If You Want To Be Happy, Stop Checking Your Phone.

The many benefits of living notification-free

Let’s be real, who isn’t addicted to checking their phone?

The habit is practically impossible to break due to the fact that there are so many good excuses for it.

What if you miss an important email or upset a friend by not responding to their message in a time of need?

Even worse, the habit’s execution is so simple that we don’t even have to think before our phone somehow ends up in our hands.

But this habit has consequences, and big ones too.

Want to Do Anything Impactful?

Good luck! If you’re seeking to make quality work but have no boundaries when it comes to your phone, you may as well give up.

Your efforts will be fruitless. Trust me.

It takes at least 10–15 minutes of focused attention to get into the flow state.

If you don’t know what the flow state is, it’s where every piece of quality work you’ve ever made came from.

The flow state places your brain into transient hypofrontality, a condition where your consciousness disappears, placing you in a state free from worries, pain, stress, and environmental distractions.

The flow state allows you to reach a level of awareness, intuition, and creativity that is simply unreachable any other way, hence why we are only able to do our best work in the flow state.

(For more on the flow state, read the article I wrote about it below!)

Want Consistency?

Your phone may be your biggest obstacle.

Checking your phone dilutes your sense of progress because instead of focusing on your personal progress, it makes you focus on external things like what other people think of you, if other people are texting you, and if other people are liking your content.

How can you ever feel satisfied with yourself when you allow what’s on your phone to play a role in your satisfaction?

How can you ever feel stable and consistent happiness when you’re constantly basing your happiness on something as unpredictable as notifications?

You can’t.

The Solution:

Make notifications something that you schedule into your day, not something that schedules your day.

My suggestion? Come up with 3–5 designated times throughout the day when you will check your phone.

This plan is simple, easy to execute, and allows you to control your notification-free lifestyle in a way that still works with your job or social life.

Usually get work-related emails or messages at 8:00 AM? Put that as one of your designated phone-check times.

Having up to five different times when you can check your phone eliminates any excuse you may come up with for not using this plan.

For this plan to work, be sure that you actually decide on the times that you will check your phone. Do not improvise and check your phone at five random times throughout the day; this takes all the effectiveness out of the plan.

If you know that the times when you’ll need to check your phone may vary from day to day, just change your 3–5 designated phone-check times the night before.

There is no need to scrap the plan at any point in time.

Despite what your dopamine-addicted mind may try to tell you, you do not need to check your phone whenever you get the urge.

Won’t I Lose My Text Conversations?

Yes. You undoubtedly will.

But why have text conversations with people every day when you could just schedule a time to speak to them in person?

Studies have repeatedly shown that communication through text provides only a fraction of the benefits that face-to-face communication does.

If the people you text on a daily basis really don’t want to lose their connection with you, they will find a way to meet with you in person.

I promise.

My relationships have strengthened like never before ever since I’ve toned down the texting and increased the amount of in-person communication.

Both you and them will appreciate it— trust me.

And Don’t Worry About What People Will Think.

People who truly care about you and value you will be happy for you when you tell them about your goal to check your phone less.

Let me repeat that again: no one who actually values you as a person will be upset that you’re taking a step away from your phone.

Of course, communicate your plan with those important to you so that they know why you will be responding to messages less frequently.

But if you lose communication with a few people due to your new lifestyle, they were never meant to be in your life long-term anyway.

If you ever feel as if you risk losing someone by making a change that will help you grow as a person, let them go.

The hardest part of any changes I have made in my life has always been the impacts those changes have on my friendships and relationships. I’ve lost many people as I’ve grown, even those who I thought would be there forever.

But as those people went out the door, better people took their place every time, people who I could connect to on an even deeper level and who shared my passion for life.

Don’t fear change, fear staying in the same place for too long.