for getting it done. 

I want to know, and I’m serious about this, how much this silly contraption is affecting my mental health. 

Here it is a week and a half later and there have been countless bumps in the road and the truth is I’m not handling them very well.  I want to know if I cut the screen out of my life for a while if things get better.  For the next week, from this Wednesday to next I’m limiting my phone usage to only things that are NEEDED.  I’ll delete the social media and limit my screen time period to writing, family movie night and 20 minutes of bill paying or email checking.  I’ll text my husband and sister and anyone else that I need to conveniently communicate with but not during time when I need to be present. 

There’s a lot of research being done right now on the effect of screen time in young children as well as adults.  We know it’s bad for us, but I want to know how bad and how that looks in my life; for me as an individual. 

My hope is that I can be more intentional with my time, do things I really enjoy, have the mental capacity to concentrate on taking care of my family and all the prep that’s involved in staying organized and preventing disaster. 

That basically sums it up.  There are a lot of things I WANT to do with my time that help me to destress and focus on important things and there are a lot of things I SHOULD be doing in order to make our household run smoother so we can enjoy this season of our lives. 

I’ll be blogging every day about how it’s going and if you’re up to it, I challenge you to do the same with your smart phone for the next 7 days and comment!

See ya’ll tomorrow!

Love,

Texas Deb

PS. I will be keeping track of the blog and comments through my website and only for a limited time during the day. I’ll check twice, and spend no more than 10 minutes.