And then halfa looked at me and said to me, mummy, can you put your phone down? And hearing that from probably a six year old, if that doesn't wake you up, nothing will. And that was the day I decided I needed some rules because this is just not on. Hello guys, and welcome back to Stepping Up. I hope you are having an amazing day or night or whatever tom of day is that you're listening.
I feel like with this episode.
I look when I click on episodes or YouTube videos or anything to do with like phone and technology, I always feel a little bit judged, like low key feel a bit judged because I have no self control when it comes to technology because it's dopamine and it's nice
and I love to have a good scroll. So before we get into it, and obviously you can see by the title of this episode, it's like the rules that I live by with my phone because it honestly was ruining my life, my attention span, so many other things, even my mental health. So before we get into it, I want you to know this is a judge free zone. We listen, we don't judge here. And I made these rules because I love scrolling till it's two o'clock in the morning. Future me hates it, but I'm this person,
so this is not me preaching or whatever. Like you if some things that you love from this episode, you implement, go for it. But this is just there's no judgment here. Okay, there's no judgment. But I'm so excited to be back in your ears today because oh there's just so much been going on in my life as well. Like before I get into this episode, but you know, Harper recently turned ten, which is insane because she's ten and I
should still be twenty five but I'm not. But anyway, and it just goes so fast, and I know it sounds like so cliche, but it's hard to see them, you know, as I get older and how fast.
The time goes.
And then you tend to feel a lot of guilt because like for me, you know, obviously, like all of us, life's going so fast and before we know it, it's another year has gone. And you know, I had myself, I was questioning, like I was watching her just she's so clever and.
I just love her obviously, I love it so much.
She goes all right, you know, but it made me think, like have I been present enough? Have I been present enough as a mother in my own life? And again this does tie with the phone, because a lot of our time does go to that. But you know, I planned this really cool sleepover before. It was like a little pampa party. There's tps like you know, those cool pinterest looking things. So with our girls, we don't really like we don't really let them have like a big party every year.
Every year.
It's like they will have it for certain things. So when they turn five, they had a bit of a bigger one and then yes, so it was like double digits is a big deal. Guys, like it's double digits, so she needs to have it. She had to have a bit of a soiree, so that's why we let her have that. Otherwise it could be just like a park date. Although I'll have friends come over. But we don't tend to do yet big birthday parties every year,
that's just what we do. But for this I wanted to do a little bit special, so we had the little pampa party. They all got little eye masks. It was really really nice and of course she asked me if she could have a phone, to which I also said no.
So my girls.
I'm people a bit surprised by this, but I'm really strict with the girls in tech.
And it's not because I judge other people.
Like you know, if your kid watches YouTube and all the things every day, like that's awesome, Like you whatever works for you and your kid, you do that. But my girls, it's like the ipaddle like whatever, it turns it to crack, like they just they can't get off of it and it just changes their personality.
Love them dearly, but I just couldn't deal with it.
And I also like for me being I've been on social media for like over ten years now, and I know how much it really affects my mental health. So I'm like, it's the longer I can protect my kids from that. And just like you know, like the things that can be put on kids YouTube and stuff like, it doesn't always it's not always kid friendly. And I really believe that, you know, looking at the kids now these days, they didn't go through the awkward phase that
we did. Like we we didn't have TikTok tutorials to show us how to do makeup, like we wore mabeling moose and I had no eyebrows. I don't know how they came back, Like thank goodness for the eyebrow gods that they grew back, but you know, they need to do their time of looking awkward as well.
I don't think it's fair.
And I do believe like kids are acting older, like you know, you know, even kids younger than harp are like they want to wear skincare and stuff, which is cute, like yes, but it's like it just makes me a bit sad because I feel like for us growing up, you know, on TV, there was a certain channel like ABC where you know you tune in and heavy cartoons and that was like the kid time and then we'll.
Go back to the adult shows.
And as I say, there was like remember like the k Zone magazine and there's like kids magazine, and then there was like Dolly Doctor that really saved us a little bit as teenagers, and everything kind of was in their age group. But now because there's like YouTube and social media, there's no like everything's mixed together, so our kids are not like learning things that are knowing about things that maybe they shouldn't at their age, and that's what kind of worries me.
Anyway, Sorry, I digress.
So Harpa wanted a phone, said no again for the million of time, which is literally brings me on to today's episode.
Sometime.
