Digital Detox and Sensitivity: Finding Peace in the Digital Age | Sunday Ritual #3

Sunday Ritual # 3 – DIGITAL Detox

Welcome to week 3 of our Sunday Rituals series! 🥳

I hope you had a productive week and are ready for a well-deserved weekend break!

We are now in week 3 of our Sunday Rituals series and todays’ topic is an absolute game-changer when it comes to all the things we care so much about here at Sunday Journals – that is a less fast-paced lifestyle, more clarity and more productivity. How a digital detox can help!

Our ultimate goal?

Living a calm and cheerful life on our own terms.

I have found a digital detox 📴to be incredibly helpful when striving to get more disciplined and focused. It has also helped me reduce screen time massively in general.

Nodding YES to the following? ✅

• You reply back instantly to any messages you receive on your phone
• Your inbox is cluttered with newsletters, relevant and irrelevant e-mails and ads
• You compare your life to the allegedly “perfect” lives on Instagram and Co. and feel bad instantly
• You find yourself checking your phone by the minute, even if there is no notification
• You even take your phone to the bathroom to scroll social media
• You keep your phone on the dinner table while eating with family/friends
• You basically fall asleep with your phone in your hands and an open Instagram tab
• First thing in the morning is to check your phone

The more you nodded to these questions, the more this post about social media awareness is for you.

Social Media takes up SO much time and energy of our lives which is highly questionable.

Think about it like this. You got dreams. Big dreams that you would like to see happening rather sooner than later.

What do you need to achieve these dreams?

That’s right – discipline, focus and a clear mind.

Now, how does scrolling on social media for hours get us anywhere close to our goals?

Well, it doesn’t. It does not much for us but waste our precious time and make us feel insecure and worse than before.

Sure, it does have its fun sides and sometimes, we all need a good laugh and a short scroll to see the latest memes, but it should be a healthy balance.

“You become what you think about”, says Earl Nightingale in his amazing audio “The strangest secret”.

If you only think about and check out what other people, people you might not even know personally, are doing with their lives, how their holiday looks like and how good of a relationship they have with their partner, well, you become nothing more than a silent observer of the life of a stranger, admiring what they have and focusing on the thought that you do not have what they have (scarcity mindset).

But what if you used your energy to think about YOUR life? What if you focus on what you already have in your life (probably quite a few amazing things) and what you would love to manifest into your life (abundant mindset).

You BECOME what you THINK about.

So, I urge you to think about yourself first and foremost and the amazing future you can create for yourself.

You’d like to get to know some more inspirational resources, such as Earl Nightingale’s “The strangest secret”, for starting your self-growth journey? I created a FREE checklist for you with 6 incredibly valuable audio / reading essentials guaranteed to give you a head start into your journey! Sign up now and have it sent to your inbox right away! 💫✔️

How to get there?

By bringing your focus back to you. Away from the social media trap.

For this weeks’ Sunday Ritual, I will provide some actionable tips you can use right now.

We will also bring our focus inside and strive for clarity in our thoughts.

As always, I’d like you to get your journal and a pen ready as well as your favorite hot beverage! 😊

Make sure to have a calm environment, where nobody will disturb you for the next 2-3 hours.

Then, get comfortable and let’s get started!

For today’s bullet journaling, I’d like you to think about the following questions and jot down all the thoughts that come up during this session.

#1 Awareness

I want you to get aware of the time you spend daily on your phone and especially on your social media accounts.

Most of the phones have a tracker installed, so check it out and note it down. ⏱️

How many minutes a day do you spend on Instagram? How many on WhatsApp? 📞

Once you have a number in front of you, things start to get a bit clearer.

Write down this number and think about activities you could alternatively do in this time span. Write it down as well.

For example, if you spend 2 hours a day on Instagram, you could also use this time to:

• Read a self-growth book
• Listen to an inspiring podcast
• Clean your apartment
• Learn a language
• Get started on your business idea
• Take a course

The list is endless. And small things add up. Even if it’s just 30 minutes per day you spend on learning a new language, you will be 15 hours ahead of someone who instead can’t get their fingers off of social media.

So, getting aware of how much time you actually spend (or waste) on these platforms gives you a good indication on areas of improvement.

Timing and Mindfulness

Another important aspect of getting aware about your social media behavior is the timing of your scrolling.

Try to think about times during the day, when it is very likely that you will grab your phone and do a social media scroll.

• Is it as soon as you eat something?
• Is it during bathroom time?
• Whenever you are feeling bored?
• During your commute?
• While watching TV?

Think about it and write it down in your bullet journal.

Once you got clear on this, again, ask yourself the question what you could do instead.

