Give Me A Break

I took a break this week.

A break from endless social media scrolling, checking email multiple times a day, and playing word games right before bed. Not that there is anything wrong with those things. I just felt like I was wasting a fair amount of time while complaining about not having enough time during the day.   

There may have been some procrastination involved. Procrastination is a hardwired habit for me. In school, I was the person who crammed for a test the night before. I take tests well so I almost always got away with it. I didn’t have as much luck trying to pull off a science experiment the night before. Luckily for me, you don’t have to complete a science experiment to graduate.

It’s not that I work better under pressure. It’s that pressure is sometimes the only thing that will get me off my butt to actually work.

I have an exam scheduled for November. It’s something I’ve been working towards for over a year. Kind of important. I set a goal to study for an hour a day, five days a week. I set that goal two months ago. Ask me how that’s going. Never mind, don't. I also have some goals I’ve set for myself that are out of my comfort zone. It’s easy to ignore the hard goals that no one knows about. You notice I’m still not sharing them.

Sleep is something I have procrastinated against as long as I can remember. There are deeper issues at play I’m sure but that’s at least another year of therapy, so we won’t get into that. Playing word games on my phone was at first a small distraction, then it was an annoying habit, and now it’s a big problem. Who would have thought that Wordle would become my biggest sleep challenge?

Procrastination aside, I just had some bad habits going on. So, I took a break.

My goals:

• No social media scrolling, aimless Google searches, or strolling through the Amazon aisles. Check Facebook for any direct messages once at the end of the day. Only use Amazon if we need to order something right away.

• Check emails once in the morning and once in the afternoon. Only open and respond to business and personal emails.

• No word games at night. I would do a guided meditation or use music to help me sleep.

• The break would last through the work week (Monday – Thursday).

Potential Problems:

My business is heavily dependent on social media. It doesn’t thrill me but it’s the world we live in. Almost everything can be done from a separate page without ever getting on the main feed. The time-wasting starts when I get on to answer a message then jump over to the feed and start scrolling. That can end up easily being 30 minutes down the drain. Heck, it takes that long just to read the latest rant on potholes.

Emails need to be checked. It’s a big part of my business. The problem is I get caught up in emails that don’t have to be answered or even read right away. Do I need to know that Asian Tiger Mosquitos are spreading in Europe? Maybe that one can wait a day or two.

Side note: Want to know a great time waster that on the surface seems like an efficient, good-for-your-business type of thing? Deleting emails. It’s so satisfying. Probably because I love throwing things away. I can get sucked into that abyss for hours. I have over 11,000 unread emails on one account. Not sure if that’s something to hang my head in shame over or brag about.

Alright. We have our goals, potential problems identified, and the plan is in place. We are on fire, over here!

Monday morning rolls around, I wake up and immediately reach for my phone. I put it down without opening it to check anything. So far so good.

Morning thoughts that made me want to reach for my phone:

What time did I schedule a post for today?

Did I get an email from the pest people?

When was the last time I had a period?

Did Joshua post a new video?

Did anyone respond to my last post?

Did I watch that ethics video yet?

What is that actor’s name?

Good grief. If you had asked me, I would have said I didn’t look at my phone for at least an hour after I woke up. Lies, all lies!

The rest of Monday went fairly well. It's a busy day for me. With not a lot of downtime I was able to ignore Facebook pretty easily. Emails were a little more difficult, but I kept to the schedule.

My biggest concern was bedtime. Would I just lay in bed for hours still trying to remember that actor’s name? I found a sleep meditation to listen to and gave it a go. It didn’t. Go, that is. I lay there for quite a while before I fell asleep and even then, it was not a restful night. I never did remember his name.

The remaining days were up and down. It would be interesting to know how many times I picked up the phone and then put it down. Or even how many times I thought about grabbing it to look up or check something. Although it was only four days, it was an eye-opening experiment.

Things I learned on my break:

• Even though I knew it was high, my random phone checking was surprisingly excessive.

• The most difficult times were mornings and evenings.

• Sleep is difficult no matter what, but I felt it did improve after a few days.

• I had more time and was much more productive overall.

• Having the world at your fingertips is addictive.

  
  

Now that I’m aware of how much time I was wasting will I continue?

To some degree. Taking an hour or two before the world intrudes in the morning is going to stay a priority. The bedtime routine with no games will continue. Not gonna lie, I missed scrolling on Facebook. I won’t give that up but maybe I’ll do that mainly in the evenings if I’m bored. Emails can still be checked at designated times and I may never delete them. I’ll set aside specific time to check out random emails that just look interesting. I will let you know what’s going on with that mosquito.

Until next time,

Alicia