I want to try and make this episode. I know I can talk a lot, so some of my episodes are about forty minutes, so let me know if you guys are happy with the length of it. I kind of just talk until I'm like, Okay, that's enough stuff. You need to put the mic away. So I want to try and make today's one a little bit snappier, but also it probably won't be. Let's be honest here, So today I want to talk about my phone and the weird little rules I have that really has helped
me with it. Because you know, I am going to hit you with some numbers first up, which are going to be a little bit confronting because it was for me as well. But I think this is going to help you maybe want to change a couple of things if you want to, Can you tell them my people please are please don't hate me.
So the average.
Person picks up their phone ninety six times a day, and I'm pretty sure mind for Instagram was more than that. Just saying that's once every ten minutes, you're awake. And we spend roughly four hour and a half hours on our phones a day, and that is over a year, that's sixty seven full day staring at a screen. And I can tell you right now my screen time it was double that, and it's still very high. So when you think about that in years, I've actually done this
on an old episode. I actually calculated that I'm pretty sure it took up like nearly half my life.
It was terrifying, if not more.
So, even if you want to like really scare yourself, go on your screen time and calculate if you keep continuing that over a year, how many days that is, and then over a lifetime.
That's a little wake up call for us.
And so there was a study from the University of Texas that found that having your phone on a desk, even face down and even turned off, reduces your cognitive capacity, which is your brain spending energy not looking at it. So it's like your phone just being in the vicinity is draining your brain just by being there because you're trying to actively not pick it up.
Like I can't tell you how many times, I don't know.
If this has probably happened to you guys, got my phone's diet, and I will forget it's died, and I'll try and look at it constantly, and I'm like, call it crap. I just it's such a habit that is just so ingrained in our brains. And obviously for people with ADHD, our brain's very low on dopamine and the phone gives us a really good dump of dopamine, so it's even more addictive. So this is why we're going to have these little rules. If that you like them,
take them on and see if they help. So it's no secret that I have ADHD and my brain has no off switch, and my phone is designed to exploit that. Like apps socials, they're literally designed to keep our attention, because attention is the biggest currency. It's the greatest currency, especially right now that businesses and that have so they want to keep us on the apps as long as possible. So when you realize that number one, you can stop blaming yourself and feeling like a piece of shit because
it's not your fault. It's the phone's fault because it likes it's literally they're using science to design these apps to keep it yes with dopamine, so we will not get off our phone. So I made rules, and this was because I started realizing over time how much my
phone was affecting my mental health. And there was one day in particular, this was a couple of years ago now pro aw years ago now, even where I was sitting on the couch scrolling on my phone and Harper was obviously trying to get my attention and I didn't even hear.
He did not even hear, which is sad. It was really freaking sad.
And then Harper looked at me and said to me, mummy, can you put your phone down? And hearing that from probably a six year old, if that doesn't wake you up, nothing will. And that was the day I decided I needed some rules because this is just not on.
And now when I.
Say these rules, like I some of these have changed, some of these are newer, and yes, I fall off with these like a fall off the bandwagon, even though there is no bandwagon.
I fall off with these.
But these are the rules that even if I am doing a few of these, it will It reduces my screen time so much, and it really does help my mental health because our brain, so when your phone dings or you see a notification, your brain actually thinks you're being chased by like a bear.
Like we have a quartersole spike.
You get the adrenaline rush, which kind of feels good, but our brain doesn't know that, like you're not actually in a stressful situation. So getting that constantly all day, think about what that's doing to us, even like our hormones. Like you, I actually don't want to know that what that would be doing to our hormones and things like that. So just have a little thing about how it's not only you know, distracting, but it also is you know, changing us at a chemical level as well. So rule
number one, this is about social media. Of course, social media lives on page three. So you know, with iPhones you can customize your home screen. So I had, you know, the very bar at the bottom you usually have text, phone call things like that. I had Instagram in that bar, so it was always there, so no matter what page
I was on, I could still act access Instagram. Now what I did because when I looked at my screen time I went to Instagram and it was like an offensive number of hours I was on Instagram, So I.
Was like, no, no, no, this is not on. So what I did again.
I talked about an episode before saying we'd systems that work for my ADHD brain, and one of the tips in there said, if anything is more than two steps, redesign it. I'm going to say the opposite when it comes to your phone, like, if it's less than two steps or three steps, increase the amount of steps. So this means it's not as accessible. I don't want it to always be on my home page because I will
click on the app. Like how many times do you go into your phone to do something and you end up just on TikTok or Instagram and you're like, I didn't even want to.