As we are already talking about awareness – could you maybe try to live your life a little bit more mindful?

For example – if you keep scrolling your phone while eating, chances are pretty high that you do not eat mindfully, and you just gorge on your food without even realizing how incredibly good your meal might be. Focusing fully on your meal instead might open a whole new world for you!

You are scrolling while watching TV? Multi-tasking just doesn’t work – so decide upon ONE activity at once and go with it. Either watch TV or do a short social media session (emphasis on SHORT).

All in all, I want you to be more aware of when, how long and why you grab your phone. Is it really necessary or are you just doing it out of (bad) habit.

What could you do instead of these typical scrolling moments? Again, think about nice alternatives and write it down.

#2 Preparation Phase – Decluttering

Now, while social media definitely has its down parts, it for sure also has many things about it that are positive.

It let’s you stay connected to friends and family all around the world. It has incredibly valuable and informative content (if you follow the respective pages, that is). And it can, let’s be honest, be hilarious at times.

Who doesn’t love a good meme session we can send to our bff’s or bf’s? I for sure do! 😄

But, my friends, there is a BUT to this side of the story.

It’s all about the right dose. Too many memes a day won’t get you far in life.

And if you only follow meme pages and influencer who apparently have such a perfect life that it is basically impossible to keep up with, the dose is not really balanced nor inspiring.

Therefore, I’d invite you to step #2 in our digital detox ritual.

Clear your feed

For a clear mind and a laser focus on our goals, decluttering our spaces is essential and highly valuable.

And who says we can only declutter our home space? Probably no one haha.

So, let’s get into it.

Open your Instagram app (or facebook or whatever you want to start with) and declutter your list of people or pages you follow for good!

How to best do that

Now, for the next few minutes, you are “allowed” to spend some time on social media as it serves a very helpful purpose.

Scroll through your feed and get clear on profiles that are worth following. That might be profiles with the following aspects:

• They are inspirational to you and your purpose
• You love the content, and it makes you feel good about yourself
• The content motivates you to dream big and chase your dreams
• The content is either funny, inspiring, useful, heartwarming or informative

Do it. Unfollow.

If you stumble upon a profile that does NOT fit into one of the above bullet points, the profile is most likely not worth following and might even be a profile that, consciously or unconsciously, decreases your self-worth and confidence level.

This would be a profile worth UNFOLLOWING.

Scroll through your feed for a couple of minutes and decide quickly upon profiles to keep and profiles to unfollow.

Maybe you can even think about some profiles on top of your head, that always make you feel bad, angry, self-conscious, or sad. Visit the profile and unfollow.

Do this with all your social media accounts.

Don’t get lost in the process and distract yourself! The focus is on DECLUTTERING your profile, not scrolling for fun!!!

By decluttering your social media feed you automatically make space for the GOOD content in the WWW. And there for sure is plenty of it.

Another benefit? The time you now spend on social media AFTER you decluttered your feed is so much more valuable than before.

Your content consists only of inspiring, motivating or funny content.

This in turn will have a much more positive effect on you and your self-worth.

#3 Action Phase – Morning Routine

Tip number 3 in our Digital Detox Ritual is all about a productive and successful morning routine.

There is this one simple rule that will make a huge difference if you stick to it.

#1 Rule

DO NOT CHECK YOUR PHONE AT ALL BEFORE YOU HAVEN’T HAD A CALM AND PEACEFUL MORNING ROUTINE.

What that means:

• Other than turning off your alarm, you let your phone on silent and turn off all notifications (maybe even turn into flight mode). You can already do that the evening before – that way you won’t be distracted by any notifications that might have come in during the night.
• You do not take your phone anywhere; you just ignore it for the majority of your morning routine.

This will not only improve the quality of your morning routine, but it will also train your mind to loosen your dependence from your smartphone.

How to have a highly productive morning routine? Check out this article!

Social Media Detox

Once you got clear on these respective tips, you are good to go and try a first social media detox sequence.

This might be a couple of hours per day or maybe even a 3-day detox, for example during the weekend.

Try to avoid grabbing your phone as much as possible. There will be the urge to check your phone and scroll your feeds constantly, as you are so used to it.

Notice it, accept it but do NOT let it get to you. You know better by now.

A detox in this sense is really about training your mind and transform a bad habit into a good habit.

And as we all know, habit transformation or habit creation do take time.

So be patient with yourself and don’t be too strict about it either.

The goal is to get an awareness and to have your consumption under control and by that, get energy back for the real important stuff – our dreams! 🤗

I know you got this!

As always, I am rooting your you, my Sunday lover friend!

Let me know how it is going for you, I’d love to hear your story!

Talk to you soon,

Noni 💕