This is the Durable Dad Podcast . I'm your host , tommy Geary . This show is gonna give you the skills and tools you need to be a rock solid man for your work , your community and , most importantly , your family . All right , what's up ? Episode six zero . Durable Dad Podcast .
Just kind of settling into my chair , settling into the mic to talk to you , and what I want to talk about is our relationship with our phone . Last week it came up a few times .
I was talking to one guy and his son was in this school event and he was there and afterwards his son came up to him and was like , dad , you were on your phone half the time .
His son watched him be head down in his phone while he was at this school event and , in the words of the guy I was talking to , he was like that stung and I know that stinging feeling when your kid calls you out on something that you're ashamed of .
And later in the day another guy brought up his phone use and being on his phone too much and not being present with his family . So this is something I work on and I struggle with . So it's probably applicable to you and a lot of dads out there . These phones are amazing tools and they're a pain in the ass and they can suck us in .
So my goal is to not be reactionary to my phone , to not reach for it when I'm bored and to use it as a tool for productivity , for connecting to other people and not for mindlessly scrolling .
And the times that were really important to these guys or really important to me are the mornings and the evenings family time , wanting to be present there instead of checked out on the phone . So when I was talking to these guys , the first thing I noticed in both of them was the pressure they were putting on themselves . Like I need to figure this out .
I have to be able to do it , and we do this with a lot of our goals , right , the have to , the need to . I did an episode on this how to motivate yourself . It's episode number six . When we should ourselves , when we say we have to , when we say we need to , it creates pressure and pressure weight is not a good motivator . We want to get to .
I want to do this and to get there , what you want to do is dial in your why , and that's what we did in these sessions Like why do you want to change your phone habits .
And for one of these guys , his son recently got a Nintendo Switch and he wanted to be a good role model how to model a healthy use of technology , and I think that's a big why for us as dads . We want to teach them good habits and our phone is such an awesome opportunity .
Like the number one struggle with teens is their phone use and being on their phone too much , and it's tough to expect them to master their screen if we aren't doing it , if we aren't setting that example . If we can manage our screen time , it will impact how our kids relate to their screens . So that's one why that I think we all share .
Another why is that ? Both of the guys wanted to be more productive , and this totally lands with me . One of my first procrastinations when I'm working on a house project or I want to go work out is to go to my phone . If we can be better at managing our screen time , we'll be more productive . We'll be more creative .
One of the guys says my phone just sucks my creativity . Yeah , those two whys . I want to , because I want to be a good example . I want to because I want to be more productive and healthy . It's going to be more motivating , it's going to feel true and it's going to feel more exciting . Now , your phone isn't all bad . It's not all nasty .
It builds and maintains relationships . It's really easy to connect with friends and family . It's really easy to network for work . It also can be inspiring , it can be entertaining . There's funny shit out there .
My energy and the goal here is that we're becoming aware of how tech serves us and how we can use it as a tool and not let it control us , not become a slave to whatever the corporations and the apps are pushing to us .
So for me , I started with taking inventory of just all the apps I used , and mainly these were the ones that I communicate through , because that's the big thing that I get stuck at communicating to family , friends , colleagues , clients , like all these different people and looking at messages , slack , group me email , probably more .
And who do I communicate with in each of these apps ? And then , which ones do I want to prioritize ? Like part of me wishes , I could prioritize them all and I could get back to all of them right away , but that's getting in the way of my goal to be a good model for my kids , to be more productive .
Group text chain and talking about frozen pizza and sending pictures of the best frozen pizzas they've cooked because I do have a text chain called Pizza Party with some buddies . That's not something I want to prioritize , even though it's hilarious and I get a kick out of it .
That's one that I can wait and check before I go to bed or before I dive into work for the day , and that's kind of the next thing that I did . I dialed in when I don't want to be on my phone and when I want to hop on these other channels to communicate with everybody .
So at five o'clock I'm done with my phone until 8 pm when the girls go to bed , and 8 pm is not when the girls go to bed . Bedtime at our house is a beautiful chaos , but that's what we want to get clear on . We want to get clear on when you're doing what .
Because if it's six o'clock and I'm coloring with my daughter , I might get the urge to check my phone , and an urge is kind of like an itch . If you think about an itch on your arm , there's an urge there to scratch that itch and usually we can just scratch our itch and that's fine .
But what we're trying to do here with our phone is have the urge to check our phone and not scratch the itch , and this is sort of a meditation . It's being aware of your brain really wanting something and not mindlessly following our brain . When you want to go check your phone , your brain's going to be like check your phone , check your phone .
It's just going to be for a second . I just need to check that one message . I just need to check the weather weather and then I'll be done . It's going to feel very urgent and being able to allow that urge to be there and not respond is a pretty badass skill .
When Brendan and I were talking about this podcast , she gets so excited about this skill that she's like this is the skill of the century that will empower everybody .
And I get behind that Like I believe it's true too , and one of the guys when we were coaching on this , he was like I just feel kind of sad that I have to do this , that I have to put so much time into planning how I'm going to use my phone , and I get it Like it's tough to swallow that our human programming , how our brain works , has been taken
advantage of that . All these companies know how we operate internally so well that they're able to capitalize on it , and you don't want to let that happen , right ? It's the people that let social media that let mass marketing influence them , that let social media that let mass marketing influence them . And I'm not above this .
But I also really want to be aware of where I'm putting my attention and where I'm putting my time and energy and to not just follow the masses . You have to be really vigilant , especially about phone use .
So it might seem like a lot of effort to plan and put in and learn how to manage your urges around your phone usage , but you do it and the payoff is huge .
Being able to manage these urges wanting to check our phone , wanting to scratch that itch and not doing it , not answering that and putting our attention to what our priority is is the biggest part of having a different relationship with our phone , and there's a lot of things that you can do to set up your environment .
One of our friends is thinking about getting a house phone . I want to prioritize when Brenda calls , but when I put my phone upstairs in a drawer , I miss her calls a lot . I think a house phone is a pretty cool way to set up your environment , and now it's something that we're thinking about too .
One guy sets out a notepad for reminders because a lot of the times he'll go to his phone whenever he thinks of something he has to do the next day . I kind of do the same thing with the whiteboard that's on our fridge and get an alarm clock . Don't use your phone as an alarm clock .
Put your phone somewhere else , so when you wake up in the morning it's not the first thing that you look at . So the biggest thing is managing the urges , because you can set up your environment all you want , but you're going to have the urge to check your phone and start to breathe into those urges , acknowledge them and then maybe do something else .
Like one of the guys , he's going to do five pushups every time he feels the urge to go on his phone . Right , it aligns with the getting healthier . It keeps him aware that he's not checking his phone . All right , that's what I got for you guys today .
When we change the relationship with our phone , we're going to get to reap the benefits of this domino effect on our relationships , on our health , on our productivity . We knock out this bad habit and good habits will come from it . So you're not alone in the phone struggle .
There's good things about it and there's also things we want to change and hopefully this podcast gives you some tips , gives you some direction on how to change your relationship with your phone . That's what I got . Hope you guys have an awesome week and I'll catch you next time .