The drastic steps I’m taking to get my time back from my phone

The first sentence is slow to appear. The longer I stare at the blank page, the more difficult it seems to narrow down the possibilities and begin to say anything. Writing is a labor, and an anxious one—maybe one that can wait a few minutes.

My hands begin to move toward my phone long before I decide to pick it up. It’s not that I really think I’ll find just the right inspiration on Twitter or Facebook. It’s that the phone is a soothing object, a comfort device—just a little more information, one more beautiful photo, a tiny emotional jolt, and I can put off for one more minute the long and dreadful task of writing.

Having your phone next to you while you’re working is like having a bowl of your favorite candy on your desk. It’s an environment designed to “privilege,” as ethicist James Williams says, “impulses over intentions.” Only instead of offering your taste buds a moment of sweetness, you’re tempting your brain with stimulation: the quickest, easiest, most rewarding escape from reality humankind has yet devised.

I turn the phone off altogether. Writing, like anything worth doing, requires a full and unmitigated immersion in reality.

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We’ve all heard rumors about the armies of engineers competing for space in our heads; but do I really take them seriously? Or would part of me rather refuse to believe that the red likes and friendly hearts are being doled out to me in the manner most likely to addict me? It’s much easier to believe the apps are simply designed to help me live a better life than to admit that they drive profits for others by monopolizing my time. After all, they make me feel so good.

I’m so deeply entrenched in my own stats and the outrage of the day that I lose track of how effectively I’m being prevented from accomplishing my true intentions. Stalking friends is easier than calling them. Learning new ideas about business is easier than actually maintaining a career. Waging battle in the comments section conveniently eats away the lunch hour when I was supposed to make the dreaded phone call to my senator.

At the end of the day, I’ve sat in my chair and imagined connecting with people and doing good in the world; but all I’ve really done is sit in my chair. And the longer I sit, the less satisfied I am. I’ve pinned thirty beautiful chocolate cake recipes, but the meditative measure of flour and the joyful clink of forks on plates are as far away as ever.

I don’t know why I hesitate to call this “sin.” Something, maybe the fear of sounding regressive, makes me feel like a TV preacher when I do. But it is certainly more than just a waste of time; even if I am just making myself less happy and more anxious, jealous, lonely, or benumbed, I’m living in lies. The evidence: researchers believe I may be making myself less clearheaded, emotionally intelligent, creative, and capable of extended attention.

And maybe it still sounds silly to imagine that God is concerned with my attachment to a little bird icon; but I do think God hopes I’ll pull my head out of the entertainment-box and engage with the neighborhood She made. I think God is concerned when I’ve lost track of where I am and what I care about; when I become ever more resistant to discomfort and surprise; when I no longer even know what I’m worshiping.

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Several years ago I started to live and breathe the word “intentional.” I didn’t want to get swept into a life pattern just because the path was well-worn. I questioned everything, researched alternatives, and ran experiments, trying to calibrate different aspects of my life to match up with my values. Every motion and every choice came under scrutiny. It was exhilarating—until it was exhausting. After months, maybe years of this, it slowly occurred to me that I did not have the capacity to reinvent everything all the time; and that often this impulse had more to do with a need for control than a desire to contribute.

Still, I think I’ll always carry the value of intentionality with me, if only to spite the many others—app developers, advertisers, political groups—who have their own crafty designs on my behavior. Only now I’m less interested in constantly examining my every action, and more interested in taking proactive steps to build my values into my life. I’m not playing defense throughout the day; I’m setting myself up for success on a bigger scale.

Most recently, I bought an alarm clock and started turning my phone off between 9 PM and noon. This, it turns out, is completely different from “making a rule for yourself” not to check it at certain hours. Just having to push a button and then wait 30 seconds to use the phone gives me a chance to actually decide when I want to have it on, and when I want to stick with my tech-free mornings. Now walking Miya, enjoying breakfast, listening in prayer, and writing come before the requests in my inbox and the nagging tug of social media. I feel more like I use my tools, and less like they use me.

Likewise, my farm share delivery helps me eat more organic vegetables. My calendar keeps my projects on track. And the process of writing a new devotional has invited me to be even more fully present with the everyday.

Bread, Sex, and Other Devotions: Making Friends with My Body and God really started years ago, with a bunch of theology readings about Jesus’s body. Maybe, the story went, God didn’t just put on blood and bone as a favor to us nasty, stupid creatures; maybe there’s something about the material universe that God loves—that God likes. Maybe following Jesus isn’t just about a hypothetical change in our hypothetical souls; maybe it’s about waking up to our own incarnation—our own enfleshment—and God’s presence with us right here and now.

Over the last several weeks I’ve been praying with my body and taking in more and more of this messy world to try and breathe out some glimpses of that Jesus-vision. This little book’s been plunked out over coffee, on my couch, and in between the steps of my pot roast recipe. It’s sent me running for my Bible and in places, taken shapes I didn’t expect.

Now that it’s almost here, I’m praying daily that it could be light and grace and surprise to you. If you’re trying to be more intentionally present or just looking for a bit of rest, these three weeks of meditations, scripture, and journaling questions could serve you well.

To change our habits, we need to replace a bad one with a good one, so if you’ve thought about skipping the morning scroll, I’d love for this book to meet you over coffee to talk about the practical ways we can more fully inhabit these dear, silly bodies of ours.

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Then maybe take a walk without your phone.