In my September goals post, I mentioned that one of my goals was to scroll less and that I’d talk about it more soon. Well, here I am! So why a scroll less challenge? Because I scroll too much…lol… but more specifically, while I’m at my mom’s house.
Earlier this year, when I got my new iPhone, I set up different foci for different times of day so I’d have home screens with the apps I wanted when I was at home vs at work. I also set one up for when I’m at my mom’s house (most nights for dinner after work). I don’t want to be on apps like Instagram, Pinterest, or even my Kindle app when I’m supposed to be hanging out with her.
Where I was
Even though I set a focus to exclude these apps (among others) from my Home Screen during this time, I would still go into the App Library and open them that way. Then I wasn’t paying attention to things my mom was saying and I didn’t like how that felt when I had to ask her to repeat, or pretend I heard what she had said.
So then I set my phone to go into downtime starting at 6pm. But I was still overriding the app limits for the day (usually in 15 minute increments). I knew this had to stop.
Plan for September
My plan was that I was going to do a low scroll / scroll less challenge in September. That is, no overriding app limits while I’m with my mom. Ideally more than that, but at the very least, then.
My hope is that this will create a good foundational habit that I can extend past this month without it having to be a set goal or challenge. But if it needs more time to set in, I’m willing to do it for as long as I need to. I want to be better about being present.
How it’s going
So far, I feel like it’s going pretty well. During the first week I did scroll a bit before my phone went into downtime starting at 6pm. That is, if I got to my mom’s house and had time before dinner. Usually I don’t have much time before we eat, so it wasn’t a lot of scrolling. And then I did look at my email some after dinner (the Mail app is not included in my downtime app restriction).
I think this past week has been better. I tried to not look at my email too much, or at all. I have also tried to not use my blocked apps even once I’m home, including Kindle.
But what does Screen Time show?
My weekly average at the end of August was about 5 hours, with 20 total hours being on social apps, and reading was almost 6 total hours.
- During the first week, my daily average actually went up by 15 minutes, but my total social time dropped by an hour (reading was the same).
- Last week, my daily average was about the same. Total social time dropped another hour, but reading went up to almost 9 hours! Yikes! This was not while I was at my mom’s though…sometimes if I’m really into a book, I read during slow stretches at work, oops!
These numbers have me feeling like maybe it’s not going so well, huh? But I know that I’ve scrolled less while I’m at my mom’s house and that’s what this was all about.
That said, I think for the rest of the month, I am going to limit the email scrolling while I’m at my mom’s house. And even though it’s not part of the initial challenge scope, I think I’m going to limit my Kindle reading at work to just lunch, which is what I should be doing anyway!
All in all, even though I’m not thrilled with the picture the. numbers are painting, I’m considering this a success… I haven’t been perfect, but that’s not the point. And the Screen Time report is showing me everything when my focus has been a certain period of my day.
Have you ever done a challenge like this?