Be here, like this is not where I puck my car.
So what we do is we move your Instagram or social media apps especially, take it out of that bottom bar and put it on page three, because not only are you not able to access it as quickly, you have to actively unlock your phone and then scroll at least three times. I feel really cool, do it on page six if there is a page six on your phone. So the more steps, the more resistance, and the less likely you are to want to just go on there. And it's not going to become a habit. And a
really good thing to do. Like to do also with this is once your brain's used to it being on page three, move it, move it again, because it's going to like your brain will get used to going to that spot. So the more you can kind of mix it up, the better. And like in science they actually call this friction design. So research at Stanford's Technology Lab found that every additional step between you and an action reduces the chance you'll do it by twenty percent.
So bad for good habits. So we want to put your gym clothes out and all the things.
But for bad habits, let's put extra steps in the way, even if we have to put objects between me and like, bloody, what is it kmart? Let's put all these objects in the way so I don't go there anymore. So just increase your steps. Leads me onto my phone. Rule number two, which is gray scale mode after seven pm. Now, if you didn't know this, your phone can go into gray scale mode, which means it's essentially like a black and white television, which is really shit for our dopamine.
It's not very exciting.
You'd be surprised how much color and design our brain really likes.
That it's aesthetic. It makes it like very interesting.
That's why we do love, you know, social media, because we don't know what's next.
We don't know what.
Colors are going to be on the screen. And I love carousel posts on Instagram. I love the design. I love mixing up that stuff like it's really fun. So my brain loves that. So after seven PM, my phone will go into gray scale mode, which I'll tell you how to do it as well.
This is for iPhones though, so if you're on something else, I'm sorry.
Color is designed to keep you scrolling, and Instagram in grays scale is super boring. You don't get to see the cute outfits, like what color is her dress? What color is that cutevars she.
Got from Kmart?
I gotta stop talking about Kmart, you know what I mean. Like it's just not as excited. It's kind of like eating a cold piece of toast.
It sucks.
And the signs behind this is because color activates the ventral stratium anyway, I want to say that again. And there is science behind this because color rewards the part of our brain that is like the rewards center. So red notification badges specifically trigger urgency responses. So that's why when you think about like fire alarm, the notifications anything like they warning danger, our brain knows that that color is important and app designers know this as well.
So every color choice.
On your phone is super intentional again to keep your attention, and so grayscale disables the reward loop that you're getting, which is also going to be helpful because in a couple of hours you should be going to sleep technically, and this gray scale thing actually was studied and they said people that switched to grayscale reduced daily screen time by an average of thirty seven minutes without even trying, because the phone just became boring.
So even if you want to, you could do it.
If you really want to, just step this up a notch, turn your phone on grayscale all the time.
So how to set this up on your iPhone?
So you're gonna go to your settings, then go to accessibility and then accessibility Shortcut and then click on color filters. Then triple click your side button to toggle grayscale on and off. You can also automate it, so go into the shortcuts app and then go to automation time of day and then choose your time, so seven PM or whichever time you'd like, and then click.
Set color filters on.
And this is just going to make sure that you also don't have to remember to do it, which we know is not my forte, so put it on automatically. I even have a shortcut as well that turns my screen brightness right down. And I also have it on like the night mode thing, so it hasn't got the blue light because as we know, blue light makes your
brain think it's daytime. And that is why we can scroll two o'clock in the morning because our brain think it's in the middle of the day because we have this light blaring in our eyeballs into our Retta's keeping us awake. Now moving on it to rule number three is every alarm has a name. Now as you remember on the eight weird rule sorry, and as you guys remember from the eight Weird systems for my ADHD, this
is something similar that I talked about there. So every alarm has a name because because I need my phone to talk to me like a passive aggressive assistant, otherwise I'll be like why did I set this alarm? And as you guys know, I have alarms for starting the process of leaving for an appointment. So I'll have an alarm to say get dressed. I'll have an alarm to say eat, blah blah blah. Because when you think about it, if you just have an alarm for the appointment, you're
gonna be late. So for me, there's now or not now, and if it's not now, it's not my problem until it is now. I need to prep myself to get to the appointment. I need to maybe shower, I need to eat, I need to get dressed. So those are alarms that have names. So if we don't put names, like you kind of just want to be told what to do, you really do Like as humans, we need
to have the visual cues in our face. And this even comes down to labeling our alarms, so they will literally say things like wake up, actually, get up, shoes on, leave now, or you are late, Like it literally is very passive aggressive my phone. And this is why, like because of time blindness, which if you guys don't realize what that is, it's just like we like certain people don't have a great sense of time. I have no sense of time. So time blindness is tricky for everything
in our lives. And that's why we're late to everything.
