Tech free, stress free??

I was having a little late night text chat with Natalie from hellocuppies the other night. Oh. That sounds rude. It wasn’t the kind of chat I have to hide from my husband 😂 just a fairly normal (as normal as we get) conversation. I’m not sure how, as I was probably a little bit drunk, but the conversation drifted towards technology, and how much we use social media. The answer to that is a lot. For both of us. We both run businesses and the success of those businesses rely, in some part, on social media.

However, I have come to realise that I am at the beck and call of my customers. I’m always on the end of the phone. I can never get away from work because it’s always in my pocket, waiting to vibrate or ping at me. I get messages at 2 in the morning asking if I’m free to make a cake in a months time, at midnight asking for a quote for next year, and they always wake me up. My phone is on my bedside table all night. Turned on and next to my head. I’ve always had that fear that some random member of my family is going to die over night and someone is going to have to call and tell me 😂 so I don’t turn it off. I may need to rethink this strategy because I’ve had a lot more cake orders in the middle of the night than I have had family members die…but for now, it’s there, constantly. Every minute of the day. Whilst I can take days to reply to messages from friends sometimes, when I customer messages I feel a huge need to reply immediately (even if sometimes I just want that reply to tell them to piss off and stop messaging me in the middle of the night 😂)

I also feel like I’m missing out while I’m on my phone. I’m not as bad as my husband, a bomb could literally go off next to his head while he’s browsing and he wouldn’t even notice. I’m certain that this is why the kids have a constant monologue of “mum mum mum mum ” rather than “dad dad dad dad” because he just doesn’t hear them. To me, those words are like nails down a blackboard and I can’t ignore them, no matter what I’m doing, but when I’m on my phone I miss seeing some of the funny little things they do when they think no ones looking.

When they want to tell tales on each other, or demand a snack, they let me know by screaming at me, and I hear that, but it’s the bits in between that I’ve been missing. When they’re bumbling about in their own little world and it makes your heart happy, you don’t see that when you’re staring at your phone, waiting for the next demand.

Phone free Sunday 😱

So, because of all this, I made a promise that I would have a technology free Sunday, and that I would try and inflict that upon every other member of my household too. That bit wouldn’t be easy, my husband is glued to his phone. He has 2, like some sort of middle aged, over weight gangsta, and he very rarely puts them down. If he’s not talking on them, he’s browsing eBay, watching videos of people crashing cars and bikes, or messaging people he likes to call his friends. They aren’t his friends, he hasn’t seen them for 30 years, and if it wasn’t for Facebook he wouldn’t give 2 shits that their dog had just had a cyst removed, their child had peed in a potty, or that they were having roast beef for dinner…

Anyway, I digress, the point is, I don’t think he would put his phone down for love not money. But sod him, I had a plan and I was bloody well going to do it.

I wake up at about 5 every morning, so I had a couple of hours updating everything I needed to and answering any messages, and then that was it. I put it away for the day. Out of sight, out of mind.

I spent time in the kitchen, making chicken wings and a fish pie (the parents were coming for dinner) with the boy. We got the cook books out rather than looking up recipes on Pinterest. We had conversations about other things we could cook out of the books. He sat and read them. We planned meals together. We played with the dog. I played shops and Lego with the kraken, I sat with my mum and had a proper conversation. Only about curtains, nothing life changing 😂 but I felt focussed and present, normally I’d be browsing Facebook or instagram while she talked to me, nodding and agreeing in hopefully the right places 😬 It was great. Truly great.

Also, I massively had the upper hand when I told the kids to put their tablets away, because I didn’t look like a huge hypocrite, staring at my phone while I tell them.

Would I do it again?

Absolutely! In fact, I’m going to do it every Sunday. I’ll reply to messages from friends or family, but that’s it. No work, no watching pointless videos on Facebook, no checking my engagement on Instagram. Just minimal phone use. Sunday is a family day, and when I’m sick of all of them, which will be by about 1pm, I can take the dog for a really long walk 😂 I won’t be hiding in my phone any more.

Of course, I’m not a cave woman, I’ll spend all of Saturday night typing posts and scheduling them to post throughout Sunday. I can’t let go completely 😂