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The author was surprised by what she was able to accomplish after cutting herself off from technology for one hour each night.
- I quit three of my worst nighttime tech habits -using social media, watching TV, and wasting time on my phone before going to bed - for one week.
- Knowing my tech time had a cutoff, I became more intentional with the time I did have access.
- While Netflix and Instagram couldn't bait me, I found that going even just one hour without texting proved too difficult, and I failed repeatedly.
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Every night, I have an idea of what I want to accomplish before bed.
But just as often, I find myself slipping into the quicksand that is the internet.
So when my editor asked me to put a cap on it by cutting out all social media, TV, and phone time an hour before bed as part of a productivity experiment, I jumped at the chance.
The idea of being bored for an hour sounded great. Tasks like doing the dishes, writing more, and packing lunch for work would all seem more appealing once I ceased any real entertainment. I had the pre-diet giddiness of someone trying the new Keto cleanse - I'm going to be so much better this time.
Read more: I saved $5,500 in 1 year by making these 5 small changes to my daily routine
Plus, this would be a piece of cake. If you're reading this, you're probably like me - a self-improvement fiend who never met a seven-day challenge I didn't like. Compared to quitting the trend of fast fashion or a months-long running streak, would this really be that bad? If anything, I worried that an hour wouldn't be enough to see a difference and I wouldn't have anything to report. Who wants to read about a null hypothesis?
This is probably a good time to say I failed on the first day.
Let's get into it.
