Can you identify with any of the following situations?

• You’re walking between classes and somehow your feet know exactly where to turn without you having to pay attention, so you spend your walk responding to texts, scrolling through Instagram, or checking emails.
• Your Apple Watch won’t stop buzzing with notifications, but after you silence it, you’re overwhelmed to find the number of notifications waiting for you when you finally check your phone again.
• You set a time limit to finishing the rest of your homework, but then you become frustrated or annoyed when you aren’t done all the problems by the time you said you’d be.
• Thanks to the trash trucks outside your window, you wake up at night and look at the clock, realizing it’s 5:30 AM. You start to stress about all the sleep you’re losing by being awake at such an hour, but then you’re too anxious to fall back into a quality REM cycle before the alarm goes off at 7.
• You feel as though your lack of productivity makes you less efficient and therefore less successful in your day than if you had managed to check all the boxes on your daily to-do list, even if the boxes you left unchecked aren’t even urgent.

I’m not sure about you all, but I’ve experienced each of these situations in the past 48 hours alone. Lately I’ve been feeling like my phone and the time have more control over my habits and my emotions than I do, and it’s been incredibly anxiety-inducing. Just yesterday, as I walked through campus between classes, I took note of the amount of people with their heads buried in their phones. Comically, it even became easier to count those who weren’t included in this group, until I had the uncomfortable realization that, more frequently and more recently than I’d like to admit, I myself have been a member of the phone group, unaware of both myself and my surroundings on my walk between buildings.

To give further context, I also feel it is worth mentioning that I choose to practice what a close friend calls “digital minimalism”; I don’t have a very extensive digital footprint, and I keep all of my social media (which is really just Instagram) only on my laptop. So, the realization of how much I’ve felt glued to my phone lately — especially despite not having the distraction of social media at my fingertips — has been unsettling and unpleasant, and accompanied by a growing habit of feeling the excessive compulsion to check the time of day (God forbid I show up to class a few minutes late or leave someone on read…), this realization was enough to convince me that it was time to revert to one of my old high school anxiety-management exercises: a no-phone day.

So, from the time I went to bed on Tuesday night to when I woke up on Thursday morning, I left my phone turned off on the corner of my desk. More than that, I also removed my watch, covered the clock on my dorm microwave with three layers of sticky notes, and taped over the date/time display on my laptop. For the entirety of our snow day, I had no perception of time and no contact with my phone. And here were my biggest takeaways:

1. Constant interaction with my phone is a great way to stay in touch with my friends from home, but it’s also incredibly taxing. There were multiple times when I would think of something funny to tell them about or feel the urge to send them a picture of a snowman I made, but those things were no less funny or meaningful when I told them about my snow day activities a day later. What was more notable was the liberation I felt from not having my Fitbit buzz incessantly with notifications from the group chat. I was able to stay more focused on my day’s activities, and I even found myself knocking on the doors of some neighbors I hadn’t talked to in a while for some company.
2. I’m much more efficient in completing a task when I’m not wasting time and focus constantly checking the clock during the process. Who would have guessed?
3. I’ve definitely been letting the time play a large role in controlling my activities — how often I eat, when I shower, how long I spend on something. But when you don’t have a perception of what time it is or how long you’ve been doing the same task, you tend to pay more attention to what your body is actually telling you. “Do I need to take a stretch break from reading this textbook? Am I hungry for dinner yet? Do I feel like walking the extra distance to the IM today, or just running at the White Building instead?” All of these thoughts were far more in-tune with my physical, mental, and emotional needs than usual, and it was startling to realize how much freer I felt to choose when and for what duration I did things throughout the course of the day.

All of this is a long-winded way of communicating that my no-phone day was incredibly successful in helping me draw back and re-examine my phone and time habits. If I had to summarize my experience concisely, I’d probably relay that my phone-free snow day reminded me that time and technology are things to notice, not to consult. And for those who are intrigued by the idea of a no-phone day, I highly encourage you to try it out. Tell your people your plan on the night before and provide an emergency contact number to one or two who are most important (I gave my roommate’s number to my mom in case of emergency). From there, the day is up to you! If you’re interested in more ways to reduce your technology and clock interaction, I’ll leave you with a list of additional actions I took or resolutions I’ve made regarding the subject:

• Cover the clocks! Simple sticky notes will do.
• Set work timers, but use them as “breaks” rather than “deadlines”. See how much progress you’ve made, but don’t be mad at yourself for accomplishing less than you intended.
• Zip your phone into your backpack while you walk between classes. Notice the world around you and be grateful for the time you’re spending outside in the fresh air.
• Set up a focus mode on your phone with only music and notes. Use it as a detox when you can’t take a whole day off from your messages and notifications.
• Go on phone-free walks with a friend, or leave the phone in the dorm when you go to the dining hall.
• Set a time or frequency to check messages or social media throughout the day, and stick with it!
• Remind yourself that your self-worth is not determined by your productivity during the day.

I hope this post was able to leave you with some food for thought, and until next week, I wish you all well!