Distracted - #1

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Ok here goes…

Exactly one week ago when I decided I was going to write, I went to bed with thoughts flying through my head. I mean, my head was just swimming with random thoughts. Now most nights I do go to bed with things on my mind, but I tune them out. Do you know how I do that? I pick up my phone and start by opening up Facebook to see what everyone else is doing. If that is boring enough, I will go to sleep. If not, I will move on to Instagram. Then sometimes Pinterest. Then I will look for a game to play until I am propping my eyes open with toothpicks. 

As I was scrolling through my Facebook feed, I heard a very loud thought. It said,

 “Alicia, STOP! It is okay to just fall asleep. You don’t have to be doing something. God created you to rest. It is okay to rest. That includes resting your mind.”

At that point, I laid my phone down and started praying. Then I heard another loud thought telling me that I needed to focus on getting rid of my distractions and that was going to be my writing venture.

So right then and there I committed to God that I would do this. My intent was to start first thing in the morning. I was going to log my phone usage. My beloved iphone is a huge distraction for me.  Here is the funny thing.  At one point in my life, I was anti smart phone. I was anti texting. I was anti most small electronics. In fact, if you tried to contact me, prior to my iphone, I probably didn’t have a clue where my phone was. We got our first smart phones in fall of 2009. We got blackberries. I didn’t really use mine as it was intended. It was a fancy way to text and I actually started texting a little bit more. I used my blackberry for texting, phone calls, Facebook and emailing. It still wasn’t a really big distraction. Fast forward to Valentines 2011. We upgraded to our iphones. I think Chris and I ignored each other for at least a week while we perfected the apps on our phones, played games, and put our lives on our iphones. We actually joke about it. Thankfully we got them at the same time.

 

Now I don’t think iphones are inherently bad. They are actually pretty nifty little things. I take way more pictures of my children because of it. I mean it is always right there by  my side and they are always being cute.  I rarely forget an appointment now because we have synced all of our information into our lovely color coded calendar – complete with reminders. And let’s be honest - it is nice to have google at your fingertips, especially with Harrison Holbrook as your child. That child is always asking questions that I don’t know how to answer. It does indeed have many good functions. But if I can’t go to sleep at night because I’m aimlessly playing on my phone when I should be trying to fall asleep, we’ve got a problem. A big problem.

Friends, I don’t want my children to have memories of a mother looking at her phone all day long. I don’t want my husband to feel like my phone is more important than what he has to tell me. I don’t want my friends to feel like all of my texts and phone notifications are more important than the time I’m spending with them.  I don’t want my phone replacing real face-to-face memories with the people whom I love the most.

I’ve been trying to keep track of my phone usage over the past week. I’ve also tried to make a point to not use it during meal times and to be more present when I’m spending time with my family.

I will leave you with some questions.

1.  How much time do you spend using your phone each day? (I’m sure there is an  app for it –haha!)

 2. How much of that time that you spend on your phone could you be doing something more fulfilling?

3. How much time do you spend on your phone when you could/should be resting?

Here are some challenges.

1.     Put your phone down at all meal times, even if you are alone.

2.     When you feel tempted to pick up your phone for idle down time, do something else instead.  (play with your child,  pet your dog, knit, crochet, read, journal, sit outside, exercise, etc)

3.     Block out a certain time of your day to respond to emails or to play on your phone. If you are not in that window of time, don’t grab it.

4.     Don’t take your phone to bed with you. (I actually use mine as an alarm, so I will be putting my on my nightstand.)

5.     Utilize the “Do Not Disturb” feature on your iphone. It can be found under settings.

6.     Turn off notifications that are not imperative. (Games, social media, etc).

7.     Put your phone away when you are visiting with another person. Give them your full attention. 

Peace out, friends. May you have a day full of life and memories. 

Distracted - Introduction

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I know that God has called me to write. I’ve been feeling it now for months. I ran from it for a bit, like I tend to do. I’m a runner. It’s okay. I’ll own it. I told Him that I wasn’t qualified. I don’t really write that well. I don’t have the proper credentials to write anything worth reading. My blog is just a hobby. Not that many people read my blog. I’m too busy. There is no way I am going to do more than blog once a month. But He told me to do it anyway. I guess you could say that I am sort of like Moses telling God that I’m not qualified. I’m certainly not saying that what I’m going to write is anything like what God called Moses to do, but you get my point. I am fortunate enough to have two people in my life who really encourage me. They encourage me to take big steps and to do bold things. These two people have helped me ignore my inner voice; who is also my worst critic. My inner voice has been telling me that I’m not capable of this.

I finally told God that I was willing to write. And guess what? Nothing happened! No ideas. None. I would just sit and stare at my computer screen. I would think of a few things, but they didn’t seem right. So I would just sit. And sit. Then one of my awesome encouragers brought me a book about writing. That night after about 6 chapters, I finally went to bed. As I was falling asleep, I had a very loud thought. I knew exactly what I was going to write about. This subject has been on my mind so much lately. It is going to be a huge journey for me. It isn’t an original topic, but that is okay because my journey is different. I am going to share my journey with you because I hope we can do this together. I pray that it helps you too.

Join me (indefinitely) as I blog through my journey of my distracted life and how to re-focus and minimalize my distractions. I absolutely crave a life of simplicity.  A life where I can lay down at night and fall asleep peacefully. A life where I awake in the morning and actually hear the birds sing, smell the coffee brewing, and see shapes in the clouds. I want a simple and fulfilling life. I have too much clutter in every aspect of my life to achieve the life I want. I don’t have the answers to any of these things yet, but I know God will show them to me. He will reveal Himself to me in many marvelous ways. My answers may not be your answers, but we can go through this journey together. You can share your answers with me and we can help each other. I’m really excited!