Now.
Five minutes and five hours feel the same to me and to a lot of people with ADHD.
So research actually shows eighty HD.
Adults underestimate time by forty to sixty percent. I would say one hundred percent. But anyway, so if you think you have twenty minutes, you probably have eight. So Thatt's these alarms. Now, that's why unnamed alarms don't work, because seven point thirty means nothing to our brain.
I'm just like cool.
But if you so say you want to get up, like you need to get up early for something important, you need to label it like you don't wake up, you have to go to school pick up in twenty minutes or something like. It could be very long, or it could just be like this is why, because then you've got the reasoning behind it. It's not just wake up, it's wake up XYZN and then you will remember straight away why this is urgent and why this is important.
And we work really well under pressure. But if it's just an alarm that says six o'clock in the morning, there's no emotional tie. There's no pressure to that well for me anyway. So naming your alarms is key, and this also comes down to like alarms to stop working.
So for me school pick up, I'm in the zone, not always, but I'm in the zone.
And for me to like really have a hard stop, I kind of struggle because my alarm will go off and I'll still keep going. I want to finish what I'm doing, so I will set fifteen minutes to stop, but then I won't stop, So then I'll have another alarm to be like, Okay, you actually have to stop now. And that really does help because you when you were like pulled away from a task, it can take a little bit of time. But once I've got the backup alarm, that means I actually have to leave, so it really
really does help. The next rule is do not disturb is my default. So as you guys know, there's modes on your phone, so you do not disturb. You've got personal whatever you want, and I've got a few different modes, and when I say do not disturbs my default, I do mean the mode, but also the settings of my other modes and my focuses. So if you have an iPhone,
this is again for you. I'm so sorry for everyone else, but if you when you unlock your phone, and if you scroll down from the top, you will see a little toggle and it will say personal, work, Sleep And these are just the settings of your phone for that focus.
So for example, if I have my phone on work mode, I have a certain home screen that doesn't have all the apps and things as we know they're on page three, but I have a certain home screen that makes my emails more accessible, just apps that I use at work that is on my homescreen. Because you can change your home screen, you can change who you get notifications from, you can change like what notification badges you have so
tailored and it's awesome. So for example, for me, in my evening routine focus mode, even my brightness is down, there's only certain people that can contact me things like that, so do not disturb for me is on quite a lot, and for me.
It's it just helps me focus.
But also, you know, we tend to forget that their urgency is not your emergency. We are so contactable all the time, and we're actually not meant to be. We're meant to have our little village of people where we've got like what a couple hundred people, and we're not meant to have access to millions of really hot attractive humans on our Instagram to compare.
Ourselves to.
Also people that use lots of filters and stuff. So you know where I'm going with this. It is just not meant for us to always feel like we're on and we wonder why we're so stressed. So it also does come down to, you know, if you are trying to be present or you're just trying to yeah, be productive, even every time you get distracted, like science says, it takes us the twenty three minutes to refocus.
So like even for me, I get I get.
Very abnormally angry when I get you know, pulled out of a hyper focus motor from like you know, in the flow state, which means you're just able to just focus on one thing. And I don't mean to be like that, it's just because it's really hard for me to focus again, and it's hard for everyone twenty three minutes.
So think about it.
If you're trying to work, maybe you're in an open office space, and if you're getting like people asking questions or whatever, how many like twenty minute.
Blocks, it's going to take up of your day.
Like no wonder we're not able to get things done, so it comes down to that, but also being present, like when I'm with my kids, I don't want to be getting certain notifications.
And do you know what.
