Now, before you start reading this I want you to guess how many times a day you use your cell-phone to check something.
Okay, got a number?
A study done by Kleiner Perkins on internet trends in 2013 revealed that most cell-phone users check their phone 150 times a day. One-hundred and fifty times a day!
If you’re part of the majority that check your phone first thing in the morning and throughout the day until you go to bed, let’s say from 7 am to 10 pm, you are checking your phone ten times per hour.
Okay, so let’s do the math again. 10 times per hour! That’s every 6 minutes. That’s just plain insane, even if you batch those “check my phone” times. Talk about a major distraction slowing you down from getting stuff done!
Now, of course, some of this is responding to a text, phone call or other, but we all know a lot of that “checking” goes to things like Facebook, notifications, and emails. And when you’re constantly scattered between checking your phone and doing other things, you’re not fully focused on either thing that you are trying to do.
It’s no wonder most people are always running behind not getting either work or personal tasks done. The time is squandered on distractions.
Considering the study was done in 2013 I wouldn’t be surprised if the numbers are a lot higher now with Snapchat and Instagram skyrocketing in popularity. Not to mention other social media platforms like Pinterest, Twitter and Periscope. Which all are huge time suckers.
I know how easy it is to get sucked into the black hole of “checking” your cellphone. An hour later you are still on your phone, usually floating in the black hole of Facebook or some other social media, only to realize you got nothing accomplished.
When you have things you need to get done, you either need to develop huge discipline and not touch the phone or use tricks like turning your phone off, turning it to airplane mode, deleting certain apps like social media or sticking it in the freezer. The latter isn’t exactly the ideal place for a phone so if the addiction to your phone is too high, making it harder to check the things that suck you in, is the way to go.
Now, if you want to go cold turkey leave your phone at home all day while you go to the office. It’s a great way to shock your addicted system. If your risk having a heart attack at the mere thought of being separated from your phone, then start slow by deleting apps that you have a hard time staying away from, like the Facebook app or create a screen saver that says “Do you really need to check your phone?”
Now, since you can still feed your addiction via a computer (or tablet) it’s easy to cheat so if you still can’t stay away you can install apps that limit your use such as StayFocusd, Self-Control, Freedom or Anti-Social that will shut down or block certain websites after a set amount of time.
Time is something we can never create more of. Ask yourself, do you really want to waste it checking your cell-phone all the time?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this so let’s start a conversation. You can leave a comment below. Then get off the computer or phone and go get some stuff done!
