Put That Down!

How many times do you look at your phone or tablet a day? Any other electronic device? We all probably spend too much time on our phones and/or tablets. I know, I know; you are checking your email, messages, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, etc. Are any of these truly that important that you need to be looking at them at that particular moment?

I am pretty sure many others have written posts about this, but we need to take a break from technology more often than we think. We spend countless hours on our phones and/or tablets and it’s not necessary. You can easily get sucked up into the internet world or all the apps on your device. You quickly go on Facebook because someone sent you a message, but next thing you know an hour has gone by. Or you log into Pinterest, see a pin you like and pin it; and then another, and another and so forth. Before you know it, again another hour has gone by. You have just wasted 2 hours of your day. You can do so many things in those 2 hours!

Here are some things that I know I could/would do:

You could spend this time doing anything you want to do! Read a book. Catch up with friends, yes, talk. Call them. Remember when all we had was the telephone? It was exciting just to get a call from your friends.

You could get some chores done around your house. It doesn’t have to be anything big, but if you felt like something was a bit of a mess you could clean it up. I bet it wouldn’t take too much time.

Spend some time with your family! Get out and go on a family walk or a hike. Talk with each other. Watch a movie or television together. Do those house projects you keep talking about.

Play boards games! Remember when you would spend countless hours playing Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit or Yahtzee? (At least that’s what I was playing). I loved playing board games especially when I wasn’t playing outside.

Take a drive and discover new areas of where you live. Or in the surrounding areas.

Pick up a new hobby. Is there something that you have always been interested in doing? Maybe now is the time to try it out.

I, personally, know that I spend too much time on my phone. I try to rationalize with myself that I’m just doing it to be more productive (i.e. put my grocery list together), but when it starts that way and ends up another, I know that I got carried away.

I am promising myself to spend less time on my iPhone/iPad and be in the moment. Try it with me!