I actually turned off my email notifications off my phone years ago, and for me that was really scary because I was always like, but I am actually kind of not as good with emails now, but I was someone who would reply instantly, and you know, now that's fine. Maybe I could have my email notifications turned back on from like three or three point thirty, which is just another hack I'll talk to you about another time, about allocating windows of time to get back to people instead
of always being contactable. But the thing is too with the do not disturb mode, if someone calls you twice and it's actually an emergency, it will call, it will ring. So you can do all these different settings, but for me, I just felt like my anxiety was so much better when I had less notifications, so I have I literally went to my notification settings, turned all my notification settings off. This is on personal mode as well, and only turned back on certain ones. And that's going to lead to
my next rule as well. I delete all my apps and then I redownload them. So I am one of these people that like I'll go on the app store and I'll find all these cool apps and I'll download them, and then they like clutter my page. And this isn't really like, to be honest, this rule isn't really like for my mental health or anything.
It's just more so like, oh, I guess, so it's clutter. Clutter makes it anyway, it is what it is.
So if you're someone trying to cul your apps because you're like, man, you downloaded four different plant identify apps when your heaps into plants during lockdown, but you don't know which one you want to keep. The best thing you can do is delete all your apps. I know that sounds scary, and then you can redownload them for the ones you need to use, and then you actually realize what apps you're using. So that's going to help with your subscriptions. It's going to help with the clutter.
And you know, if you get bored, then instead of searching for a new app to fill the time, like that's your moment to put down the front and go do something else. And if you really struggle with like decisions like trying to cull apps is hard. So honestly, the best tip is delete all your apps and obviously except the kids' school ones and stuff, and then re download them as you need them, and then you have
like you can have a clean slate. And the thing is, too you can't be addicted to an app that's not there, you know what I mean. So even give it a go, like trying it, like an app that you know is like your kryptonite. Delete it and see how you go for a few days, and it's going to really help, like reset your brain to not go to that app all the time.
It's friction.
We want the friction here. And my last rule is my phone leaves in the drawer. Now I wish I could say this is all the time, but this is when I'm working, I'm eating dinner, I'm playing with the kids.
I used to have a hard rule which I.
Do want to bring back in is between the hours of five and seven, I used to put my phone in the drawer. So the reason I say you put your phone in the drawer, not face down, not on the table, because as we know that still takes up your mental energy, is because it creates a physical barrier. Like soon as you like, I just want you to try this at home. If you're at home right now, pop your phone in the drawer and close it, even
though you'll be listening to me. So maybe don't do that, and you actually just feel lighter instantly because there's an actual physical barrier between you. For me, like when I was trying to be with the kids, again, I have very little self control when it comes to technology, So me just having my phone on the bench when I'm trying
to be present with the kids, it wasn't enough. I needed it to be out of sight, out of mind, and also having that friction because I'd have to actually go and physically open the drawer to get to my phone. It wasn't just there. And I'm like, I would honestly always just say like, oh, just quickly check this, quickly check that, and it wouldn't be a quick check. I would then be back into scrolling because it's not that simple. So having that physical barrier and the extra steps is
what's really really going to help. So my little hack is choose your phone's parking spot, choose a draw in your house, and I do recommend don't choose like the junk.
Draw or a draw that's like really accessible.
I want you to pick like maybe the bottom drawer somewhere, like it could be another room or whatever, because that's really going to also add extra friction for you not to go grab your phone. And this even comes down to bedtime, which I will do another episode on this, but like charging your phone somewhere else at night time instead of next to your bed, and you will not scroll because for me, I don't have I don't have self control. If I plug it in next to my bed,
I want to be scrolling. You bet, I want to be scrolling cat videos past midnight. I need to have I'm a child. I need to parent myself here.
So having that.
Physical barrier will help people. Even buy phone jails on Amazon. You can get these phone jails. They're like a little container and you can set a timer and it won't open. But there's ones that will let you answer phone calls. I think it like lets you have the little swipe so you can answer a phone call. But that's also a really cool idea. So you don't need more willpower, you just need a draw. Anyways, this is not about hating your phone. I love my phone. It runs by
businesses I wouldn't be here without my phone. But you know, HD brain, anyone's brain, a human brain plus a smartphone is just a bad combo. Your phone's designed for addiction. Our brain is wide to want dopamine. Our phone delivers dopamine on a golden platter. So it's not our fault. It's the tech designer's fault. So just remember your phone is a tool.
At the end of the day. It's meant to be a tool. It's not really. It was never meant for entertainment.
It was meant to be able to contact people, and now it is much more than a tool. But make it work for you, not against you. Albert Love if you guys would, if you are using any of these tips, please take a photo tag us on Instagram, and please tell a friend about this episode in this podcast. If it helps you, I feel like it would help them too, And please subscribe and I will be back in your ears next Monday.
Bye.