5 Ways to
live heads up

Many years ago, I was heads down on my phone, distracted by FOMO, while my newborn and toddler daughters were playing on our sofa. Then I heard a heavy thud. Then I heard a scream.

I should have been watching them. But I was too consumed with what was going on elsewhere to care. In my negligence, the baby had accidentally rolled off the couch and onto the floor.

Thankfully she was okay. But I wasn’t. I knew I needed to change my relationship with technology, not to mention my family. So over the next year, I worked hard to overcome my internet, social media, and workaholic addictions with small daily habits. My personal relationships, professional output, and overall fulfillment have skyrocketed ever since.

If you’re among the 61% of Americans who believe they spend too much time on their phone, or worse the 20% who feel addicted, here are five ways to start living heads up.

1. Ask for help. If you think you have a problem, you probably do. Confiding in others and asking for their help is the first thing you can do to overcome screen addiction and digital dependency. Also called “accountability partners,” these helpers are usually your closest family and friends. To enlist their help, tell them you’re trying to limit your phone, social media, and screen use. Then ask for them to follow up on how you’re doing in an effort to keep you honest.

2. Delete your phone alerts. This might sound crazy, but even Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, the world’s most addictive smartphone, has “gutted” his notifications. You should too if you want to use your phone when you decide, as opposed to letting your phone interrupt your day every minute. For example, I only hear an audible alert if my wife or children text me, or whenever someone calls, which is still how most emergencies are. For everything else, I don’t notice or even see any alerts until I pick up my phone and open the app that I need. As it should be.

3. Sign the pledge. You must commit to change if you want to succeed. It’s not always easy. But if the last 15 years of my life is any indication, not to mention the many people who changed their habits after reading my bestselling book, living heads up is as possible as it is rewarding. But you must commit. Because you said you would.

4. Limit your usage. Decide beforehand when and how you will use your phone. For example, I don’t take mine to bed and don’t pick it up until after breakfast, but only briefly before I work out and get ready for the day. Furthermore, I don’t take it to the table or check it in the presence of others unless I ask permission in rare emergencies. I check my screen time and try to limit my phone use to no more than 1-2 hours per day, including work. It’s even less on nights, weekends, and vacation. The point is: set boundaries and respect them.

5. Reach for new hobbies. In my experience, people who fail to replace bad phone habits with real-life hobbies and passions almost always return to their heads down ways. That’s because they use their phone as a boredom or social pacifier without every replacing it with something more meaningful. Not only is this one of the most important steps to living a heads up life, it’s also the most fun. That could be learning an instrument, dancing, playing games with friends and family, sharing meals together with no phones allowed, creating art, or visiting someone in need. It doesn’t have to be ambitious. It just has to be real and something you look forward to.

I believe living heads up (instead of heads down on tiny screens) is the simplest way to improve one’s life. If all of us do the above, we can be more focused, more fun, more capable, more purposeful, and even “richer” people. We can be better parents, children, workers, students, teachers, hobbyists, creators, volunteers, and humans.

We can even change the world.—Blake Snow