There's a time and a space for mobile phones
Another perspective on finding the balance
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I was rather shocked when I proofread Emma’s piece last week on Can a journalist quit their smartphone? I knew that Emma checked her phone in bed in the morning as we’ve shared many a hotel room over the years. But I was surprised to hear just how attached she was to it in the evening. It actually made me feel quite positive about my own habits.
In our household everyone leaves their phone in the kitchen at night to charge. I would never dream of having my phone in the bedroom. It’s a massive no, no, on a par with never letting the dog or cat sleep on the bed 🤢 Call me old fashioned but I like to end the day falling asleep while reading a book (or Kindle). If I had my phone in the room I’d spend hours doom scrolling and then getting irritated at notifications vibrating in the night. When I stay at a hotel or go camping I turn my phone off at night - I just hate having it on in the same space as me overnight. I find it completely intrusive.
Most of this is probably due to the fact I have little self-control. Much like a packet of biscuits or a bottle of wine, if it’s there I’ll consume it.
Similarly in the evenings my phone is in the kitchen when I depart to the dining room for dinner or the living room for TV. On Saturday night I missed my best mate sending me a WhatsApp message to ask if I was watching Eurovision. We usually text each other our reactions throughout the song contest but I didn’t even bother to check my phone until everything was over.
That’s not to say that I don’t overuse my phone. In fact when Emma is in the living room at night on hers, chances are she is responding to messages and voice notes from me. During the week I do have a tendency to check my phone in the evening every time I pop into the kitchen or go to the loo. And this often means if something pops into my head I send a message straight away.
A better method would be to jot a reminder on the whiteboard in the kitchen and then message in the morning. If we all did this, then we wouldn’t feel the pressure to respond to everyone straight away. I know Emma and I are guilty of apologising to each other if we don’t respond to a WhatsApp message within 30 minutes. We are so used to instantaneous replies. No wonder we are always juggling so much at once, and more often than not dropping a few balls.
And of course it’s not just our phones. We can now view everything on our desktops and laptops (in the course of writing this newsletter I have checked WhatsApp Web, Yahoo! Mail, and Instagram all twice).
Like Emma I try to set a good example for my kids. There are certainly no phones allowed at the table and if we sit down to watch TV or a film together phones have to be out of sight.
The same goes when I am lecturing. I recently told off one of my students for continually using their phone during a guest lecture (no, they weren’t taking notes). I felt this was incredible rude and disrespectful, and told them to put it away. The student was not happy. They told me “you can’t speak to me like that” and walked out of the lesson after the guest lecturer had finished. They never came back and missed five weeks of teaching. Make of that, what you will…
I am however a complete hypocrite, as we probably all are. The first thing I do in the morning is check all my work emails and social media notifications. I do this while eating my breakfast at the table. My family used to berate me for this but have now accepted that it is “work”. I don’t however do this at the weekend if we are all sat down together for brekkie.
During my working day most of my social media apps are open on my desktop and I am continually checking them. But this tends to be notifications rather than scrolling. In this regard I think I need to be a bit more like Emma. I should actually use my phone or desktop for scanning the news and getting up to date with world affairs. But since I cover running (and I’m currently deep into writing another book) I tend to let the news find me as it’s usually not particularly timely. I would probably benefit from checking all the running news first thing in the morning but I’m too busy wasting my time on notifications.
One thing I am better at is switching things off when I need to concentrate. I’m a fan of the Pomodoro method which is 25 minutes of concentrated activity followed by a five minute break (to check socials or email). During those 25 minutes I do not look at anything other than the task in hand. With my recent book writing I have been going for longer stretches of time without a break. Usually I try to get to the end of the section before ‘rewarding’ myself with a check at notifications. Sometimes I can concentrate for 90 minutes and get a massive amount written.
All of this is to say that none of us have perfect habits and there are things that we could all be doing better. But having a few boundaries / techniques in place can help us to be more productive and less attached to our notifications.
We’d love to hear how you approach this? Do you have any handy tips?
Don’t forget our BONUS pod
If you’ve not listened already, we have recorded a special bonus episode about our new book ULTRA WOMEN: The Trailblazers Defying Sexism in Sport. Learn all about how we worked together, secured a publisher and the challenges of writing a book involving more than 70 interviews.
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Triumph of the week
Finally finishing a six-month investigation!
That feeling when
An editor has your back on a nonsense complaint.
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Bye for now!
I'm with you on reading myself to sleep.