1 Week of No App Time Challenge: Results are in!

This week I decided to challenge myself to an entire week of NOT wasting time staring at, reading, or playing with apps on my phone. That meant no social media or YouTube scrolling. No Township, and no Cooking Fever.

The basic rules:

• I can still check email, use the phone for calling, and send and read text messages.
• No scrolling through my favorite apps or playing my go-to games.

The Goal of the No App Time Challenge was to see how much more I could accomplish during my day if I wasted less time using the apps on my phone.

I feel like I lose so much time every single day of my life on my phone. Truthfully, I am mortified by how much I use my phone. Rarely do I use it to call anyone. Instead, I have my go-to apps that I turn to like candy when I want to turn off from the work of life for a little while.

I was 100% positive I would get SO MUCH done this week by simply not having app time.

My storage room and basement play rooms desperately need to be sorted through, ever since the move. I figured this would free up some time to work on that.

So did it work? Were my results what I expected?

No. Ya’ll, no, not nearly!

Can you believe it?

I am here to tell you to feel less guilty about your phone apps because you cannot replace down time activities with manual labor, unless your body actually needs more active hours.

My body does not need more active hours. I am still in the crazy busy mom phase of life. My theory was always that as the boys get older and older, they will need me so much less that I will be able to accomplish so much more.

Ha! Well, that may be true, but we aren’t there yet. That whole theory did not work out exactly as planned.

Also, honestly, the week of no app time was hard to stick to.

Day 1 I stuck to no-app-time wholeheartedly. I did check Facebook, but I did so on my computer, which was allowed since I made up the rules myself.

Also, day one was amazing. I legitimately did get an amazing amount of work done. It was all my regular chores and cooking duties though, still no progress on the storage room.

What goes up must come down…..

On day 2, two of my four children were home with me. One was sick. There was only a half day of school, and they sent them all home without feeding them lunch. I hate it when they do that.

Plus, I was so tired from all that I had accomplished on day one, I had to take a nap on day two. Ha!

By day three, I was sneaking in app time all over place, with rationalizations, of course.

“After over sleeping, dealing with a repairman this morning, and getting all the boys to school in the rain, I don’t care what the rules are. I’m sitting down for a few minutes with my phone.”

Then I proceeded to stay on the sofa for an hour and read ALLLLLL the apps on my phone.

After that it was all down hill.

“Oh, well, I have to sit in a waiting room, so I’m allowed to play my game.”

Also by day three, I decided app time was still allowed right before bed.

So yeah, I did spend way less time on my phone, but here’s the thing. When you are tired, you have just finished a day of errands, the DMV, driving children around, and feeding everyone, you do NOT want to replace sit-down activities with cleaning out the storage room type activities. The human body does not work that way.

But surely there were positive effects of the No App Week Challenge. Right???

Yes. So many! I have several to share. These were the most obvious benefits.

Benefit #1: I realized I should be less hard on myself because really my life is so busy the phone isn’t even the problem.

As it turns out, I am not failing to get things done because I’m lazy and wasting time. No, that is not it after all. In reality, there is too much to do. I still can’t get to it all. Priorities. The storage room has not been my priority, and it still isn’t, most days.

Priorities are good. You know, taking care of my children is way more important than cleaning out the storage room, and that’s okay.

Benefit #2: I found more beneficial ways to spend my down time.

I finally got around to publishing a blog post I wrote a few weeks ago, and I worked on jotting notes down for this post all week long.

Work I do on my blogs earns me money. However, iPhone apps sometimes cost me money, so blog time is definitely better than app time.

Plus, I finally got around to reading a Better Homes and Garden magazine that had been sitting on my coffee table for weeks. The magazine was not all that helpful, but somehow reading sounds more noble than reading about the Kardashians in my news app.

I spent more time in the Bible too. That was immensely helpful and encouraging.

Benefit #3: Less time looking at a phone is better for your neck, your wrists, and your hands.

Benefit #4: Positive Self-esteem

Not only do I realize I need to be less hard on myself as I mentioned above, but also I feel good about what I have accomplished. It is still frustrating that I do not have time to do all things I want to do, but by golly, I now see that I do a LOT.

Everyday we do a lot!

I whole heartedly recommend the No-App- challenge to everyone.

Make up your own rules, and go for it. Find out where your time is really going, and if your problem is your phone or maybe something else.

For me, the problem is not my phone. Sometimes my problem is lack of motivation, and other times the problem is not even a “problem.” It is a busy, fulfilling life, that frankly I feel much better about now.

And maybe you will find some time for other relaxing activities that you enjoy. For me, it’s blogging. For you, it may be finally creating that t-shirt quilt. Who knows?

Try it out! Let me know in the comments how you cut back on your phone app/social media time.